A Rodeo
So I mentioned the San Antonio rodeo earlier. That just so happens to be where were heading on this day, Thursday, February 18th, 2016. We got out of the trailer pretty early and rode our bikes the few blocks over to the rodeo grounds. We had a bit of a surprise upon scanning in when we were told that reentry wasn’t part of their policy, which was a tad annoying because we hadn’t brought out lunch with us. The first thing we stopped at when we got there was the pig races. I find pig races highly amusing and very adorable because pigs are super cute and I would like one. We had to wait a while for the race to start. The section in which we were seated was numbered section one, meaning that we would be cheering on the number one pig. We only had one winner out of three races, but that’s better than sections two and three, who got no wins. Section four won the other two, how lovely. We also got to see Swifty the Swimming Pig, who did not, in fact, want to go anywhere near the big scary trough full of water but he did a magnificent job at swimming it. After we watched the races, we decided to walk down to the end of the rodeo grounds and see what there was to see. There were a lot of barns along the way and we went in a few. Most of them were busy with farmers preparing for shearing and showing competitions with goats and sheep, although there were a lot of cows and horses as well. One of the buildings we
went into was a dairy barn where they were doing a milking demonstration for a school group. We stayed to watch, learned some facts about cows and then bought some homemade ice cream. Let me tell you, it was really good. After we finished with the animals, we decided to explore some of the shops. In the first shop building, Mum bought a new mat for underneath Kizmet’s food and water bowls. They had some nice stuff in there. I especially liked the paintings done by one of the ladies. She had a very unique style and she was very good at realistic portraits. My favourites were the ones of Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Jackson and David Bowie. In the next shop barn, there were even more booths and we spent some time tasting a whole bunch of cheese spreads at one of them. Mum and I had on guy try to sell us a barbecue shaped like a pig. It was very cool, but it wouldn’t have been very easy to get home. Isaac and Dad had some fun looking around a rare movie and TV show shop. There was a sketch artist in this building, who had done a portrait of Jareth, the Goblin King, with one of his quotes along the the top. I almost bought it but I decided to just try and do it myself. Sometime. When I’m better at drawing and stuff. Once we finished looking around, we biked back to the trailer for lunch. One of the employees working the entrance told us that if we got back before his shift ended, he would let us back in, but we opted just to go back
for the rodeo at the end of the day, as there wasn’t much more to do on the grounds unless Isaac and I wanted to do the carnival rides. We hung around at the trailer for the rest of the afternoon and biked back over. The rodeo opened with a parade of horses and the flying of the American flag. The commentator lead with a group prayer, which I thought was kind of hilarious. Oops. Then there was a very dramatic singing of the Star Spangled Banner, which I also found rather funny. The show started with the cowboys on the bucking broncos. Next were roping and barrel racing competitions. They had a little break in which the little kids came out and tried to ride sheep across the stadium floor, which was pretty funny to watch. The rodeo wrapped up with some bull riding. Why people ever thought that was a good idea, I do not know. I bet some cowboy was in a saloon with his friend and was just like, “Hey Billy, ya wanna know what I think. I think we should see who can stay on a bull the longest and then not get killed.” You probably have to have a death wish to get on those things, seriously. One guy got all tangled up in the fastenings and couldn’t get away from the bull. I’m pretty sure he broke his ankle. He definitely sprained it at the very least. Good times. Then they rolled on a stage and set it all up for the final act, Randy Houser. We stayed for three songs and then left. There’s only so much country I can handle in a year, and that rodeo probably filled up half of my quota. Peace out m8s.