Route clear
The Road to the Gun Club Is Paved With Zombies. Drive Carefully.
Somebody had to clear the highway before Saturday's open day. Nobody expected them to enjoy it this much.
VALLEY STATION. The only road to the gun club was wall-to-wall dead on Wednesday morning. By dark somebody had cleared it with a minigun, a helicopter and the kind of enthusiasm you can't teach.
Drive it this weekend. Roads like this don't stay clean.
The place
The Valley Station gun range sits in the woods just short of Louisville, and for one night somebody has turned it into the best bad idea in Knox Country. Forty kinds of gun. Eight hundred loaded magazines. A field of weed. Two Skylines nobody can explain. It's too much. That's the fucking point.
- 40kinds of gun to try
- 814loaded magazines in the shop
- 500boxes of ammo in the back
- 1,170weed plants in the field
- 16machines on show
The guns
Pick something up. The firing line is covered, the shop is full, the yard is full, and every magazine is already loaded because someone who loves you sat there and did it. Fire the sniper rifles. Fire the minigun if they'll let you near the damn thing. Then put it all back. Nothing leaves. That's the deal, and it's a good one.
The cars
Sixteen machines on the lot, and two of them are Skylines, white and purple, bonnets up like they're begging. In Kentucky. In 1993. Don't ask how. Just stand there for a minute and appreciate them like an adult.
The smoke
Then walk to the field. 1,170 plants in rows, and along the edge five tasting tables, one strain each, everything you need to roll, pack or crush laid out like a market stall. Sit down. Take your time. The dead are on the other side of the fence and they're not going anywhere. Neither are you. Don't get attached to the field.
The ink
Out the back of the shop there's a room with one bed, purple light and someone holding a needle. You've had a smoke, you've fired a minigun, you're among friends. This is how every good tattoo in history happened.
The night
Eat. There are two braais going and a crate of food, and meat over fire after a day on the range is about as close to church as this county gets. At 19:55 the lights go out and the tracers come out, every colour, streaking off into the dark at the dead still walking up the range. They don't stop coming. Neither should you. At 20:20 there's the surprise. I can't tell you what it is. Stand behind the rope and thank me later.
Getting there
North up the highway toward Louisville. Stop just short.
Poster and ticket are on the event page. Go hungry.
Sources: the crew, the brass on the road, and a helicopter that keeps count.