For Christmas in 2012, I gave Bryan tickets to go to Cheyenne's Frontier Day's Rodeo. I thought it sounded great especially when he is so hard to shop for!
We left home knowing we had about eight hours of driving ahead of us and two hours of it doesn't have good phone service. Bryan tested to make sure. This is how he looked most of the drive over.
After I drove to Laramie,Sierra took her turn driving the last 54 miles into Cheyenne.
We looked in the phone book for a place to eat dinner that wasn't too hard to find or too far from the motel and we found the Tortilla Factory. Siri was great help (the iphone) The food was ok but we felt like we were being watched over by a half-naked Captain Moroni!
The first night we went to a Championship Bull Riding. It was so amazing! They had twenty four of the top bull riders ride and the top twelve got to ride again and then the top four. A guy from Utah won the $50,000 check for winning the average. The bulls were small and very athletic and the cowboys did a great job of staying on. We enjoyed every minute--except for when the guy selling beer in a 5-gallon bucket came up near us. He must have either packed that bucket full up and down those stairs a bunch or he forgot to shower! He was so smelly!
Sierra and I went for a run the next morning and found Banjo street. Banjo is Courtney's name for Savanna.
These are the holding pens behind the grandstands for the cattle and horses.
This is during the Grand Entry. The Dandie's carry the flags and help with all the festivities for the week. The arena is huge! The other cool thing about this rodeo is that they give the steers and the calves a thirty foot head start-not the traditional five or ten foot. The cattle peek out the shute and usually just walk out and then when the cowboy starts the chase they run and it isn't always straight! The times were not as fast as usual, but it was so fun to see the cowboys struggle. It's a bit more like how it is catching cattle on the ranch.
The guys with the white shirts on are the pick-up men. Yes, there are six of them. They roped nearly every animal that came out of the shute. This horse has two loops around his neck. They were very careful to rope the horses low and not yank them around. I liked it when they roped the bulls too.
Our seats were right above the bucking shutes. I couldn't remember when I ordered them in December where I had picked so it was a great surprise to be seated there. We could see the cowboys nod to be let out and see them climb right on.
See how low the rope is around the bronc's neck. These guys were fun to watch rope!
This is Trevor Brazile
He competed in both steer roping--which was my favorite- and calf roping.
Steer roping was so cool! They were roping a 600 lb. steer and after the loop landed around the steer's neck, they spun the steer around to make him fall and then they jumped off the horse to get to the steer while he was still down because you can't flank a 600 lb. steer! Definite skill involved!
This was called the Dinner Bell Derby. They brought out about a dozen mares and foals and then they held the foals about a half a block away from the mares. The first foal to get to the mare won! I didn't think the babies would run so fast to get to their mama's but it was hilarious!
The Long's were so kind and invited us to dinner at their house after the rodeo.
The Long's House on the Prairie!
The dinner was delicious and the company even better!
My cute girls
The next day we decided to head for home. We had tickets for Rascal Flatts concert, but we decided to sell them and go home. We went downtown to do a little shopping and found the parade was going on so we stayed and watched it for a while. This was a beautiful black team that pranced to the same beat.
Most every other parade has cop cars blocking the roads, but in Cheyenne they use horses!
This group of horses had two big draft horses in it!
Union Pacific is a big employer in the area and this train was so cute!
Can you see how far down the block the horses go? I have never in my whole life seen that many teams hooked up to so many different wagons and carts! It was amazing. Just my kind of Parade!
On our way over, we passed a car that had a skeleton in the passenger seat. On the way home we saw this semi tipped on it's side.
It was quite an adventure to go to Cheyenne! The rodeo lasted four hours and it flew by!
I loved every minute of the whole trip!
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