Saturday/ Sunday Serpentine & Rodeo

>Saturday at the rodeo I was much more relaxed. I had a chance to work off some energy with my horse by trotting and loping in the ditch. Dayton does not have any place to warm your horse up during the big rodeo and nobody is allowed in the arena until it begins. I have also been giving my horse peace cookies. I don’t know if it helps, but it sure can’t hurt. The crowd was gigantic for the Saturday night show. There wasn’t much grass showing on the hill. It was a great night and serpentine went much better for me. I actually enjoyed myself. I was a bit nervous about event flags. Jayden and I were running flags tonight and do every other night. This entails running a sponsor flag in a larger fast circle in the arena between events. Jayden was worried as she had to run a flag after barrels when the barrels were set up. Tex did just fine for her. I ran my flag after team roping when there was a steer in the arena. I think Traveler was excited and thought he was going to chase that steer. I had someone else run my flag for bulls so I could get my horse to the trailer before fireworks. For such a big rodeo, they have very few contestants actually ride in the rodeo. 6 per event and all the others run in slack. The entertainment was the Wild Child act. It is very neat, but I have seen it so many times and so many years, I have the act memorized. After 4 nights of the exact same skit, it really isn’t that funny anymore. You would think they could at least change up the jokes a bit. I parked my trailer for the night so I could tie horses without them facing the fireworks. I think that helped Traveler a lot, not seeing them in the sky made him less jumpy. 

Sunday, we knew what to expect and we knew what was coming. It was on the news all day that we would have severe thunderstorms around 7 PM, rodeo time. Our team gathered before the rodeo to discuss the plan. I was a bit upset with the plan. A year ago there was nasty weather with tornado sirens going off and crazy lightning and rain. A tornado did hit in our Dayton farm just east of town. The rodeo never stopped or even delayed. Tonight they mentioned that the rodeo committee was upset last year because the girls did not carry their event flags. What!?!! The plan for the night is even in severe weather to run event flags. I said,” so it is ok to get sucked up in a tornado, but it is not ok to not run flags.” Everyone laughed, but basically that is the case. Rodeo people are crazy!! The rodeo started with dark clouds rolling in. Serpentine went just fine with sprinkles starting. Boyd the rodeo announcer began speeding things up and we had to run on our horses from the east gate to the north gate with sponsor flags. Normally we could trot and had time to wait at the gate. Not tonight, we barely got to the gate at a run and they were calling our name. I was so glad Jayden and I were not up to carry event flags for the night. I think I would have declined carrying flags if the weather got ugly. The safety of my child, myself, and my horses comes before the rodeo. By 7:30 there was a light steady rain. Autographs were cancelled and we were done for the night. Mark and Jake came to the rodeo to help us if the weather got bad and he took the horses on home. The farther he drove towards home, the heavier the rain got and closer the lightning. He ended up pulling in the arena for awhile. The lightning was so close and so frequent it was scary. Jayden and I wanted to stay for barrel racing and see Fallon Taylor run. Last year we had to miss her run due to the severe weather and tornado, we left early. It was pouring rain and we were both soaked by this time. 3 barrel racers ran, then a section of the power went out. There was one back up light working. The barrel racers wanted to keep the rodeo going, so ran in the dark. Fallon ran in the rain and the dark, but we saw her run. She also parked by our trailer that night, so we got to talk to her a little before the rain. We never did get a photo with her. Soaked and feeling like a mess, we drove home. It was bad for us too. At one point I could not see the road from the heavy rain. The lightning was scary. We stopped at Karen and Orries for a little bit hoping the rain would let up. The storm seemed to never end. It rained a lot overnight. What a night!