Flashback

First, we will set the stage.  Susun and I were on one of the longest Road Trips of our lives.  It turned out to be close to 7,000 miles in 28 days.  It was like totally extreme and we had to do totally extreme stuff to make it all work out.  The weather was crummy and it rained most of the time but we had to keep going and going...and going.

It got so bad we'd hole up in cheap motels and we couldn't fall asleep.  I finally realized if I opened the Yellow Pages and attempted to count out loud the number of Baptist Churches, I would be asleep in seconds.  You see, we were traveling through America's Heartland.  Our Road Trip took us through New Mexico, Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, The Texas Heartland and back through New Mexico to our Arizona Home.  It was an epic Road Trip.

Well, suffice to say as we neared the end of this Road Trip we were totally burned out.  Fried.  Toasted.  Whatever word you wish to apply--it applied to us.  The trip started in mid-October 2002 and finished in mid-November that same year.  There's a whole back story as to why we did it but it's far too long to tell here.  Suffice to say, we did the trip.

Anyway, when we got into this totally gawd-forsaken area of complete BFE Texas, we camped in this ridiculous campground someplace that was filled with Goat Ropers and just total derelict various individuals. We both looked at each other and shook our heads and shared an unspoken moment along the lines of, "Can we go home now?"

But, NO!  Just outside the entrance to this campground was this un-gawdly thing identical to what you see below and it was actually IN USE!  Yes!  Mesquite smoke curled out of the front of the barrel as some unseen Texans cooked their meat inside this larger-than-life revolver.  We took some photos and stopped to stare and we looked each other and shook our heads and shared an unspoken moment along the lines of, ""Can we go home now?"

Believe it or not, these things actually exist.  We are here to tell ya they do--we saw one of them with our own eyes.  This is NOT Photoshopped!  It's Texas.  'Nuf said.