Rooster Days Rodeo... NOT carnival

A huge thank you to Steve Smith for the hauling truck!!

In preparation for this trip I printed out and got everything together the night before so there would, hopefully be nothing to worry about. I finished my final at noon and with excitement of the semester being completed, rushed home to finish loading and headed to pick up Miss Rodeo Old Fort Days, Jessica Stamps. I am so thankful that we live only a short 15 minutes away so it's super easy haul together. Right on track, we head toward Broken Arrow, OK around 2:45. It's meant to be an hour and 45 minute drive... it didn't quite turn out to be like that.

We discovered that Jessica's and my own inability to give directions or quite frankly follow signs is a terrible combination. We somehow make it to Broken Arrow Oklahoma around 4:30, just in time for rush hour traffic. At that point, we became a bit skeptical of our printed directions, so we pull off of the interstate to a gas station to ask for directions. Jessica asks how to get to the rodeo and the clerk confidently answers by giving directions, complete with road names and approximations of the distance to go before each turn. Glad to know that we were only 20 minutes away, we follow our directions and soon arrive at a steeet lined with cars and people mingling. We ask a traffic directing police officer where contestant parking is and he quickly replies he doesn't know and motions for us to continue on. We stop to ask an official looking guy the same thing. He has no idea. So we make turn and see a couple of police officers blocking a road to ask where the rodeo parking was. Their response... "Rodeo? What Rodeo?" After spending some time on their radio's we discover that the rodeo grounds were 18 miles in the direction we just came from!! The lady who gave us directions sent us to Rooster Days Carnival!

We defeatedly gave in and decide to give in and plug the address into our phones. Which takes us in the general direction of the rodeo grounds... then spins us in a circle... 3 TIMES!! Because the address we were given was incorrect! Looking for any sign of rodeo, we notice a man in a PT cruiser wearing a cowboy hat that got off on the same exit as us so Jessica says "Follow that man in the cowboy hat!!" It sounded like the best idea and ended up getting us to the rodeo grounds, still with time to spare!

Jessica and I had not been to the Rooster Days Rodeo before but found that it was a much smaller scale than expected. We warmed up our horses then found the dangerous part of rodeos... THE BLING. We were very good though and didn't spend any money (since we just wasted and arm and a leg on diesel to tour Broken Arrow, OK with a horse trailer). We had the pleasure of meeting up with the ACRA queen, Karli Jones. Unfortunately, we did not get do a queens run but pushing cows was a great experience to get our horses out for the first rodeo of many to come. The sound system kept getting static and both of our horses were beside themselves about the noise! But we were glad to have them in the arena to get their nerves settled down, it is so important for a horse to be able to succeed in the arena in any situation. This was Max's third time to EVER push cows and I could not be more proud of him! He was really watching and knew where we were pushing them to after the first time but kept getting a little excited every time the chute would open because he didn't get why he had to wait to chase them. After the rodeo we were treated to sandwiches at the hospitality tent and they seemed to be the best sandwiches ever since neither of us had a chance to grab lunch.

Thankfully we made it out of Broken Arrow with a lot less trouble than we made it in. On our way home we went to drop of Jessica's horse since she is going out of town next week and I had the pleasure of meeting a good friend of hers, Jerry, who was sweet as pie and had so many stories to tell! Unfortunately, we had to wrap up the stories because it was already 1am and I had to up at 6am the next morning. We are on our way, headed through Siloam  when we here loud dragging sound so we turn down the radio and listen closer to see sparks flying off the tire on the trailer. Before we could even get pulled over I was on the phone with my boyfriend, Nathan. I tell him that we had a flat tire and thankfully he heads straight our way. When we get out of the truck in the Walgreens parking lot.. we realize it's not just a flat. It is a straight up blow out! So we unload Max (poor thing didn't know what to think) and pull out our lawn chairs because Nate has a better part of 45 minute drive... or with the way he drives it's more like a 30 minute drive. As we were sitting there, a police officer pulls over and were sure he's going to check on us. NOPE, the man in his uniform and cop car does not even look our way! He gets out, gets a Redbox movie and leaves..We thought it to be  bit strange because wouldn't anyone who sees two young girls with tire blow out, a horse and a dog in the parking lot in town at 1:30am inquire to see if we at least had some help coming? Maybe he didn't see the blow out and thought we were just tired of driving and decided to get comfy at the Walgreens...

Thankfully Nate was to the rescue and put on the spare tire to find the spare, only to find that it was a different size than the others! We didn't have any other option though we went drop off Jessica and finally made it home and unloaded around 3:00am. I can say one thing; rodeo has definitely taught me a lot of "live and learn" experiences!

Let rodeo season begin!
"Ride with passion & Rope your dreams"
2013 Miss Rodeo of the Ozarks
Kelsey Parmenter