Wednesday 4th September | Written by Charlie Sykes
We finally met up as a complete team yesterday evening when Dave Rose and Jon Cload flew into Colorado to join us. Jem booked us all into The Famous Steakhouse (the best restaurant in Colorado Springs) for our team dinner. The steaks were phenomenal, the shrimps preposterous and the wine reassuringly expensive. Keisha’s demolition of her 20 ounce ribeye was particularly impressive. Surprisingly though no one, not even Rosie, felt they wanted pudding!
8 of us repaired to the Crooked Cue pool hall after the meal to work off some calories. Sadly, the staff saw through Keisha’s disguise – despite our best efforts to persuade them that she was born in the 1980’s. It turned out that the team of Ed Welford and Ed Feast (rapidly named ‘Ed Squared’) were a pool sensation – staying on the table against whatever the remainder of us could throw at them and winning the night hands down.
The following morning we repacked the cars and headed south to Raton along a freeway for a few hours through largely untrammeled wilderness via the Zoo, Walmart or hunting shops as the mood took us and on the hottest day so far arrived at our lodgings on the range. A whirlwind of administration followed as we unpacked cars, rebuilt rifles, and collected our Berger factory-loaded ammunition. Our grateful thanks to John Friguglietti who drove 20 hours across the USA with our match ammunition and assorted kit from the East Coast. With Ali Brown leading the Commissariat the supermarket in Raton was raided for a mountain of provisions as we settled in, reconstructed rifles and generally prepared ourselves for the upcoming shooting.
On arrival the team were awarded their England badges by the Tour Captain under the impassive gaze of a buffalo trophy benignly looking down on us from the wall. Our accommodation is much better than we had expected. We have one of three blocks (Scotland and America have the other two) with 3 spines off the central ‘Clubhouse’ area each with an adequate kitchen. Most of us have our own room and some even have balconies.
With pizza consumed, lunches constructed, waivers signed, ammunition distributed and shooting kit prepared we could finally relax and consider the upcoming eight days properly. After tomorrow’s practice day we will have seven days of individual and team shoots as part of the Spirit of America Competition before the America Match proper on Friday 13th September. The course of fire is similar to that we are used to from Bisley, but at over 6,000 feet altitude, on the edge of the Rockies and the parched New Mexico plains, new ammunition (for most of us), different targets and a different approach to shooting we will have to work hard tomorrow to prepare ourselves properly.
Early starts begin tomorrow – up at 0600!