Farmgirl, the biggest rainstorm is in central Texas, so maybe you need to drive up to Oklahoma and do your rain dance in the Indian Nation.
The
Jim Bowie Days Rodeo was fun last night. It was cool with a light breeze and very comfortable. The grandstands were 3/4 full too. I'm not really good at guessing numbers, but the stands are very new and wrap around the arena with raised seats above the bull/bronc riding chutes on one end and half the opposite end in regular bleachers. They have a new roping/bull-dogging chute at the end opposite the rodeo announcer's booth so the roping/bull-dogging events occur from one side of the arena and bull/bronc riders come out from the opposite side under the announcer's booth. So no matter where you sit, you are gonna see action close to you.
The rodeo got started at 6:00 PM with mutton bustin' where little kids ride sheep, and then riders brought in their horses for warmup in the arena before the grand entry. The grand entry started at 7:30 PM and the rodeo was over at 10:45 PM. It was a very long rodeo with lots of entrants. Of course they had the presentation of visiting rodeo queens from the whole area and the crowning of a new Miss Jim Bowie Days for 2013. That took almost an hour all by itself. For the $8 per person ticket, that's a lot of show. To make it even better, as we approached the gate, a lady asked us if we had tickets. She said she had extra tickets somebody gave her and she would give them to us. She wouldn't take anything for them, so we got our tickets free from a total stranger. Talk about luck. . . :thumbsup:
For some reason, luck was not with the participants in the rodeo. Many of them were pros, but didn't perform well. Out of 10 teams, not a single team roping team qualified. There was only one bareback bronc rider and he performed well with a good 8 second ride. The next 8 were saddle bronc riders and only two qualified. That's the way it seemed to go all night with bull dogging, roping, and women's breakaway roping. There just weren't many who had good luck. I was a bit disappointed by that, mainly for the participants. It was a fun night, but a lot of "fail" was going on.
I remember FFA amateur rodeos in the '60s with much better performances. Oh well. . . we certainly got our money's worth.
