Rodeo Old Fort Days

I was up until 2am packing and getting ready for the rodeo then up at 6am to get ready to go... Those sleep hours seem to be becoming an unfortunate trend but it's worth it! I was so excited about Rodeo Old Fort Days and seeing some of my rodeo friends that I didn't care much about the lack of sleep. I didn't plan on bringing Shiloh because I didn't want him to be in the way. I went inside to grab another load of things to put in my truck and returned to find that Shiloh and jumped over the tailgate into the
truck! He was not going to be left behind. His love is so perfect. On my way out I met with one of my sponsors, The Dusty Rose Boutique, to pick up the most comfortable boots I've ever worn and some very adorable jewelry. Then headed to the tire shop to get a stud put in my trailer tire but they didn't have to time get to it... So Ft. Smith Bound it was!


I got Max settled and parked the trailer then got ready for the Mayors Luncheon. During the lunch, the contestants answered impromptu questions and did a bit of modeling. We had a delicious meal and a wonderful time of mingling and catching up with everyone. I had the pleasure of rooming with the 2014 Miss Rodeo Arkansas State Fair, Beth Barnett, and we definitely made some great memories! The girls all signed autographs at Roland Farm and Feed Supply before the performance. The rodeo had a great turn out! After the rodeo I took care of Max and headed back to the trailer and as I walking up to the door Stephanie comments "Oh I thought you were rooming with Beth." "I am" I said. She replies, "Umm that's definitely the next trailer down." I'm going to blame that on the fact that it was dark and about 12:30pm.

Signing Autographs! Are you tough enough to wear pink??

Our camper didn't have any warm water. I'm not a baby about many things but a cold shower is one thing I can barely stand. But the sport of rodeo is a family event..  I trudged on over to the Stamp's camper and took a speedy shower in the dark. I hung out for a while and visited with the talented Mrs. Sherry Smith and Riki Smith then Katie came in to practice her speech and ask for some pointers. That's the part of I love about rodeo.. everyone is willing to lend a helping hand to one another. Anyways, after having hairspray caked hair covered in dirt and sweat, it is always so nice to get cleaned off. The light in the bathroom didn't work but there was some light coming through the window. Just enough for me to realize that what I thought was my travel size conditioner, that I just lathered in my hair, was actually makeup remover... Yep, I managed to pack makeup remover for conditioner! I can tell you that makeup remover does not remove remove tangles. Thankfully the pageant has wonderful sponsors and we were given Cowboy Magic shampoo and conditioner so when I got back to my camper I smeared some in my hair to help get rid of the rats nest that had formed in my hair throughout the day! Beth and I stayed up chatting and then called it a night around 2 am!

6am came soon but Shiloh and I were up and around to clean out Max's stall, wash him down, and feed and water him. Thankfully the weather wasn't 100 degrees but the humidity from the rain made the stalls stuffy so I wanted to get him cooled down. After getting him cared for I got myself ready so Beth and I headed to the fashion show. Of course her phone brings us through the ghetto and we thought we'd just stop for breakfast.. of course there is no sign of any food so we have to drive out the way to a Burger King where my cup of oatmeal was more like water!

The fashion show was loads of fun and every girl nailed their speeches!! We concluded by several of us meeting up at Logan's for a wonderful lunch! I thought I was going to go back to the camper and take a nap but Harper Stadium was wide open and Max had never ran a flag before so I rode for a good hour or more and Maximus did wonderful!

 That night while signing autographs in the stands, a group boys came up and one said "Your shirt is BEEAAUUTiful! And you're sooo pretty." Needless to say I hung out there for a while chatting and answering questions. They were so priceless!

What a great weekend it was in Ft. Smith Arkansas! And I didn't even get lost!! I made it to a rodeo with no mishaps! But I spoke to soon. With sleepy eyes I pulled into the drive and back up my trailer to hear a screeching sound and smelled something burning. Which turned out to my rear right trailer wheel bearing, u-joint and break! My guardian angel was watching out because if we would have gone another mile. I believe it would have flew off because that is exactly what happened when Nathan and Drew were taking it to the shop the next day. It could have been a bad a ordeal. And while I'm still trailer-less a week later... everyone was safe and sound and I have some great friends who are willing to loan a trailer. I don't know how I manage or how I end up being so blessed but I do!

Live life to it's fullest and love every chance that you get!!

First Rodeo of the Spring!

We should have warned Springfield, MO we were on the way! Rikki and I left my house Saturday morning  for our first Horsefest and Ozark Empire Rodeo experience. A Starbucks stop and we hit the road, right on our target time. 

