Ride 'Em Cowboy!

After the fair and the Suitcoats performance we went to the rodeo (my second ever) to support Burke's older brother Mike.  He volunteers each rodeo to help man the gates on the bull rides.  His job is to pull the gate open when the rider is ready and scramble out of the way to avoid being gored by the angry bull trying to throw his rider to the ground.  You can't see his face, but that's him in the black cowboy hat doing his job admirably!

Rodeo is exciting to me for about an hour and then I get antsy.  However, this time there were a couple of hilarious events that broke up the tedium.  First, they called for all kids under the age of 9 to come out for a pig chase.  There were at least 50 kids who ran down and lined up at one end, while a cowboy held a squirming piglet in the middle of the arena.  Amy, Sadie and Lauren were all giggling their heads off as they ran down to join in the fun.  That poor piglet just stood there as soon as they let the kids loose, terrified I'm sure by the wall of children running towards it.  We got a good laugh, but I felt so sad for the poor traumatized piglet!

The other event that cracked me up was called the Mule Run.  About 15 pairs of contestants were let into the arena with 15 wild donkeys.  There objective was to get both riders on the donkey, ride bare bareback to the end of the arena and pick up a watermelon, turn the donkey around and make it back to other end of the arena without falling off.  When the gun fired there was chaos as people began chasing the donkeys all over the arena.  When one person would finally get on and try to pull their partner up behind them, they would get going for a couple of yards and with each bounce slowly tip to the side until they both would topple to the ground.  It was hilarious, although I'm not sure who looked like the bigger "ass" out there! (hee hee!)