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Stampede Tour - On the Road posted by Dakota Livesay

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Got up on Wednesday of this past week with snow on the ground and the temperature 27 degrees…When your home isn’t anchored to the ground, you’re supposed to be able to avoid these things.

As you can imagine, our water hose was frozen.  My idea was use our spare water hose.  But, the hydrant was also frozen.

I called Bill O’Neal early in the morning to do a segment for our radio show.  When I told Bill about not having water, he said, “You have a lake full of water just a few hundred yards away.  What kind of pioneers are you anyway?”

It sure is tough roughing it.

Gordon Eaton (Sidekick #001) sent us a postcard with this picture of a Kansas RV.  I sure am glad we bought a Montana RV instead of a Kansas one.  I don’t think we could have gotten all of Sunny’s clothes in this one.  I wonder if it has a flush toilet.

We’re still in Show Low, Arizona.  We came up here to close escrow on the townhouse we bought in Wagon Wheel.

The picture is of Dakota and the contractor’s representative, Gary, taking the walkthrough.

Our idea is to rent it out while we’re on our Stampede Tour.  And, you know what?  We were able to rent it for a year to a pediatrician who’s coming up to work in the hospital that’s about a mile away.

We’ll probably be here another week to get window treatments etc. before they can move in.

We’ve returned to Show Low, Arizona Territory to take care of some business, get rid of some of the things we shouldn’t have taken with us and pick up some that we should have.

We’ve come full circle in five months.  We started at Fool Hollow Lake and are staying there now.  Fool Hollow is the favorite of all the places we’ve stayed.  The price is right; we’re in the middle of pine trees and can see no other camper; and we have no TV.  In Show Low, a person needs either cable or satellite to pick up any TV.  The RV park has neither, nor do we.  And, we don’t care.  The quality of network and most other TV programs is awful.  We may watch a DVD or two.

Here’s a picture of the lake and Hoss and Monty.

One of the more interesting occurrences at Festival of the West was people’s reaction to Joe Sullivan, who was dressed like, and looked just like Hopalong Cassidy.  Almost everyone, forty years of age or older…including Sunny, wanted to take a picture with him.

Joe was standing next to me when four older adults came up to him and thanked him for all the enjoyment Hoppy gave them as a kid.  They knew Joe wasn’t Hoppy…who would be close to 120 years of age if alive, but they were expressing that sentiment to the legend.  Quite touching.

We had a great time at Festival of the West.  Unfortunately, we were dry camping and didn’t have access to the Internet.

It was a bit hot and dusty.  But, hot and dusty is better than cold and wet as it was last year.

We had some great conversations with some interesting people.  Many of the conversations will show up on a future radio show.

A couple of the people we talked to were Hopalong Cassidy and Gabby Hayes.  It’s amazing how spry these two guys were for a couple of old codgers who were over a 115 years old.

We had a great weekend at Winter Range.  Winter Range is the Single Action Shooting Society’s national championships.  We had a chance to have conversations with some great people.  We’ll be passing on some information about them a little later.

But, we thought we would send you pictures of some of the people who were at the event.  I’m sorry to say that Sunny was the photographer, and for some reason she only took pictures of men.

This weekend we’ll be at Festival of the West.  Dakota has resolved to grab the camera and take a few pictures of women.

#1 Mike and Jay from Wild West Junction in Williams, Arizona.

#2 Fireman Johnny. 
This costume was actually used in the movie, Gangs of New York.

#3 What?  Johnny again!

We’re at Winter Range in Phoenix, Arizona.  Over the next few days we’ll be showcasing a number of pictures of our friends in their Old West costumes…And are some of them outstanding.

But, he wanted this picture of Bob Roloff to be the first one up.  Now, Bob may not have the fanciest Old West costume around, but, as you can tell by the big smile on Dakota’s face, he’s sure happy about something…He hasn’t had a smile that big in many a moon.

Bob, has just handed him a list of five of his friends to whom he’s given a gift subscription to Chronicle of the Old West.  It’s a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder meal for dinner.

Thanks so much Bob.

We made it up to Phoenix safely.  Yesterday we got things ready for Winter Range.  Winter Range is the National Championships of the Single Action Shooting Society.  It’s being held Thursday thru Sunday at Ben Avery Shooting Range north of Phoenix, just off Interstate 17.

If you’re going to be in the area, stop by and say “Hi.”

I’ve fallen behind in my entries for our Stampede Tour because we’ve had a week of major problems with our Internet connection.  We use Verizon’s Broadband.  It’s a little like “the little girl who had a curl right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good, she was very, very good.  But, when she was bad, she was horrid.

When it works, it’s magic.  But, when it doesn’t, not only are we cut off from the world of cyberspace, the vast majority of the technicians we talk to seem to be operating based on, “if we throw enough stuff against the wall, something will stick.”

A quick update.  We’re in Benson, trying to get ahead of the curve, because for the next two weeks, we’ll be at SASS’s Winter Range and Festival of the West, and not much will be done there.

Hopefully, when we get to Phoenix, we’ll have better access.

Wind is so interesting.  As far as I know, it’s nothing more than air moving at a fast speed.  Yet as a tornado or hurricane, it can cause unbelievable destruction.

The reason I mention this is that we’re in Benson, Arizona and the last couple of days the wind has been blowing so hard that our RV has been shaking like a Southern California earthquake…and I’ve been in more than one of those.  I pride myself in being able to wear my cowboy hat in any wind.  But, I didn’t even try it in this wind.

Yesterday we went to Tucson…about 30 miles away…and there was no wind at all there.  But, when we got back home, it was hard maneuvering from the Hoss to Monte.  Then, today as I took Jake for his morning constitutional, not a leaf or flag was twitching…Just amazing.

Also, over the last couple of days I saw no RV movement, either leaving the park or arriving.  And, by 8:00 this morning, I’ve already seen a couple head out.  Everyone was too smart to drive in that wind.