Bad postcard of the week:

Gunning for fun in New HampshireFrom:  The Grand Rapids Press

  I can only guess that someone once said, “We need a colt to pull the covered wagon.”

He meant a horse, guys, not a Colt .45.

This week’s bad postcard takes us to the Wild West – of New Hampshire. This is what happens when New Englanders try to pretend they are cowboys.

This chrome card from the 1960s is from Six Gun City, a theme park that still exists in Jefferson, N.H. The back reads:

“Six Gun ride where children as well as adults ride in the covered wagon into the West, and can see the famous Northern Presidential Range. In the background, Herefords are grazing in the corral. ‘A bit of the West in the White Mountains.’”

It does seem that two Herefords have escaped the corral and are not fazed by the sight of a large revolver gunning through the countryside.

Actually, it doesn't appear to be moving that quickly. Like our tortoise-taunting friend from a few weeks ago, thrill rides appear to have moved at a more leisurely pace in the 1960s .

This week’s mystery revolves around the driver. After all, guns don’t pull people. People pull people. Or people with large animals or people behind the wheel of a vehicle.

I’m assuming that drone technology had not made its way to the Granite State, so there must be a driver in there somewhere. How does he see? Is he looking out the barrel, so the whole world looks like the opening frames of a Bond movie?

I needed answers, so I attempted to contact the nice folks who run Six Gun City.

The park was opened by James and Eleanor Brady in 1957, then featuring a few buildings and Indian camp, and entertaining visitors with cowboy skits, a stagecoach, pony rides and displayed artifacts.

Today, the park boasts one of the largest collections of antique carriages in the East, the Fort Splash water park, the Desperadoes' Ambush Laser Tag, Tumbleweed Speedway go-karts, and the "Gold Rush Express" runaway train roller coaster.

But there’s no mention of the “Jeep that Won the West,” and, alas, management did not return my emailed attempts for information.

Reader contribution

Jonathan Morgan, who shared that wonderfully awful tortoise card, sent a bunch more, including one that fits our Western theme of the week.

“Here are a few more postcards,” he wrote. “My mom collected most of these on family trips or from relatives who sent them from their travels across the country.”

In this card, a grizzled prospector and his faithful mule say they’re having a wonderful time, and wish we were there. I don’t believe him on either count, though he might be looking for someone to challenge in a game of Desperadoes' Ambush Laser Tag.

I am not entirely sure this is a real prospector. But he does appear to be in the West, which is more than the visitors to Six Gun City can claim.