Ford Fiesta World Tour 2010, we get word there’s automatic gunfire coming into El Paso, Texas from across the border. This worries us, as El Paso is the next stop in this round-the-world jaunt of ours. Good thing, then that we have a rendezvous with some serious weaponry at Scottsdale Gun Club. The fine folks there have offered to let us loose on the range with some guns that would make the average narco-goon think twice about messing with us.

As a Brit, for whom a cop with a gun is still an unusual sight, the chance to fire something that only our troops in Afghanistan typically get to handle is a huge thrill.

But it’s no big deal in Arizona, where the governor recently signed legislation making it legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. We’re told one in 50 Arizonans carry a pack heat, which apparently is a conservative estimate. I make a mental note to think twice before honking aggressively.

The walls of the Scottsdale Gun Club bristle with weapons, everything from pistols to rifles to things that look like guns you’d shoot in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

A swift safety video reminds us that “firearms can be dangerous, can cause serious injury and even death.” No kidding. If we weren’t already clear on this concept, it becomes abundantly clear when we face a row of four weapons: a Smith & Wesson 500, a Heckler & Koch MP5, an old-school AK 47 and a full-on, military-style M249 SAW.

Ready, aim, fire…

The pistol is surprisingly heavy and has a nasty kick. The matte black MP5 is the easiest to use, with very little recoil. The AK whacks you in the shoulder. And the SAW? It sends little bits of hot metal everywhere. The air is heavy with the smell of gunpowder.

“We love our firearms here and we love to show our right to carry arms. They’re there to protect ourselves and for our personal rights,” says Katie Perrine, marketing manager at the gun club.

It is tempting, given our next stop, to stick an MP5 in the trunk…

We are due to stop at Spaceport America, where if all goes to plan Virgin Galatic will begin sending well-heeled tourists into space next year. Going into space from Las Cruces, New Mexico makes a mockery of our 60 day round the world drive. But a sudden storm makes a mess of the road, making it impossible to get there. On to El Paso.

The shooting had stopped by the time we arrived, but a stern-looking border guard advised us against hanging around as we took pictures of the Mexican flag (the Fiesta is built south of the border) on the U.S. side of the crossing. Snapshots snapped, we decided to take a look around. El Paso is, they say, the cowboy boot capital of America. So of course we couldn’t pass up a chance to see how boots are made and maybe try on a  few pairs.

Our first stop was the Lucchese Boot Company, one of the oldest outfits around. It’s been making boots for 127 years, and these guys have made them for everyone from Johnny Cash to John Wayne. Boy is it an intricate process. The leather – everything from ostrich to elephant – is painstakingly selected, cut and hand-sewn together by master craftsmen.

Not far away, Nevena Christi and her husband Marty Snortum have been running Rocketbuster Boots for just 20 years, but in that time they’ve built the largest pair of cowboy boots in the world. All their vintage-style boots are handmade and again, and like Lucchese they have a sterling range of customers, from Roy Rogers to Whoopi Goldberg.

“We’ve made so many crazy boots,” Nevena says with a laugh. “We’ve done portraits of people’s dogs, every kind of imaginable crazy pinup girl, musical instruments, a cowboy Adam and Eve. It just never ceases to amaze me what people think of and want on their boots.”

Marfa, Texas was our next stop. We spent the night in a trailer park, although El Cosmico, on the outskirts of Marfa, isn’t your typical trailer park. All the trailers are the vintage Airstream-style, glinting like flying saucers in the last of the sun’s rays. Texas is a whole other country…and boy does it feel like it. We’ll need three days to cross it. You can cross six or seven European countries in that time.

It is a universal truth that the urge to draw on a dirty car is almost irresistible. But most of us are content to scrawl “Wash me” and leave it at that. Not Scott Wade. This self-proclaimed “dirty car artist” does it professionally.

We rolled into San Marcos, Texas with our filthy Fiestas to see what he could do. Having dirtied one of them sufficiently with a blend of thick dust stuck on with oil, Wade got to work, scratching an outline with a whittled stick. Then he set to work on the details with fine sable brushes. Just over an hour later, one car was adorned with a most intricate drawing of two Texas longhorn cattle staring mournfully at the world. It was fabulous.

Alas, as he was finishing, the rain was starting. He’d no sooner finished and it was pouring. Upsetting? For us, perhaps, but not for Wade.

“The impermanence of this art form is something that really turns me on,” he says. “There’s something liberating about it because you’re free to just have fun with it. It’s not going to last. Nothing lasts. Even the greatest works of art are crumbling.”

Reaching the Belmont Hotel in Dallas marked the end of a 19-hour day from Marfa. That’s a big drive, even by Texas standards. The Dallas folks laid it on thick for us. After breakfast we head for Cowboys Stadium, which opened last year and already has hosted Chelsea FC, U2 and, of course, a few football games. In addition to a state-of-the-art Astroturf pitch and a retractable roof that closes in 12 minutes there’s a video screen seven stories tall.

“We wanted something more than a football stadium,” Phil Whitfield, the self-proclaimed ‘stadium ambassador’ and our tour guide, said.

Our last taste of Texas was visiting the ranch of cowboy poet laureate Red Steagall. It’s just outside Fort Worth, and he’s got some cattle, some horses and a pack of friendly dogs.

Steagall’s career as a country singer and poet spans several decades. It started when Ray Charles recorded one of his first songs. His walls are plastered in photographs of him with people ranging from George Bush to Prince Charles. Despite the fame and connections, Steagall is the quintessential cowboy gentleman. He waved us off with a rendition of one of his poems, an incredibly moving story of the legacy of three generations of cowboy ranchers. It was quite beautiful.

Once we left Texas, the states went by a little faster. Little Rock, Arkansas, then on to Nashville where my colleague Lucy Denyer belted out a great rendition of “Amazing Grace” in the historic RCA Studio B, where Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, to name a few, recorded.

Between 1957 to 1977 more than 35,000 songs were recorded in what is now part of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Of those, more than 1,000 became top 10 hits here in the United States, making it among the most successful studios of that era.

We’re back on the road, headed for Indianapolis and MoTown before hitting Canada and swinging back into New York to wrap up the U.S. leg of this wild road trip. Then it’s over the pond to Europe. Stay tuned.

Photos courtesy Jeremy Hart

Authors: Jeremy Hart

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