Wednesday 20 May 2015

A Day out at the Cloverdale Rodeo & Country Fair



Howdy y'all!
Two years ago The Best Man of All and I stood in line to watch our first ever rodeo show together. Two years ago all tickets were gone by the time we reached the booth.

This year, thanks to a media pass, I got full access to the show!
This is me, with another man: My buddy JR, aka Justin Ruscheinski, photographer extraordinaire! (note: the photos you are about to see are all courtesy of Justin)!


And what a show it was!

Talk about high calibre performance! Everything from tear jerking National anthems,


 stupid clowning around (yep, not a huge fan of clowns),



barrel racing

to brave men on bucking horses and bulls, this show had it all.





You might think the folks over at Cirque du Soleil have all the right moves, rodeo cowboys are a breed of their own. They are as flexible as any circus gymnast.
Most of us were sitting at the edge of our seat during the rodeo/bull riding performances.
The guy next to me shook his head in disbelief! Over and over again he told me: "This can't be good for your body!"
Sure it's not, but so isn't Ultra marathon running through the Grand Canyon either.
Or wanting to beat the Guinness Book of World Record in pie eating!


It comes down to passion, living the dream or even wanting to win the prize money. At Cloverdale's Rodeo & Country Fair, the amount was $38.000!

The rule of a rodeo is simple to follow:
Stay on your horse as long as possible (for 8 seconds to be precise)!
Hold on with one hand only!
If you fall off get up and run!
Run as fast as possible away from the bucking horse!
Your life depends on it!
Simple!

The rodeo in Cloverdale is the second biggest in all of Canada. Only The Calgary Stampede is bigger!

And yep, I am happy we only drove 35 minutes to get here.
The Fair is OK, still it's a fair. You either love one or you don't!
I love the notion of "been to one, been to all."
But then I've never seen this before, how genius!


It's all about too country for me! But then, I really, really loved the rodeo.
Does that mean there is a bit of Redneck running through my Germanic veins?