Sherry Cervi Youth Championships

It takes a real champion to click all the pics.

Pedal to the metal.

Things started getting busy at the indoor arena this morning. Eight or ten horse trailers showed up, and I assume that these folks are getting the arena ready for the weekend since there aren't any contestants here yet.

A handful of fairground employees were preparing the surface of the indoor arena, and the outdoor covered arena, where the contestants warm their horses up before their race. And since there are so many big shots here already from the Sherry Cervi Youth Championships, I've learned this will actually be three days of barrel racing.

I drove into town this morning to O'Reilly's auto parts store and got some power steering fluid since mine seemed to be a little low, which isn't surprising considering it's the factory power steering fluid that's been in there for over 200,000 miles... I reckon it's about time to get the power steering system flushed, I used to do things like that myself, but now I don't have all the gadgetry it takes to do most preventative maintenance.

And since I was in town, I bought some diesel fuel at $4.60 a gallon. And since the price hasn't gone up dramatically, it looks like the country is not going to actually run out of diesel fuel which was my biggest worry when I left on my winter travels.

I've noticed in my life that sometimes my biggest worries end up not being worries at all, such as the availability of diesel fuel on this winter trip. And something I never considered a problem, namely the cold weather, ended up being my biggest problem.

And being in town, I also stopped at Popeye's and got some red beans and rice for lunch. It's a good thing that I seldom see a Popeyes restaurant in my travels because if they were as common as a McDonald's, I would probably weigh 300 pounds by now.

Since I'm going to be leaving the Pima County fair grounds on February 1 and heading for Tombstone, I reckon I should go to Walmart Monday or Tuesday and stock up on enough food to last me for a couple of weeks until I get back to the fairgrounds sometime around February 10 for a horse show and an RV show. There's actually a Walmart in Benson Arizona, that I drive past on the way to Tombstone,  but that Walmart is kind of old and small, so I prefer the one here near the fairgrounds.

Theboondork

This little partner that was barely 3 feet tall  was a serious roper. He could rope anything that moved, I was amazed.

High school barrel racer.

She seems to enjoy the speed.

A competition Ropers horse trailer. An average person can't afford to do this. My guess is dad was a pro-Roper and now his sons are learning the skill.

This high school goat tyer came very close to having one of the worst days of her life. While she's getting off the horse at full gallop, her foot got hung up in the stirrup. Normally these horses keep running after the rider jumps off, but fortunately this horse came to a stop so she could get her foot out of the stirrup. She doesn't have control of the rains so she couldn't stop him. But at least she hung onto the saddle horn so she could swing back up onto the saddle if he started running again. She dodged a bullet today.

A few of the peewee barrel racers are so young they have to be led around the course by a parent.

I've seen high school girls roping calves, but I've never seen an elementary school size cowgirl roping calves. But they do, and she did.