This One's for Skippy

After traveling across the country for more than eleven years, one expects to see the ubiquitous W*l*mart sign near or in every town.  For the first time, we are in an area where there is not only no W*l*mart, there is no nationally/locally known name grocery store either.  In fact, when I did a g**gle seach, one of the first grocery stores I saw was this:

Davidson's Gun and Grocery.  Yep.

And they do indeed have guns and groceries:

The owner's wife was nice enough to allow me to take a picture, although it's normally not allowed.  I simply wanted to show the juxtaposition of the guns and groceries.

A floating voice in the background led us around the corner to where the owner sat behind the gun counter.  It seems he hand carves the stocks for the rifles he sells as well as selling stock pistols.  We explained that a friend was tickled by the name of the store and we came looking for tee shirts.  And it seems that normally they DO sell tee shirts but they were currently out.  Skippy, I don't know if you'd want one at $29.99 but they will be getting more!

As we stood there chatting with the owner, first talking about the howling wind outside, and the fact that there is still snow on the ground in areas, and why the local golf course has the grass burned away on four holes (the alkaline soil and the gunshop owner has the fix if only the golf course maintenance staff would ask him), and then we moved on to the rifles he built and then we had to look at his photo album of the rifles he's sold and the elk, stags and big horn sheep that have been shot with those rifles by their various owners and the conversation moved to the owner's son who has over 500 shooting trophies and is currently at college in Wyoming.

Which led to the following picture of a bullseye shot six times from 100 yards with a .270 rifle.  You will notice one hole.  That's six shots grouped so closely to create that one hole.  Pretty impressive stuff, huh?

And so a photo op turned into a long conversation that probably could have gone on all day.  So if you're ever in the area, have a love of beautifully crafted rifles with incredible accuracy and/or just want to shoot the sh*t with the locals, then stop by Davidson's Gun and Grocery in Rawlins, Wyoming.

Chalk up another interesting experience on the road....