I knew being a Wooster, I was going to be a little bit nomadic. He likes to go….he likes to see…he likes to experience.
Train ride from Kansas City to the Grand Canyon….sounds like loads of fun.
Wanna ride down to Hilton Head for a long weekend? Why….yes that would be lovely.
Surprise motorcycle trip to Savannah and Tybee Island? Sure.
Motorcycle trip around the great state of Florida to visit Orlando, Daytona, Tampa and orange groves and swamps? Yep.
Wanna go to Ohio on motorcycle? Twice? Once with some college guys? Five months pregnant? Righto.
Cap San Blas sounds like a good ride. Okay.
Let’s go to: Raleigh-Durham, Baton Rouge, Indianapolis with a bunch of teenagers and work for a week. Yes Sir!
How about twice to Montana, then Alaska, Colorado and New Mexico? You bet.
Amarillo is supposed to be right nice this time of year……well, yes it is.
Dodge City? Yeppers.
When we go home, lets ride through as many states as we can….sounds like fun.
Thinking about riding up to Independence, Missouri…wanna go? With you…anytime.
Live in Kansas for two and half years? Allllrighhhtty.
Then there’s Wyoming. It truly has been the “Daddy of ‘Em All”. But, being with a Wooster, I’ve made a must-do/must-experience list while living here. Cheyenne was on that list.
I KNOW you have heard of this song.
We took a little time between hay cuttings and went to see and experience Cheyenne.
Mainly…we went to experience Cheyenne Frontier Days. It’s big…big…big doins’ around this whole state.
The whole city/metro of Cheyenne has about 60,000 people. The whole state of Wyoming has the population of: 582,000
Just for reference, Sanford Stadium, where the great Bulldogs play, seats about 93,000 people. The University of Georgia has about 35,000 students. Athens, Georgia city/metro area has a population of about 193,000 people. The state of Georgia has: 9.9 million people.
So when a big state rodeo is held, almost the whole state of Wyoming and people from other parts of the country show up.
So we went and spent a little time taking it all in.
The rodeo is long. They go through many events during the day. There is a rodeo for ten straight days. Everyone rides and the scores are tallied up and there is an overall winner.
We would watch parts of the rodeo that we knew that our oldest would be interested in, then we would go ride some rides, then back to the rodeo. I think the whole rodeo was from 12pm to about 4:30pm.
We all enjoyed the grand parade, the broncs, the bulls, and the in-between entertainment of trick riders and mounted gun shooters.
(These Pick Up Men really do “pick up”, they rope and wrangle the bulls and broncs after riders come off of them.)
By far, Ruby’s favorite was riding rides at the carnival. She rode the carousal about four times. It was her favorite.
Clara was too little to ride anything.
Outside of the rodeo arena there was the carnival, an Indian Village, chuck wagon cook off area and a western town. For all you Georgians, the whole place reminded me of the Georgia Mountain Fair, but more “western”.
(Chuck Wagon cook-offs. They dress in period clothes and have to cook using all period appropriate cookware. Everyone gets the same ingredients at a common tent in the morning and they have the same amount of time to cook. Our day, it was the Kid’s Cook-off. They are judged by taste. After judging, regular people can taste the food.)
Our absolute favorite part of the whole thing was watching the “Wild Horse Race”.
In all our travels and allllllllllllll the rodeos that we’ve been to, we’ve never seen or heard of one until we moved out west. They are pretty common here. There’s even a Professional Wild Horse Racers Association.
The gist of it: unbroken, never ridden horses are brought out and a team of three saddles then rides the horse for a full mile around the arena. The first person back to the finish/start line…and still in the saddle wins for the team.
The three people each have a job. One is the anchor, one saddles and cinches and one holds around the neck/head, and trying to calm and keep the horse steady. The saddler then gets on and holds on tight. Some of the horses just take off running, bucking and some just flat out run.
The pick-up men guide the horses out to a spot and each team has to catch the horse by the long lead rope. Once all the teams have their horse, a gun is shot to signal the start. The boys pass the time by whispering and talking to the horse or getting it in a good position.
Once the signal is given…it’s game on!
(guess which guy was the “anchor”)
Some have a very good horse and everything goes according to plan. Others don’t.
(this guy made it on, but the horse was heading in the wrong direction)
The saddles have a little loop on the back that the riders and hold onto.
This guy and horse won. They were quickly saddled and the horse took off. I don’t think it bucked one single time….but it flew!
Cheyenne was a really pretty western town and we were glad that we got to experience the “Daddy of ‘Em All”
