June 27, 2006
While I was on the road yesterday, heading for home, others were as well. Rob Bandhauer and Joey Dillon got caught in a gully washer, helped clean up the End of Trail ranch after the deluge (think Woodstock for shooters: “No rain! Pow! Bang! No Rain! Pow! Budda-Budda! Zing!”). Rob and Joey didn’t get out of Founder’s Ranch until 7:30 Sunday night, then drove home to Phoenix. Here’s a report of that trip from Joey:

“Hey bob, had a great time, thanks for all of your help. It is an honor helping to support your magazine and to be supported by it. Next time, if my bags arrive in time, we'll add the background music, and firing the guns, and that will add a lot. Let me know when you need me to peruse the gunspinning article to finalize it. Also, just wanted to tell you what a great worker rob is. That guy seems to always be talking to clients, tentative clients, and seems to really care and respect them, not just doing it to do his job. definitely goes above and beyond. Also, he met any need I had and offered to do even more. I appreciated his help and on the way home we talked for most of the 7 or 8 hours. he is definitely passionate about the west, its history, and preserving it. we had a lot in common in those respects. Looks like he is in a perfect job for him. it is rare in this world to find people like that, genuine and honest, and a heart to help when there is nothing in it for themselves. When i do find people of this caliber, I like to let others know, so I felt you might like to know.”
—Joey Dillon

Fred Nolan was impressed (or depressed) by the mileage I put on the little ol’ Ranger. Here’s his take on my trip:

“Phew. If I drove that many miles from here, I'd wind up in Moscow, having visited Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw en route. Or Casablanca via Paris, Madrid and Gibraltar. Tad more exotic than Mogollon, Moriarty and Quemado, wouldn't you say? Mind you, it would also cost me about five times what it cost you in gas alone.”
—Frederick Nolan, Chalfont St. Giles, England

Rob told me today, he and some of the die-hards got into a poker game in the Bella Union Saloon on Saturday night and about midnite they got to jamming on Science Fiction Western movies they’d like to see (inspired by the real movie, “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula”. Here’s a few of the titles Rob, Joey, Wild Bill and Samantha Free came up with:

• The Daughters of Dracula Meet the Sons of Katie Elder
• Black on Black: Black Bart Takes on The Creature from the Black Lagoon
• Mothra Interferes at The Little Big Horn
• Calamity Jane Meets the Bride of Frankenstein
• The Warwagon Enters Valley of the Mummies

So they got me inspired, and although I wasn’t at the poker game, here’s my nominations:

• Rio Psycho
• High Noon of the Living Dead
• Rosemary’s Baby The Kid
• The Man Who Shot Barbarella
• I Was a Teenage Werewolf Who Dances With Wolves On Brokeback Mountain
• The Bride of Chuck Bowdre
• A Nightmare On Fremont Street
• Night of the Living Doc Hollidays
• Dawn of The Dead Little Big Man
• An American Cow-boy Whorehound In London
• A Man Called Carrie
• The Good, The Bad and The Alien
• A Fistful of Freaks
• Hang ‘Em High Hannibal Lector
• The Shining Winchester ‘73
• The Grey Humpback Fox of Notre Dame
• The Quick And The Dead Zone
• Mark of the Vampire Zorro
• Murders In The Rue Morgan Earp
• House on Haunted Boothill
• Kit’s Alive! (Carson, that is)
• Westworld (see, it works both ways)

“The study of history is a resistance against oblivion, against loss. It tells you about what it was like to be a human being."
—Simon Schama