At the fairground, we checked out the booths and bought a few accessories that we really didn't need.. of course ultimately spent more on our horses than ourselves. The first seminar started at 1; so we thought we'd be ahead of the game and found our seats thirty minutes early for what we thought was the Horse Nutrition seminar but then we noticed the presenters bringing a saddled horse and tarps into the presentation arena... now why on earth would you need that to teach nutrition? You don't. We found out from the people next to us that the seminar we were hoping for was clear on the other side of the next hall. We learned quite a bit from Dr. Marty Adams about Animal Nutrition for Insulin Resistant and Older horses then broadened our horizons by listening to Nancie Boland about aroma therapy for horses to heal pains and ailments. 

After the seminars we plugged in the address to the much talked about PFI Western Store and our phone GPS tried to take us... who knows where. After some much debated map reading we ended up at our destination expecting to be taken aback by the 18,000 square feet of everything country... but much to our disappointment; most of the prices were unjustifiable for two frugal gals. When you're getting paid by the hour, you look at a $80 shirt and think... I'd have to work a full day plus some just for this shirt. A little let down, we plugged in JR's Western Store in our phone hoping to kill time by shopping but ended up at Springfield's finest.. "R dw od Mo el"  Maybe Redwood Motel? Half the letters were missing and the place very dilapidated and on a rather scary part of town so gave up our quest to find bargains and headed back to the fairgrounds to get ready for the rodeo.

The house was packed at the rodeo! I quickly ran out of autograph sheets so I soon had go to the car to restock. Rikki was up in the stands so I motioned for her to toss me the keys. She tossed and they went right through my hands to land 2 inches in front of a 2000 pound bull inside the bucking shoot! I saw our ride home flash before my eyes.. thinking "this bull is going to step on the keys, bend them and we're stranded in Springfield." Oh and to make it better, it's my mom's car we are driving. THANKFULLY one of the bull riders noticed and got a hook to strategically grab the keys out from under the bull.

The rodeo wrapped up around 11 and we got to hang out with Lecile Harriss afterwards! Our combined indecisiveness is bad. After our GPS tried to encourage us to I-44 East instead of West we pull off at Walmart to find food. Even though we really wanted something warm, we thought it would be quicker just to grab something. It took at least 30 minutes to find our food, in that we could have had a sit down dinner at IHop. With Walmart dinner and a McDonald's coffee stop, we headed out. Nearing Joplin, we pulled off for gas. The GPS must have got confused because within 30 minutes we had to do 3 U-turns, back track 4 times and re-track twice only to end up back at the gas station. That's when we decided to follow road signs. Genius Idea! If I were to go into every small predicament we faced that day this article would be twice as long. We have the ability to laugh about our mess-ups... we laughed a lot that day. We came to the decision that on our next excursion we're printing out directions to every stop we plan to make, the weekend before and start memorizing them! 

I'll update soon on my other recent activities. Until next time... Happy Trails!

Change of Plans

I woke up with a set plan of action to conquer the day. The game plan: load queen clothes and accessories, pick up horse blanket from my best friends, pick up chaps from Robby, hitch trailer, load Max, arrive early with plenty of time to settle and warm up Max and chit chat with contestants. The reality: a quite different story. It started off right on track and with a perk! Nathan took off work early to drive me to Little Rock so I don't have to do so alone. Despite truck key switch ups and daily to dos interfering  we hit the road at 3pm thinking we'll get there just on time. 

All was going smooth until we hit Russellville. Good Ole RussVegas. Let me add, I went to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, AR for two years and NEVER witnessed traffic on I-40. Never. We sat at a standstill for 45 minutes. Provided, it did give plenty of time to do makeup and get ready. We attempted to relieve the tension by singing crazy songs really loud... but eventually I had to face it. We were going to drive three hours and not get to do a queens run. I called the pageant director to let her know I would probably be late and got exciting news that due to an added performance, the queens runs got pushed back to 7:45! 

Upon arrival, I did a quick and calm tack up. Threw on my sash and hat and trotted Max around for about 10 minutes. Not long enough. We got to the coliseum just in time but Mr. Max was not a fan. He's never been road indoors before and the noise seemed to echo. He started trying to buck before our run but then did not even want to lope! He just got all bunched like a balloon ready to pop! I got him to finish out with a decent run but he was not happy. 

