Heyya Butlerford
Ok, but stop me if'n I begin to bore ya.
The EOT site is kinda in the middle of several dairy farms. Depending on your upbringing the scent, aroma, or smell can bring back all sorts of memories, or make you wanna puke. Having grown up working on dairy farms in Minnesota I was not bothered by it.
There looked to be between five or six hundred travel trailers, fifth wheel trailers, tents and motor homes. They were parked in freshly mowed alphalfa fields. About a third of these vehicles, if not more, had American and State, POW/MIA, or military service flags flying from them.
Many of the RV's were parked with friends in a "circle the wagons" manner. While walking along the parking area you saw folks relaxin, cookin dinner, cleanin guns, takin libation, or just plain jawin with one another. You could literally not walk 10 feet without being greeted by a fellow SASS member. They wanted to know who you were, where you were from, and if you had eaten your dinner yet, and every one of them asked if you were having FUN. Amazing level of hospitality, respect and friendship exhibited by all.
The match site is also the home range of the Coto Cowboys local club. To give you an Idea of that club, their last three monthly matches have been attended by 220, 230, and 190 shooters. Each stage for EOT was set in its own individual earthen bermed shooting bay. The twelve stages set up along an approximately 1/4 mile long hard dirt roadway.
Each stage site had two stage marshals. The primary responsibility of these folks was to provide contimuity and consistency in the explaination of how that stage should be engaged to all the posses' shooting that particular stage over the three days of the match. Their secondary purpose was to insure each posse moved along in a timely fashion.
The 70 or so posse's were divided into 3 squads if you will. 1-25 Started at 0800, 25-50 started 1030, and 50-75 went off at 1300 hours. Each squad rotated through the three start times over three days of shooting.
While most of the stages were relatively simplistic, others were more complex and required thought to stay out of the procedural quagmire. Some stages had little movement, while others had a fair amount of lateral, or down range movement.
Two stages had bonus targets. But on one of these if you chose to attempt the bonus target and hit it you would be awarded a 10 second bonus....if you engaged but did not hit it you would accumulate a 5 second miss penalty....plus the time it took you to reload a pistol round to shoot it in the first place. I believe a majority of the shooters did not attempt the bonus.
There were some late starts, and some accordian like effect of hurry up and wait instances. But for the most part getting the 665 or so shooters through 4 stages each day was done quite well with an effort on everyones part.
My wife and I also took in the Wild West show while we were at EOT. The chuckwagon races, the mounted drill team, the stage coach robbery, Pistol Packin Paula a twirlin her sixguns, was all really entertaining.
The fashion show and costume contest was astonishing. Not knowing what to expect, I was taken aback by the efforts that all those contestants had gone too with their costumes. Captain George Baylor was dressed as a Confederate Colonel with everything correct right down to the original confederate money in his pocket.
There was "story tellin" one night by Jim Dunham. This fella related the history of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and others. He took on the persona of a friend of theirs who was along for the ride, and seen it all with his own eyes...twirlin his sixguns occasionally just to spice it up. Ya coulda heard a pin drop at certain times during his presentation. It was outdoors, with the old west encampment site nearby, lit kersoene lamps hanging from buckboards and covered wagons, the smell of wood smoke from those campfires. The horses of the mounted shooters whinnying across the encampment.......very very vivid memories of that night. Guess it might sound kinda silly me bein a growed man an all...yet there is a part of me, and I hope a part of youas well that ain't really ever gonna grow up in that respect...and thank goodness for that.
Having just read what I have written here I am again reminded that I should change my name to "Windy Tales"........sorry, but once I got goin I couldn't stop.
