Wow, what a day. I'm not quite sure where to begin; the fantastic riding road, passing through 2000 miles, Nutting riding his bike into the back of our gun range host's truck or shooting a 357 Magnum (probably the most powerful handgun in the world). Overall though, it was possibly the best day we've had so far. We set out from Fort Stockton on a wonderfully sweeping road and for 65 miles until Sanderson, we saw 4 cars pass us in the opposite direction and we passed no cars going the same direction as us. The key to today was to ensure we filled up with gas whenever we could because we didn't want to get stuck out here amongst the biggest ranches in the US. The King Ranch is supposedly the biggest at 1,000,000 acres with 5,000,000 head of cattle just to give you idea of the scale. We stopped briefly to photograph the moment we went through 2000 miles of road ridden, which is further than driving from London to Athens. Bow legs are about 1000 miles away!!
We arrived in Del Rio at lunchtime as Nutting had organised a meeting with our new best friend, Roger Litton. He is a 72 year old, walking, talking all American hero. A former pilot (although he does still sometimes fly for ranch owners) who parachutes, runs 2 miles every day and now wants to take up snow skiing. He is also the President of the Del Rio Gun Club and had invited us to share the range with him. We needed no second invitation, so we met up on the outskirts of town and after a brief introduction we agreed to follow him to the range. Halfway there Nutting is so busy looking at trucks the same size as a medium sized house, he has failed to notice that Roger has now stopped. He brakes too late, given that the bike is now laden down with about 3 tonnes of cowboy paraphenalia, and very gently slides into the back of Roger's truck. Fortunately there's no serious damage to either 'Nutting/Roy Rogers' or 'Trigger'. Roger is more concerned about Nutting more than his truck, Nutting is more concerned about 'Trigger' and I'm laughing so hard, I forgot to take a photo, dam!
A 357 Magnum on a Sunday in Texas. Does it get any better? We shot a few other hand guns, but we were only really there for the Magnum and it didn't disappoint. So, a little in there for everyone today and I didn't even go into the fact that the lovely Massimo finally got home safely after flight cancellations, Nutting's girlfriend quit her job and both my eldest son's front teeth have dropped out but most importantly it is my wife's birthday tomorrow and I'm not there to celebrate it with her, so Happy Birthday my darling and may the next 29 years be as kind to you as the first 29 xxxx!!!
Off to San Antonio and some civilisation tomorrow and hopefully less excitement! More soon listeners...............................
That sounds like a great day I would have loved to share with you !! As you have the guns and the hats, you are now officially considered as American. Thanks for the pics of Nutt's bike... no need to polish it every morning anymore :-)By the way: How is doing the "regime": fruits & vegetables or still steak/burger/french fries ?
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