Western Wonders

Aaron Copland once wrote a classical music work in four pieces about the rodeo. Too bad he he ain't in charge of music no more. Just kidding. I believe it was Wednesday last we found ourselves at Reliant Stadium again. Never had I been to a rodeo before, and the stadium was the show only. You know the buildings that contained the car show a few weeks earlier? That was converted into makeshift mini- stables almost as far as the eye could see for calfs, lambs, sheep, the odd-llama like critter or two, and definitely steer plus cattle. It was kind of an understatement to call that area "crowded." But that's beside the point. That's what Texas is famous for: rodeos, and I'd never seen one; until now. Figure on it's taking me 18 years to see me get to my first rodeo and official rodeo fair, so allow me to cross that off my list.
On the way up the steps in said stadium, I was a handed a list of the series of events that were going to happen that night. Not knowing what was going to occur, but just trying to get out and stretch my legs, and went on my merry way.
The show had already started by about five minutes by the time we found our seats. There were many events: such as double roping, barrell racing, bronco busting etc. along with some of the shows in the breaks: wagon racing, lamb-tying, and for the mini- me's among us, lamb-busting. It all ended with a country western concert. Our threesome went outside to the carnival, and boy, did it look like Six Flags Arlington, only smaller, but it was pretty long, I'll give it that. The whole thing ran around both the now defunct Astrodome, and the Reliant Center. After we had walked ALL the way around it, we went back in the aforementioned buildings where they supposedly kept the livestock, only to be kept at the doors, for it was feeding time for the critters by then. By then, 10 pm , everyone was heading into the sunset (figure of speech)so we'd figure we would too. It would've been great to have seen the animals, but it wasn't a requirement. I got out of the house, and they got dinner, so we both won that night. You know, I'm getting to know the area around the Reliant Center pretty well. What do you think that one day I'll find my way down there sleepwalking? Now that would be a story worth a' tellin!