Living the Dream with Joyce: Monday, March 16, 2015

Rodeo day! I spent last night at Luanne's house and today we went to the Houston Rodeo! Not at all what I expected: I've been to the equivalent of rodeos in Australia, and they've been all about the competition events - bull riding, calf roping, bronco busting, etc.- but this was a full day of livestock observation, plus hog showings and then, at 6:45p.m., rodeo events lasting two hours, followed by a concert starring Dierks Bentley. Luckily, we didn't arrive until around 2:00 p.m. and spent a few hours wandering around, looking at the baby animals, the cattle, the stores selling leather good, and the pig showings. The pigs were actually quite fascinating - kids from 4H clubs and YFA (Young Farmers of America) had raised pigs and walked them around a ring, while judges observed and picked winners, based on sale-ability. The judges had a vocabulary all their own, with which they judged the amount of meat on each pig. The winning pigs would be auctionned off this coming Friday. I would think that this would be kind of hard on the kids who had raised them, but a parent in the stands assured us that that was not the case - the kids understood the whole process . . .
The rodeo itself was great - although our seats were in the nosebleed section, thus making our view less than optimal!! Concert was the same story. There were a number of huge screens hanging from the ceiling, however, so it was definitely possible to see everything close up.