RO-DE-OOOOOO!!

I took my son to the rodeo in Saline tonight. A first for both of us. They had quite the show! All I could think of was Lou Bob and Heather the whole time, especially when I saw women wearing cowboy hats. :)

Dominos Farm had a small pen of goats and sheep for kids to pet while waiting for the show. Only a few booths for drinks and elephant ears and stuff like that, so it was mostly about the show and not so much selling junk like I see at carnivals. The people working seemed to have a nicer attitude too. The local Dodge dealer sponsored it so they had all the trucks out there on display, and the dealer and his family rode out in a truck during the intermission.

My son wanted a hat because he didn’t bring his, so I spent far more money than I should on a black hat for him. Oh well, you only live once. Ditto on the hotdog (poison). I tried taking pics during the show but it had gotten pretty dark except for the big flood lights, and my flash didn’t carry very far.

A very nice opening ceremony with flags and horses and some cool talk about freedom. I think part of their story about the flag might have been one of those urban legends you get in emails but it was nice anyway. I saw the Star Spangled Banner for the first time in public (in the shower and the car doesn’t count), and I sang it loud like I do in the car. :)

They had two rounds of bullriding and let me tell ya, its nothing if you haven’t seen it live. When that monster comes rolling up out of that pen with that boy on his back, it just shocks you how really big they are. The clowns did a nice job running the bulls around. Only one fella got hurt but he was walking by the end. He looked more pissed than injured. One rider made it until the buzzer.

They had the “mutton busting” too! They get these little kids to hold onto the back of a sheep and let ‘em go. Its pretty funny! Some of those kids held on until the sheep gave up. They had the clowns chasing along side to make sure nobody got hurt falling or something.

They had calf roping which seemed to have alot of rules. They had to make sure the steer got out first or something like that. And they had to tie up 3 of his feet and I think they had to do it from a certain side. It looked pretty tough, especially when they had to jump off from the horse and grab the steer. Even after all the wrestling and neck twisting, the steer didn’t seem too worse for the wear.

I really like the barrel racing! These woman had to race around these three barrels in a clover leaf pattern as fast as they could without knocking any over (5 second penalty for that, but you got a case of Jack Daniel’s if you knocked all three). Those horses looked like they were going to explode! It was pretty amazing watching them race and twist and turn. One woman did (what I think of as) a left handed pattern where she went in the opposite direction from the others. I think the fastest time was just under 15 seconds.

The two stars of the show were Roland Cotton Yancey and Tim Pope. Roland was the announcer and Tim was the head clown. Damn funny routines they had. Most jokes were safe for general audiences, and even the more “adult” ones were cleverly disguised.

The clowns also did a really bizarre thing that Roland called “freestyle bullfighting”. They brought out this one bull and it chased them a bit and then they got behind a barrel while the bull butted the barrel with his head. Then the guy in back leap frog’s the guy in front, jumps on the barrel, steps on THE BULL’S BACK, and jumps down to the ground. The bull never saw it coming, but he was quick to chase that guy down afterwards. He wouldn’t go back in the pen until another bull came out and he followed him back in.

Lots of fun to watch. Next year I may wear a hat. :)

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 11:57 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.