High Cotton Shiver

Ok you knew it was coming, this past weekend Madame Moog and I shot in the New Jersey State match. Jesemay Kid, Dancin Angel and the crew up there at The Jackson Hole Gang did a great job with the match. The props were nice and the stages were fast but still made you think. Madame and I thank you guys for your hard work. I’m sure there are about 50 things that need to happen for a big match like that most of us cowboys don’t even think of.  Hats off guys and gals!

We popped up like toast at 3am Friday morning to catch the 6am flight to Newark. Let me tell you that airport is not easy to navigate with your bags and gun cases, but we made it out. We managed to get our rental and we’re off.  The whole trip to the hotel the only thing I could think of was how much I didn’t want to go back to that airport. The drive was nice once we got out of the city traffic and went by fast. Before I knew it we were pulling in to the hotel, got our stuff situated and headed for the range. By the time we got to the range they had already cleaned up for the night and were heading out to dinner. The restaurant had good food and good staff, you know how rowdy a group of cowboys can get. What was more fun was the restaurant does not divide the check, so here is that rowdy bunch trying to figure out what they owe.

Saturday morning came and we’re at the range, it was cold and wet, Madame decided she was going to lose her voice and sounded like Marg Simpson all weekend. I had my normal first stage nerves but after the beep and a 20 second stage I felt pretty good. Madame even had a good run on the first stage. Had a couple more good stages with and 18.04 and a 22 6 shotgun stage with a good amount of moving, it was a good time for the Moog. 6 stages on Saturday and I only choked on 1 stage and that was just a miss and a shotgun fumble. After the match Jesmay Kid and Dancin Angel invited the whole posse over to their camp for a cook out of red meat and salmon, good stuff.  Good food good spirits and damn if I didn’t get dickeld by Cotton Gloves!

Sunday morning it was cold, in the upper 40’s, for the southern crew that was this posse, it was dead of winter temps for us. with a “wind chill” in the 30’s. Poor High Cotton Kitty was shivering while she shot, I think if we could have had a camp fire on the range she would have stood in it. If you have been reading my blogs you know what’s coming now. And the there was day 2. I couldn’t get anything going. Choking on stages like 3 misses and a p on one and 2 misses on another and running one stage where I missed a bonus target cause the shot shell didn’t go off and had to reload because I owed a shot. Madame struggled with her shotgun not working on some stages and being half frozen, knocking both of us out of our category.

Madame however shot in her first shoot out. Jackson Hole Gang tries to keep it fun and does a luck of the draw shoot out. All the shooters names go into a hat and they draw 16 men and 16 women as teams. That way everyone has a chance to shoot and be competitive. Madame Moog and Mountain George were teamed up. Mountain George came from Germany to shoot this match and was a hell of a nice guy. They shot and were eliminated in the first round, but it looked like they had a blast. The southern crew cleaned up Cowboy Junkie and Sue Render took top gun and their category along with Cotton Tail. Cotton Gloves, Palmetto Traveler, Carolina Girl and Kid Ray took some wood home too. I really have to figure out how to close day 2. Without my penalties I would have been in the top 10.

So, to wrap it up. We survived Newark airport, It was cold, I shot like crap day 2 and Madame sounded like a squeaky mouse on every line, It was still better than a good day at work!