Roaming around the arena

Clicking the pics, not just fun, it's educational.

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.