Tucson Arizona

Clicking the pics is easy, there's only a few, but when the weekend comes it will take two hands before you are through.

The rodeo arena is empty, but it's been smoothed out, and fluffed up so the arena floor is not as hard as dried clay. This kind of surface is easier on the horses hooves, and a lot easier on the cowboys when a horse or a bull is breakdancing on what was once the rider, and is now just part of the turf.

An hour and a half drive this morning and I was pulling into the Pima County Fairgrounds boondocking area. This will be my base of operations for a while. I'll be watching some horse shows, and when there's nothing going on at the fairgrounds I will visit some other nearby places such as Tombstone, to check on my property, and Whitewater draw to visit the Sandhill cranes that are wintering there.

It only got up to the mid 60s today but it was fairly comfortable with a long sleeve shirt on. Since the altitude here is a lot higher than any place I've been in Arizona so far the weather is pretty changeable and looking at the ten day forecast, Tucson's highs are predicted to be anywhere from 80° to mid 50s.

I should stay fairly busy because there are two rodeos, and a big time barrel racing event the next three weekends in a row here at the fairgrounds. I'm only signed up at the boondocking area for a week at the moment. I prefer to sign up weekly, to get the price break, even though I normally stay longer, it gives me more freedom to come and go whenever I feel like it.

There's a whole bunch of rosebushes that grow here and I often take pictures of them during the winter but I notice there are very few roses on the bushes now, and a lot of the rosebushes don't look that healthy. I asked the host, and she said it's been so cold on occasions that a lot of the roses were killed by the chilly weather. I'm sure they will come back but I doubt if it will be while I'm here.

Theboondork

This weekend these bleachers will be filled with family members of the kids that are riding in this high school rodeo. And I know from the experience of having sat in rodeo bleachers watching my youngest son ride bulls that during the rodeo family members in these bleachers will go through every range of emotion. They will laugh, they will cry, they will yell, and at times they will fall dead silent.

That doesn't happen at professional rodeos because you don't know them, you just know of them. But at a high school rodeo almost everybody knows each other, and they know each other's kids because they all camp at the rodeo grounds together, and they do it almost every weekend during the season.

I didn't get to enjoy too many rodeos when my son was riding, I was too worried about what could go wrong. But I do enjoy these rodeos and it's a great opportunity for me to take pictures.

This weekend these stables will be full of horses, and the place will look alive with all the families, the kids, their dogs and of course there horses.

Ever since the beginning of me coming here this has always been the worse venue to get a decent picture. Since I'm always here during the winter, and the sun is low on the horizon, the horses and riders go from totally overexposed to completely underexposed as they ride around. And depending on where the sun is, usually the horses are in shadow and the riders are in bright sunlight.... An almost impossible situation to take a picture.