COMANCHERIA DAYS AT THE ADOLF STIELER RANCH! "PART #2"

Continuation from Tuesday, April 7th:

After we set up our ranch house, we headed down to the office and checked in with Madam Ella Moon and Agarita Annie. All the Cowboy Action Shooters shoot under an "alias" name.

We came a couple of days early to help with any last minute things that needed to be done and I soon had a paint brush in my hand and Ralph went with Dirty Dog Dale in the golf cart somewhere on the ranch doing something.

That evening we relaxed around the ranch with the cowboys talking about horses. Dirty Dog Dale is Madam Ella Moon's husband and his retired from the Military but works at a guest ranch as a "wrangler" and tends to the horses and takes ranch guest out on trail rides and overnight camp outs.

On Wednesday, April 8th, Dirty Dog came to get Ralph and I headed out on a bike ride. Only thing I did not even get out of the ranch's 1 mile long driveway. I heard a loud "pop". Oh, oh, a flat tire! So I walked back to camp and decided to head out for a walk!

I thought this would come in handy in case I decided to go on a long bike ride.

Now the ranch is in the area of Texas known as "Texas Hill Country". It is a 25 county region and the terrain is punctuated by a large number of limestone and granite rocks and boulders and a thin layer of topsoil and of course the constant terrain of hills! This makes the region dry and prone of flash flooding.

Bike riding is very popular in this region. The open roads are very challenging for cyclist. You either are going up or down long hills that are easily at a 10% grade. It is also known for the beautiful scenery, wild flowers, ranches, several kinds of cactus and of course the big beautiful Texas Live Oak.

A saying here in Texas is that everything in Texas will either "stick you, prick you or bite you". So you have to watch where you walk. There are scorpions, black widows, tarantula's, the brown recluse
and of course rattlers, coral, cottonmouth water moccasins and copperheads.

Anyway, I took a nice 6 mile walk. When I got back Ralph was fixing my flat tire.

The vendors arrived a day or two before the match to set up. There are several western clothes vendors, gun engravers, leather vendors and a metal sign artist.

This vendor makes leather chaps, saddles, suspenders, leather gun rigs and also does gun engraving.

Well this is my absolute favorite vendor. I spent a lot of time watching "Cookie" set up.

With the help of the Internet, here is a little history of the Chuckwagon .

Texas rancher Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) introduced the concept in 1866. He modified the Studebaker wagon, a durable army-surplus wagon to suit the needs of cowboy driving cattle from Texas to sell in New Mexico. He added a "chuck box" to the back of the wagon with drawers and shelves for storage space and a hinged lid to provide a flat cooking surface. A water barrel was added along with canvas that was hung underneath to carry firewood.

The "cookie" was also 2nd in authority to the "trailboss".

Part #3 to follow shortly................Happy Trails!