In honor of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America, I am keeping my eyes open for clues about America’s gun cultures as Sandy and I travel from our home in North Carolina to Yellowstone National Park and back. My inaugural post on this series can be found here.

I haven’t taken a legitimate vacation in years, but the combination of meeting up with my sister and brother-in-law in Wyoming and the poor cell service/wi-fi in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks forced me to lay off the computer for about a week.

It was nice to get away from work for a bit. But sometimes you go in search of America’s gun cultures, and sometimes gun culture finds you where you least expect it.

One day our traveling party ventured up from Fishing Bridge Campground through Hayden Valley, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and Lamar Valley out the northeast entrance to the park into Cooke City, Montana. Year around population 77.

I was excited to visit Cooke City because the moderator of the Vail Symposium Conversation on Controversial Issues that I participated in before this trip, Clay Jenkinson, said his family has some roots there. So, we stopped for lunch, a stroll down the main street, and a visit to the general store.

On our way back to our car, Sandy was going to walk behind another car parked on the street. I didn’t want her to get backed into, so I told her to follow me in front of the car. When I looked back at Sandy I saw sitting inside the car two familiar faces: Tom and Lynn Givens.

Now, these names may not be known widely outside of Gun Culture 2.0, but inside the defensive gun training industry, they are legendary. I’ve posted about a dozen or so times about Tom Givens and Rangemaster, including the Rangemaster (Polite Society) Tactical Conference. I don’t really need to add more to what I already say in those posts.

Although Tom did suggest he may need an order of protection against me stalking him, I PROMISE that it was just serendipity or fate that brought us together in the most out-of-the-way place imaginable.

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