Rodeo

Last night, Bob and I and a business associate and wife trekked west to the Houston Rodeo at Reliant Stadium. The place is huge. Makes the Civic Arena (home to the Pittsburgh Penguins and countless concerts) look like a high school gymnasium. Over 65,000 people in attendance last night. I saw enough cowboy hats and boots to fill a silo. And the rodeo goes on for three weeks. Big name entertainers, mostly country, every night. Colorful carnival outside the stadium, on-going livestock show, petting zoo, shopping, etc. Till Bob got out of work later than he anticipated, and we met our friends in Beaumont, drove through Houston traffic, found a parking spot, and grabbed a bite to eat, we missed most of the rodeo. We saw a bit of bull riding on the TV screen in the long concession stand line. We saw some barrel riding and calf roping. But the surely the rodeo highlight had to be the "Mutton Bustin." Check it out here. I found this clip on youtube, it wasn't from last night. Please know that the kids last night wore protective vests and helmets. So funny -- the kid who won last night, the one who held on the longest, came out on a sheep that, instead of bolting out of the gate, practically crawled, then mosied over to the other sheep, as if it didn't know what it was supposed to do. Didn't seem quite fair, but nonetheless entertaining.

I wasn't terribly disappointed about missing most of the rodeo. The family and I went to a rodeo here in Lake Charles a couple years ago, and I thought then once was enough. The real reason I wanted to go was to see one of my favorite bands, Lady Antebellum. As you can see from the photo below, we couldn't see them all that well, but they sounded great. Fun show. Here's my favorite song. They didn't play it; too mellow for a rowdy rodeo crowd, I guess.