I Don’t Think They Sell Those There!

“Do any of you want anything from Taos?” Rachel asked. “I’m there visiting the Walmart.”

Everett chimed in first. “An axe with a hoe on the back!”

“I’ll take one of those too,” said Owen.

“I’m not sure they have those here, but I’ll see what I can do,” laughed Rachel. While pushing her shopping cart she stopped one of the associates, “do you have any Pulaski’s?”

“Sorry mamm, we just sold our last one.” shrugs.

Back at base, Joey, Everett, Owen and I stopped by Rory’s office.

“Oh, hi there,” as Rory is quickly grabbing boxes in a hurry out the door. “I’m really gotta go, but you can stay here in the office if you want.”

The summer season hadn’t started yet. There were no tours scheduled for the day. We went with to help.

Our first step was setting up the banner. Our second was taking a photo of it. From there we drove further up the road to get a lay of the land and set up our battle tent. Lightning crackled in the distance; rain began to drizzle. The wind howled in excitement, trying to grab the tarp away from us. It was fun.

Owen, being the tallest of the group by at least six inches, held one of the poles high above his head as lightning struck nearby. After nearly an hour of our unplanned teambuilding session, we had the tent up and were ready to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the Villa as the rain washed gently down the windows. We all spent a few hours talking in laying on the floor on the carpet of Rory’s office, passing the time before dinner.

Left to Right: Joey Freeman, Owen Tew, Chris Snyder, Everett Knight. Standing in front of the tent we’re almost finished setting up the tent we used for Chase Ranch.

A table of info about the family’s apple orchards, famous for winning awards at the Chicago World’s Fair. Also our camp stamp for scouts wanting to fill in their backcountry passports.

A sign facing New Mexico State Highway 25. We couldn’t afford to print an entirely new one so we made some very subtle changes to the dates and times.