Rodeo Time

Saturday night we went to the Austin Rodeo. For many of you who don't know, my husband used to do rodeo in Mexico when he was in high school. He rode the bucking bulls, horses, the whole shebang. He loved it and was obviously pretty stoked to go to the rodeo and "relive his youth." He now has back issues from all the jerking, riding, and bucking that happened to him 15 years ago. The main reason he quit doing rodeo was because he was bucked off a bull, and it then proceeded to step on him, collapsing his lung. He should have died through everything that happened around that incident, but he survived and decided that risking his life for $50 wasn't really worth it. He hasn't ridden since, though I know he misses it.

It was cold . . . as in "I had wind burns on my face the entire next day" cold. We did eat a lot of free BBQ, which of course was extremely good. But then, free food usually tastes quite delectable in my opinion. We ended up sitting in the 3rd row as some friends had extra box seat tickets. They even had another set of tickets for the fancy Executive Suite, the who's who of the rodeo upper class. You had to have tickets to get in, and then it was $15 for a buffet, mostly of all the food we had eaten for free, and another $4 for a soda. And you had to pay everything in tokens. ????? You used your cash to buy tokens, and you could then buy food and drinks. 1 token = 1 dollar. Someone explain to me the point of all that extra work. You would think the food would be free for those paying an arm and a leg to get in. The only real perk was the mens bathroom - it was inside, so you didn't have to brave the icy wind to get to a porta potty. Obviously that perk didn't effect me.

The disappointing part was the actual rodeo. Maybe it was an off night, but they just couldn't seem to get it together. The bull riders couldn't stay on long enough to be exciting, and the bulls were pretty tame once the rider fell off. Same thing with the other events, and the clowns weren't really that funny. Though I watched my husband cringe with every tumble they took and all the jerking motions they made. It made me hurt just watching. Even then, for the great seats we had, it was fairly anti-climatic. The highlight of the night, other than going home and getting warm, was the "muttonin" event. This is where they put 5 and 6 year old kids on sheep, and see how long they can hold on, while the announcer makes up scores. The winner was of course the last one to ride, and it was a little 6 year old Asian girl in bright pink cowboy boots. She was pretty jazzed to get her giant trophy and rodeo buckle. The crowd was the liveliest during this event too.

Now, the great thing about the rodeo is the people it brings out. As an avid people watcher, it was great entertainment. There were more than one "cowboys" walkin' around the fair grounds in jeans so over-starched you could have poked an eye out. Our box seats were surrounded by peroxide bleached blondes with giant oversized jewelry (diamond rings the size of my nose, earrings the size of my head, 3 inches of make up on, etc), designer cowboy boots, bejeweled jeans, and many leather trench coats. I felt like I was back in Utah surrounded by so many bleached blondes with bling. But my favorite were the people in front of us so doused in perfume and mixed with alcohol that it gave off a very powerful sickeningly sweet stench. I'm not sure what part of the rodeo they actually watched . . . . .

After all this, we were home by 9:30 on a Satruday night. Yup, I will most likely be back again next year too.