National Western Stock Show

More snow!!!! Sunday morning and the forecast is for 2-6" of fresh snow. That's 5 weekends in a row with snow.

We were lucky however, the original call was for snow to start on Saturday, and Saturday was the day for the "circle" to go to the National Western Stock Show. The weather was cold but no snow and we all had a great time.

The circle was complete on this day with The Bride and I, "Too Tall" Jeff and Karen and "Guitar" and Pic-E.

This is the last weekend for the Stock Show so the crowds were large. On one hand big crowds make things more difficult...on the other there are lots more interesting people to watch. Much of the crowd was dressed in their western finest and it was fun just to see all the styles of cowboy hats.

"Too Tall" and I already have hats but we haven't been able to talk "Guitar" into pulling the trigger on a custom hat yet. We will continue to keep up the pressure though.

We started the morning by looking at all the animals in the stockyard pens. Great photo opportunities limited only by the imagination, as you can see from the photo on the right!

After looking at the animals we watched some of the cattle dog competition. These dogs, guided by their master's whistles herded three cows thru a maze and into a trailer. Amazing what these dogs do.

After the dogs there was the draft horse competition, wagons, sled pulls and a mule costume competition....Yes a competition for costumed mules/donkeys/burros! Actually it was for the owners to dress up and use their animals as a prop. The "mountain man" and his family won first prize.

The rodeo was the highlight of the day. This event had all the basic rodeo events, bareback bronc, bucking bronc, steer wrestling, tie down roping and the most popular, bull riding. The picture to the left isn't the requisite bull rider shot but the aftermath of the "baddest" ride of the night. This cowboy really got his "bell rung" and in the picture here he's being "assisted" to the medical facility. Honestly he looked unconscious to me with blood streaming down his head. We hope he is all right.

So, a great time was had by one and all and it was a wonderful "friends" fix for the weekend. For all those reading this we wish you "Happy Trails".