When I saw this rainbow the other day I took it as a sign that everything is changing for the better, tough times are over, and there's nothing but a bright future ahead.

I went back to the Team Roping Championships again today and spent a little time watching the show, but since I don't know a whole lot about what goes on with the ins and outs of team roping, it's hard for me to stay engaged for long. I can't tell the experts from the wannabes and wouldn't recognize the world's team roping champion if his horse stepped on my foot.

I didn't stay too long because what goes on in the arena is very precisely choreographed and therefore boring to me. If done correctly, its exactly the same every single time. And to someone like me who doesn't understand the nuances of team roping, it ends up looking like two horses and two cowboys doing the same thing, at almost exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, time after time.

Other rodeo sports are more interesting to me because there's a lot of crashing and burning going on with the Cowboys and the rough stock. But team roping is not like that; it's kind of like watching a no-hitter in a baseball game. It may be great to watch if you're an aficionado of the sport, but to an ordinary spectator, it gets boring pretty quick when you take an essential part out of the sport, which is hitting the ball, and don't let that happen for a few hours.

I can see why team roping is popular among the cowboy types. It's kind of like golf; you can do it at almost any age, it doesn't require any spectators to make it enjoyable or profitable, and there's a lot of money to be made if you're good at it. But like golf, every movement is planned and rehearsed in advance, so there's not much excitement going on, which probably explains the lack of spectators.

Like most other sports, it's hard to tell who wins until the contest is over, and since I don't have enough interest in team roping to stay till the end, I never know who wins. And even if I knew it wouldn't make any difference because I don't know one team from the other.

 Each team gets four tries at roping the steer, and the team with the lowest total time for that four-try aggregate is the winner. So it sounds to me like you have to be able to immobilize that steer in around six seconds every time if you want the big money. But for me, waiting for 100 cowboys and cowgirls to do exactly the same thing in the arena over and over and over and over is more than I can bear.

But despite all that, I did enjoy the show, and especially the picture taking opportunities. And this is the sort of thing I wanted to do this winter. I wanted to travel from event to event, enjoying not only being in a new place just because it was a new place, but because there was some kind of an event that was interesting for me to watch. But the bat flu problems have canceled many events and made my plans for the winter go slightly awry.

 But I am, if nothing else adaptable, enjoy a challenge, and still have about half of my winter left to make 2021 my best winter travel season ever.

                                                      theboondork

A stock contractor brings in a herd of cows in his double-decker cattle trailer.

A beauty parlor pony fresh from the beauty salon having his main done, is beginning to get covered in mud.

A couple of cowboys discussing their chances of winning the big event. Look what's hanging from the stirrups on both of these horses . Thanks again Eddie.

A cowboy rides by with a cell phone stuck to the side of his head. I don't remember Roy Rogers riding Trigger while talking on a  phone.

Cowgirl pushing a baby stroller through the mud. At least it's an off-road stroller.

It looks like this heeler has been living off his past for a long, long, time. But at least at one time he wasn't just "somebody" he was a "Champion"....which is more than most of us can say.

I drove into town today and visited one of the town's many roping arenas. I knew something was going on in town, but I didn't know what, and it turns out that it was some kind of a National Championship Team Roping Competition.

The place was enormous, and it was absolutely full of hundreds of pickup trucks and horse trailers; in fact, I don't think I've ever seen that many horse trailers in one place in my life. It took me a while of driving around to find a spot I could park my truck, and then I had a looong walk back to the arena.

There was no "car parking" per se; I just parked amongst the horse trailers, and since I was in a pickup truck, I fit right in. There are no spectators that I could see, and there's no charge to come in and watch. Everyone I saw was either a competitor or family member.

Because of the frequent rains, it was pretty muddy in the parking areas. And having hundreds and hundreds of horses prancing around in it didn't help at all. But apparently, there's a horse speed limit in the parking areas because I didn't see any of them running throwing mud all over everyone.... Although I could tell they wanted to.

I didn't get any propane today as I'd hoped; the two places I went to were busy. Like I said before, it's been kind of chilly around here, and I guess I'm not the only one using propane for heat.

I picked up the dust covers I ordered from etrailer General Delivery this morning, and they actually fit properly; I must've accidentally ordered the right thing for a change.

                             theboondork

One small part of one parking area. There were many parking areas.

A few of the contestants warming up in the arena before the start of the competition

Most of the contestants were slowly moseying around the arena looking pretty relaxed.

Others looked more serious and already had their game face on.

I'll have some more pictures of the competition tomorrow

Ahhhh, the good old days when I arrived at Box Wash about two weeks ago. It was warm, the skies were blue and cloudless, and the humidity was .001%. Little did I know then what was heading my way.

Mostly cloudy today, but still enough sunshine to keep my batteries charged up and me living a normal life.

My post office tracking number tells me my etrailer package should be here tomorrow, so now I have to keep my fingers crossed that I ordered the right size dust cover, or I will have to make a decision, and y'all know how I hate making decisions, of whether or not I should stick around Wickenburg to straighten the problem out or mosey over to some other town that has a post office that takes general delivery and reorder my dust caps from there.

Of course, if I did that, it would mean towing the Arctic Fox around with a piece of tinfoil held on by rubber bands keeping dust, dirt, and small critters, out of my wheel bearings.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice sunny day, so I think I will head into town to watch some of the team roping at the various arenas and run a few errands. I've got a propane tank that needs filling, a package to pick up at the post office, some trash that needs disposing of, and a few groceries that I should buy.

Normally I wouldn't let that many of my responsibilities pile up, but even though the weather is better it's still kind of rainy and I don't feel like doing anything until the sun comes out.

                                                     theboondork

 As soon as I got settled into Box Wash, a front came through changing everything including my mood, and seemingly lasting forever. This picture reflects the mood I was in about four days later.

Reminding me more of the Pacific Northwest than Arizona, my trusty solar panels and seemly bottomless battery bank got me through these troubled times more comfortably than I expected.

I thought I would put a close up of the red things on the team roping flaggers stirrups, and maybe someone well-versed in equine accoutrements could offer a suggestion as to what they are. I looked up images for team roping flaggers on the Internet, and no other flaggers had these things on their stirrups so they have nothing to do with team roping rules, it might just be a personal thing, I just can't imagine what purpose they serve.