It's always good to start the day with a parade. I'm sure that's a saying somewhere. It's doubly good when you have relatives in said parade. We got our spots on the corner of 18th and Capital on a cloudy Thursday Cheyenne Frontier Days morning. There were probably more horses than people in the parade... if you discount all the High School Marching Bands. Pretty soon we heard the siren of the fire truck and knew it was time to get our waving hands ready.
Here's Baby Cousin D and her adorable girls I always want to take home in my suitcase, K.D. in the hat and E.G. with the double hand wave.
And you know you're still in the Wild West if this is one of your claims to fame:
The Legendary Tom Horn, the last man to be legally hanged in Cheyenne. Of course you know the end of the parade is near when you hear the rumble of the Historic John Deere Tractors.
Standing is Cousin A. with her "little" brother C. out front. Little is in quotes because he's freakishly tall.
After the parade, it's time for the rodeo. The Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is known as The Grandaddy of 'em All, and is the largest outdoor rodeo in the US. Sis got us tickets to the days events which were mostly qualifying rounds.
Luckily this cute little guy wasn't in the arena getting his hooves tied.
I enjoyed the rodeo, but there were aspects that were hard to watch such as what they do to the horses and the bulls to get them to buck and the wild horse race. But what was fun to watch was the steer wrestling and team roping. The next day we went back to the fair grounds because friend D wanted to go to Indian Village and watch the dancing demonstrations and take the "behind the chutes" tour. So we wandered around the Old West Town and in and out of all the shops then headed over to Indian Village. We ate Indian Tacos and watched the clouds gather as we watched the dancing.We made our way across the fair grounds, and as we did, it began to sprinkle. Then rain. Then hail, but normal pea sized hail. Then it got bigger, and bigger... and bigger. As we were jogging past the Saloon Stage, the performer whom we later found out was
Michael Martin Murphey, invited everyone on stage with him for protection. So we joined the maybe 40 other people on stage. He kept playing while ladies were jockeying for selfie positions. The hail was now golf ball sized and just kept coming harder and harder. I leaned over to my sister who was huddled in the back because she didn't have a jacket and said, "your poor car".
Shoulders were shrugged. There wasn't anything we could do, so might as well enjoy the show. Both of them. It got real interesting when a park official interrupted to tell everyone to run to the museum because there's a tornado warning. So we the naive tourists take off. I'm the smart one who wore tennis shoes, got to the museum first carrying a few hail balls in my sweatshirt. Sis arrived next, after decided to save herself after stopping mid way to wait for friend D. Those hail balls hurt when they peg you on the head. Not five minutes after arriving at the museum completely soaked, the so called tornado warning was lifted. We had a long trek to poor SueBee so we waited for the storm to pass and lighten before heading back outside. So we chatted with the museum docent, and went through the gift shop. We got a little lost trying to find SueBee, and ended up walking through the botanical gardens surveying the damage. We eventually find her, luckily no broken windows but she now had dimples. Lots and lots of dimples.
We went back to my Aunt P's house to get dry clothes and lick our wounds, and then over to Grandma's for more wound licking and dinner. Aunt P. said that there was no tornado warning issued by the national weather service. So maybe the event security were playing it safe. Uncle E. who volunteers at Frontier Days said there was only one injury reported. A lady had a head wound from a hail ball direct hit. Sis called her insurance agent about SueBee's hail damage, and his comment was, "Where are you?". It only hails where we live in California maybe once every 5-10 years, and even then it is small and slushy. Aunt P. made the comment that they were about due for a good hail storm. Just another normal summer day in Cheyenne.
more to come
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