I Have a New Boyfriend

He’s 81-years-old and his name is Skeet.

He guards the entry to the chutes – and he’s about the only “bouncer” I haven’t wanted to ruin.

Our relationship goes back a week, which doesn’t seem long in real-time, but in Frontier Days-time it seems like forever.

It all started on the first day of the rodeo when the camera crew and I were headed to the chutes. The crew I’m with is a family operation and they had with them a family friend from England who was visiting. She was not dressed in cowboy attire.

We tried to get down the entryway when two old cowboys jumped up and stopped us.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! She can’t go down there lookin’ like that!” one of them said, singling poor Harriet out.

We were running a little behind for getting set up and just didn’t remember someone was with us who wasn’t dressed according to CFD rules. Oops.

I ran Harriet up to the Press Deck where she could hang out in her summer skirt, sleeveless top and sandals with no worries.

When I came back one of the cowboys stood up and came toward me. I told him how sorry we were and how we did indeed know the rules then apologized again. He patted me on my arms, smiled and said it was alright.

Every day the same old cowboy greets me with a big smile and a, “Howdy!” as I go in and out of the chutes. It wasn’t until yesterday, however, that either one of us made a significant move.

I was drenched from the downpour we had just weathered in the arena and hungry. I got a soft pretzel from the concession stand and was about to sit at a picnic table when I heard, “Hey! You gonna give me a bite of that?” It was my old cowboy.

I sat down next to him and said, sure. We ended up talking all through barrel racing and most of the last bull riding event.

I found out he’s been volunteering on the Contestant Committee for over 40 years. He’s a retired elementary school principal, also after about 40 years, and knows just about everyone and everything about CFD.

He told me he’s made more work for himself at CFD since he’s started hosting a Bloody Mary morning at the Contestant Committee’s house.

To which I said since I shared my pretzel with him he’s going to have to share a Bloody Mary with me, which is just what he did after the rodeo yesterday.

He walked me over to the Contestant Committee house, introduced me to everyone as his new girlfriend, even though he’s still married to his wife of 60 years, and whipped me up a nice Bloody Mary that we sat out on the porch and enjoyed.

Skeet’s one of those spry old men who still has a firm handshake, a jaunty walk, and a light in his bright blue eyes. And he can talk smack with the best of them! As he was introducing me and getting razzed for the new girl on his arm, he threw it right back at them. That’s my boyfriend for ya’.

And afterwards, as a proper boyfriend should, he walked me “home” to the PR house.

True love.

Back to the Rodeo!

Here are some pictures from yesterday's rodeo madness:

Here are the Dandies performing before the rodeo officially begins. The Dandies are 16 young ladies who serve as goodwill ambassadors for Frontier Days. They travel around to other rodeos in the region representing CFD. They also each carry a flag with a CFD sponsor on it. Here they are doing a move with their horses that looks exactly like "the whip" when you are ice skating...

There are two Pickup Men at the rodeo that I just love. No, these aren't guys at a bar. Rather, the Pickup Men - there are six of them - are the guys that look out for the bull and bronc riders and who get the animals out of the arena after a cowboy flies off. The two guys I am obsessed with just seem so...cool. I love how they sit in their saddles, how they handle their horses, how they just seem to ooze an overall look of...coolness. I get so excited when they come into the arena! And, I like this guy because he looks like a cross between a character in an old Western and a 1970s sitcom cop...

Favorite Pickup Man no. 2. Doesn't he just look...cool??

Here's Cody Sosebee, one of the rodeo clowns. He's getting ready to go back out in the arena. I do not find rodeo clowns one bit creepy. Circus clowns, however, are every bit creepy...

In the barrel...

Inside a rodeo clown's barrel. I've always wondered what it looks like in there. Sosebee stores his barrel by us, so I had my chance to find out...

There are authentic chuckwagon crews set up at the park. They have a big cook-off coming up on Satruday...

This is part of Wild Horse Gulch, which is just a strip of storefronts designed to look like a street in an Old West town. There are lots of Western gifts, food, clothes, etc., sold here.

