Weekend. Part I

It all began with happy hour at the local bar, which is the biggest, nicest small-town bar I have ever seen. Two stories high, with pool tables, popcorn machine and a few dart boards. Three of us played an embarrassingly long game of darts. The crowd consisted of some locals(2 out of every 3 man wearing cowboy hats), my housemates and WWOOFers from another nearby farm. Two brand new volunteers arrived to the nearby farm less than an hour earlier all the way from Vermont and were immediately dragged to the bar. Culture shock?

Drinks were consumed.

Saturday morning I was out of the house and on the road by 6:45am to go for a day-hike in the Bangtail "Mountains", which are right across the road from the Bridgers. According to a "Hiking around Bozeman" guidebook that was published last year I was to take a dirt-road for two miles, after which it would turn into a foot-trail leading up to the ridge and connect to the Bangtail Divide trail that would lead me back to my car. A loop of about 8 miles. Well... I never found the foot-trail. Instead there were about 6 more logging roads than were indicated on the map, leading in all kinds of directions and just confusing the whole situation. I followed one of the roads back towards the parking area and eventually found the Bangtail Divide trail. At this point I was about 5 miles into my hike and within 5 minutes of being on the trail I got passed by 3 mountain bikers and a dude on a dirt bike. Okay, enough.

I took the switchbacks down to the parking lot, darting out of the way of a ton more mountain bikers.

Since I was already half-way to Bozeman I decided to drive into town and look for a few things I'll need for my climbing trip. Finally, I had cell service so I got a chance to wish my Dad happy Father's Day. Second Wind Sports and my favorite thrift store both let me down, so I left town empty handed.

I arrived back home just in time to get ready for the Rodeo. Plaid shirt - check. Camera with a zoom lens - check. Lets go! It was held at the Rodeo Grounds in Wilsall. First row seats, oh yeah! Although, kind of like baseball there are no really bad seats at a rodeo. The opening ceremony included the Saddlelites (a group of female riders from the area) performing a little riding show. Then it was off to bareback bronc riding.

To irritate the horse into bucking so violently they put a strap around it private parts. Most riders didn't last more than a few seconds, and just a couple lasted for over a minute, at which point they get to jump on to the horse of one of the two riders that are in the field at all time, collecting horses and bulls and getting them back into their enclosures. One young rider had a pretty dramatic fall, head-first into the ground. Yikes.

Next came calf-wrestling, where riders chase a calf running for its life and one of the riders jumps down on it from the horse and wrestles it to the ground. The calfs have pretty serious horns, so the riders are in serious danger and getting skewered.

There was also calf-roping and team roping. For the first, a single rider had to chase down a calf, put a lasso around his neck, stop the horse, jump down and rope the calf's legs together. In the team even, two riders had to chase, put one lasso around the neck and the other around the back legs. Needless to say, the lasso around the back legs is super difficult and only one or two teams for successful. All of these events are timed and points awarded for fastest time.

Women competed in barrel racing. The rider has to go as fast as they can around 3 barrels set up so that the rider ends up doing a sort-of club (as in card suit) shape on the field. Later in the show young girls also competed in the same event and the smallest and clearly most badass little girl was the only one to finish the course without knocking over any barrels.

Last event was bull-riding. Same as bareback bronc-riding, but on huge scary bulls. These bulls are apparently specifically bred and trained for rodeos.

The crowd-watching at this show was unreal. All men were wearing cowboys hats, and those who weren't were wearing baseball hats that said Stihl or John Deere on it OR had a picture of an elk/deer/bear. Even little kids were sporting cowboy hats! Girls and women wore absurdly bejeweled jeans. Cowboy boots on everyone. And then there were precious examples of Rodeo fashion like this:

I had more fun watching these events than most sports games. What great fun! $10 well spent.