Brian, Susan & the Rodeo

Our friends Brian and Susan (aka the Juddmansees) stopped in for a few days on their recent whirlwind tour of the west.

They arrived at our place on Friday night and brought with them a half flat (that's 6 dry pints) of mixed local berries that they had picked up at a farm stand along their drive. Coincidentally, we had also picked up a half flat of berries the previous day at Gorge Grown Farmers' Market. Presented with the situation, we had no choice but to eat them. Between berries on ice cream after dinner and berries over waffles the following morning, we managed to polish off the lot of them. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, marionberries - yum!

Saturday we gave them a walking tour of the property but mostly kept it low-key. Saturday evening, though, we had some excitement planned: The Dalles Rodeo! Corinne and I have been to the local Ketchum Kalf rodeo in Glenwood a few years ago, but Brian and Susan had never been. It's kinda like the circus - you just have to experience it at least once.

We coordinated ahead of time with our friends Judith and Rodney to get tickets and they ended up quite good - front row center! Periodically a horse and rider would bolt around the stadium at high speed, hugging the walls; they were usually carrying a flag with the name or logo of a sponsor, so they were quickly dubbed "commercials." When this happened we would sometimes get showered with dirt kicked up from the horse's hooves. Now THAT'S close to the action!

Relative to our previous rodeo experience, we had expected this one to be a much bigger event. In actuality it seemed about the same. The biggest difference was the success of the cowboys in the rodeo action, and it was in the opposite direction. As an example, there were 9 pairs of cowboys competing for the best score in the team roping event. On this particular day, only 2 of those teams scored at ALL; all of the others were not successful in roping the calf and therefore did not score. Each of the other events had similar outcomes: steer wrestling, bull riding, bronc riding (bareback & saddle), etc. This was definitely a rodeo where the cows won. The barrel racers - whose event did not involve a large farm animal - generally fared better. We still had fun watching the events, and I have no doubt that they all did a better job at their events than I would have.

Brian had hoped to be able to enjoy a NW rodeo whilst drinking some Rainier Beer. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) the rodeo was sponsored by Bud.

There was a lot of fun outside of the non-competition events as well. A "business persons donkey race" organized by the local 4-H was actually quite a bit more entertaining than we had expected, and a "Wild West Revue" had some pretty fancy riding and roping. And let's not forget all of the various Northwest "rodeo queens" who were making the rounds and signing autographs.

At the end of the evening we went home satisfied that everybody had a good evening - us AND the animals.

On Sunday we walked to the Trout Lake Arts Festival which also happened to be that weekend. The Mt Adams fires didn't seem to deter anyone, as the festival was as busy as ever. Pretty soon it was time for our guests to be on their way to their next destination.

- Mike (& Corinne)