Here's an example of the Pickup Men leading a bull out of the arena. You can see where they've roped him if you look carefully...

After a hard day of throwing pesky cowboys off their backs bulls deserve a little R&R too...

Let's Talk About Sweat Baby

I think it's time to take a little break from all the rodeo I've been talking about this week.

Instead, I'd like to talk about...my sweaty shins.

That's right, I admit it to the world, my shins sweat. Like crazy, actually. Some of you already know this.

Now, put those predisposed-to-sweat shins into knee-high socks and cowboy boots, throw jeans over them and stick them in the hot sun with no shade.

You can only imagine what is going on inside my pant legs!

Ok, so maybe that wasn't a REAL break from the cowboy/rodeo stuff I've been sharing. But at least I didn't include pictures...

The Celebration Continues

Yesterday morning was the first of three free Frontier Days Pancake breakfasts and it was amazing.

The breakfasts are sponsored by the Kiwanis and are used as federal emergency management exercises in feeding large amounts of people in a short time, as in around 10,000 people in about two hours – each day.

I’ve always wanted to come to the pancake breakfast, but it starts at 7 a.m. and that would have made for a really early morning in Laramie.

Several news organizations had live shots planned from what I’ll call “Pancake Plaza” outside the historic Depot. I was assigned to a news crew, but they had to back out at the last minute to cover the wildfires in Colorado.

That left me as a rover and I pretty much got to enjoy, rather than work the breakfast.

The breakfast runs like a well-oiled machine. As you move through the line you are handed a plate and napkin by one team, three pancakes at the next person, and two pats of butter at the next. The next stop is a person with a jug of syrup, then a gigantic silver bowl from which two people serve you a slice of ham. Moving on is a coffee station, juice station and water station – then you’re out! And it all took just a couple minutes.

The numbers are crazy: 5,000 pounds of pancake mix, 100,000 pancakes, 3,000 pounds of ham, 9,200 cartons of milk and 520 gallons of coffee, along with 630 pounds of butter and 475 gallons of syrup.

Here are some pictures from the day. The rodeo wasn’t as exciting, so I don’t have much from that.

The chuckwagon the cooks flip the pancakes from. The guys in maroon are Navy from the U.S.S. Cheyenne...

The cooks flip their pancakes to Boyscouts who are ready and waiting with their trays to catch them...
Out of the chute right next to us...
Boots and chaps...
The chute next to us. Haha...
I thought these little cowboys were cute...

More Rowdy Rodeo

Yesterday was day two at the chutes.

I think Sunday's rodeo was more exciting than Saturday's. The animals seemed a little more riled up, and there were more dramatic spills and crashes.

The best was the rider who flew off his horse near a railing, grabbed the railing as he sailed toward it, did a handstand/flip over it and landed with both feet on the ground like a gymnast. They showed a slow-mo instant reply on the big screens while playing the Olympics theme song, which was a nice touch.

The worst was a rider who was bucked off and landed upside-down on his head. He was knocked out for several minutes. The awful thing was seeing his hand involuntarily twitch in the dirt. The medics rushed out to help him and much to the crowd's surprise, he got up! Wow.

In other exciting news, yesterday was the first day we were sprayed with bull, um...crap. Ok, "sprayed" makes it sound pretty bad, but it really wasn't. The fence got the brunt of it, our cameraman, not realizing it was there leaned up against it and had a stripe of it on his pants, and I just got a little dribble on my pant leg and boots. I think of it as my Frontier Days christening.

Alright, here are some photos from yesterday's events. My camera died and I had to take them with my blackberry and the quality isn't very good. The camera's all charged up for today though, so hopefully I'll have some better ones to share later.

This is my favorite picture of the day...

Here's our press room. It's right behind the PR house, which I'll get a picture of later because I know you're all dying to see it...

I think this is during steer wrestling. They're chasing down the steer for the rider on the right to jump off on and wrestle down...

In honor of our state's logo, the bucking horse and rider...