Frontier Days

"The Daddy of 'Em All!" is what my friend called it when I told her I was there. At the end of the show they called themselves that too! Mary Catherine was right. Frontier Days is (one of?) the best large rodeos in the US! On our final free day here, we drov e up to Cheyenne, Wyoming to watch dudes get bucked off of broncos, lasso mad bulls, and experience the cowboy culture. We all felt like we had just stepped into a different world as soon as we entered the parking lot, where we saw horses tied up next to cars and pe ople everywhere wearing cowboy hats and boots. There was also a carnival there (yes, I was so excited!) so we enjoyed (a nd lusted after) delicious carnival food - burgers, corn dogs, fre shly- squeezed lemonade, and funnel cakes. At the end of the day I tried my first buffalo burger! I LOVED it! I like my burgers plain and I loved this one because it had so much flavor! Mmm.

I had never been to a rodeo before, but I have been to a PBR (Professional Bull Riding) show. Those are only bull riders (obviously), but at this rodeo I was pleased that they had many events besides just bull riding (though that is certainly the most thrilling). Besides watching people hanging on for dear life for 8 seconds (or less), I was very entertained by the cowboys wrangling up the bulls with lassos!

Another similar event was riding bucking broncos. It was mind-blowing how the horses would jump STRAIGHT UP into the air!

Whit's

favorite event was the cow roping. A guy would ride up beside a running adolescent cow, jump off his horse onto the cow, and wrestle it to the ground!

There was a women's event where the ladies had to run their horses and loop around 3 barrels.

All of us enjoyed the last event the best. 10 or so teams of 3 were set up in the racing loop. The job for two of the guys was to hold down a WILD horse (literally undomesticated) and get it ready for the third guy to jump on it and RIDE it around the loop. It was crazy! People were getting dragged all over the place! No one successfully made it around the loop in time (unfortunately the announcer told us to all yell when one pair came around the turn and we scared that poor horse off to the other direction! Sorry!)

There was also an Indian Village that we browsed around. Some Native Americans actually LIVE in those teepees! (Probably short-term but I'm not sure.)