Annie was playing “Farmtown’ on the computer and through that game made friend with a gentleman in Virginia. In the course of their game chats Bill would talk about “Cowboy Action Shooting. Annie finally said she had no idea what he was talking about. He tried to explain it but it is difficult to do in a simple text message. He and his wife Laura finally invited us to come to his ‘Range” in Virginia to see for ourselves and experince the fun. Since we had a trip scheduled anyway, we added this to our itinerary,
Bill and his wife were very gracious. They took us to their private ranch. “Lost River” where their cowboy friends had gathered for a Saturday shoot. It was a fabulas place. It was a little western town on a piece of property they owned, not far from their house.
The first thing we learned was everyone in CAS (Cowboy Action Shooting) has an “Alias”. Bill’s alias was “Tensleep”, taken from a Louis L'Amour character. Everyone else also had an alias. They really made us feel at home. After watching them shoot we bagan to understand what CAS was all about.
As the match drew to a close Tensleep gave us an oppertunity to try shooting a stage. We loved it. We were hooked.
When we got home we burned up the phone lines talking to Tensleep about what equipment we needed. He was a fantastic help. That was in the fall (11-14-2009) and by the time spring rolled around (4-9-2010) we had all our gear ready and we were ready to shoot.
We found a couple of local clubs and became members. On 4-17-2010 we shot for the first time with the Southern Missouri Rangers.
The only sad part of this tale is that Tensleep passed away before he could see us shoot. We think of him often and how blessed we are that our paths crossed. Although he never got to stand behind us and watch us shoot, we know he watches us, helps us, and often laughes at us, every time we go to a match. Thank you Tensleep for introducing us to a fantastic hobby.