As if the Beer Parlor project in Big Valley had not been fun enough, the outlaws made it even better for us. They invited us to come and hang out at the "Saloon". This was there own little spot on private property, at the edge of town. The hitched their horses there, and after the festivities of the day, they hang out in the evenings. We were invited to join them. It was a fantastic evening of playing guitar and singing songs and telling stories and jokes. The three outlaws are all related, and a bunch of their friends and family were there with them. Karen and Shane are husband and wife. The third outlaw Colton is related, but I'm not sure if he is a son, or a son-in-law. There was a fourth outlaw named Monty, but I'm not sure of his connection, and he was not on horseback this time. But he played guitar and sang really well, and had some really funny off-color jokes to tell. Unfortunately he had to leave early, and could not stay with everyone until the end.
They even brought an extra guitar out and coerced me into trying to strum along and sing with them. I am just about the world's worst guitar player, but I gave it a shot, and had a blast doing it. We also played around with their six-shooters. These are real pistols, but have been decommissioned with the barrels plugged, and only shoot blanks. This avoids all the hassles of a restricted weapons permit. We took a bunch of photos of the cowboys. There was a little guy there named Maverick, who was the son of Colton and the grandson of Shane and Karen. He was really cute and photogenic, and just loved posing for the camera. We got a bunch of photographs of everything and stayed until the light faded.
The only two things that would have made it better would have been to have a camp fire.... there was a fire ban in place due to the dryness, and we could not... and if Monty could have stayed longer. To top the evening off, the fireflies came out at twilight. There were literally thousands of them blinking their little lights all over the place on the prairie. Margarit was thrilled as she had never seen them before. I've seen them, but not in these numbers.....
Eventually we had to say our goodbyes and hit the road back to East Coulee. Back at the shop we unwound a little, grilled some wings, and had a few beers. It was around 2:00AM before we finally called it a day and turned in. All evening long Chris, Connie, Margarit and I kept commenting to each other about how wonderful an experience the day had been, and something that none of us would ever forget.
On Sunday morning we packed up. We had coffee and a sandwich at Jason's "Birdland" food trailer and visited with a few neighbors. It is so peaceful in East Coulee and I really love that small town feel. Perhaps that's why Big Valley was so good as well. We stopped in at the Old Grouch's before leaving town and found out that Margarit had the winning bid on an antique truck, and Connie also won a couple of small items. We settled up with Fran and loaded the winnings. Then we headed over to Strathmore and stopped in at Don's place. Don owns the Spitfire that we used for the Rosie shoot last summer. We presented Don with a framed print, and thanked him yet again for his cooperation. After that we said our goodbyes to Chris and Connie and hit the road for home. Already looking forward to the next edition of the Beer Parlor project...!
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