During the PBR I had the privilege of visiting with the five talented young ladies vying for the title of Miss Rodeo Arkansas State Fair as well as the current queen. And of course, did some autograph signing and photo taking. After the performance, I rode Max in the coliseum for a good forty five minutes. When we were finished, he was drenched but still had white in his eye because he was still on edge. I gave him a long cool down and walked him a round a while outside because it was pretty cool. 

We arrived home at 3am. The last 30 minutes of the haul were brutal! Loud music, windows down, our eyes were still slamming but we had one more rodeo under our belts and wrapped up the fall season. Now to practice, practice, practice until the spring rodeo season!

 

The Good... The Bad, The Ugly

"The Good:" Yesterday morning Nathan and I went to Rush Springs Ranch (visit my awesome sponsor's website: http://www.rushspringsranch.com/) to check out the "Down n Dirty" fest sponsored by Pit Bull Power Sports of Springfield. Of course some vendor looking and mudding was in store but I was ready to get back to the horse barn. I put Maximus on some calves for the first time and unsurprisingly he is was a natural! Max and I seem to be getting more in tune with every ride; even though we have a long way to go, it feels nice to know we've also come a long way.


Getting ready for the Harrison PRCA rodeo, I had two of the best helpers a girl could ask for!! They even helped hairspray my curls... I think my hair could have withstood a hurricane. The real trick was finding all of my accessories when it was time to leave! Our plan was to leave at 3pm and we were pulling out of the driveway at 2:55! Took a gorgeous scenic route down HWY 90, stopped in Eureka for lunch (and to do some serious people watching, since BBBQ is going on) then got back on the road. Ahhh yes.... 73 degrees, running right on time and so ready to rodeo. Of course that was too good to be true. 

We managed to pass the entrance to the rodeo grounds and had to pull off to get turned around and somehow chose the one parking lot with a steep entrance, NO turn around and a HUGE drop off on the side. That's "The Bad." In front of the parking lot was a decent sized, flat, piece of grass so we decide to pull up to attempt a U turn.. In a 25ft horse trailer and a common rail, that's not the easiest. Started to do some backing then heard a crrruuuunnnchhhh. I already knew what it was but was hesitant to turn around and look... Yep, the trailer jack knifed and shattered the left side of the rear glass in the truck. Let's just say that the next 10 minutes was "The Ugly" and leave it at that. The short trek to the correct entrance was a silent one.

Thankfully, it was back to "The Good." After the situation cooled off, Nathan's first words were, "Well, I hope that makes your blog." Since it was in a monotone voice, I didn't answer because I wasn't sure if it was supposed to funny, serious or if he was still mad. But in my head I'm thinking, there is no way that's not going in my blog. Maybe one day, we'll go to a rodeo and things will be smooth (knock on wood). Miss Rodeo Old Fort Days, Jessica Stamps, pulled in beside us. We got our horses and ourselves ready then headed to check in. 

We met up with Teen Miss Rodeo Arkansas 2014, Caitlin Jacobs, and Rodeo Old Fort Days Princess, Ashton. Max did his best queens run yet! Followed by pushing cows at a rodeo for his first time! He was a bit anxious and ancy about the noise from the shoots. His eyes and ears were glued to the cowboy and the calf as they roped or wrestled but when it was time to do his job, he did it well. I couldn't be happier with his performance because it's so much to take in and he is such a champ. The rest of the night was smooth sailing. Peanut Butter Kettle Corn and some pretty serious air guitar turned the night into an overall success!

Live. Love. Rodeo. 

Lessons Learned

Remember Madison County rodeo a few weeks ago? We learned to always allow an extra couple of hours when doing thing that involve horses. Good thing I took that lesson into consideration when heading to Vinita on Friday!

Our goal was to head to pick up Jessica (my friend and 2013 Miss Rodeo Old Fort Days) at 3:00pm. I woke up knowing that my horse trailer had a board loose and my boyfriend was planning to fix it while I was at class. I pull in at 2:45 to Nathan completely frustrated because after 3 drill bits down and a couple hours of trying… the board was NOT getting fixed that day. I got Max ready and loaded him in the second half of the trailer. Needless to say it was a quiet drive to Jessica’s because we were both irritated. Him - from messing with the trailer. I – from running late… again. One of my biggest pet peeves is not being on time.

Thankfully Jessica had a trailer we could borrow. Our plan B was to hitch up to her trailer with Nathan’s truck… of course, the ball on his truck was wrong the size. On top of that, we discovered that I did not unhook the trailer lights from underneath the gooseneck and when we turned it tore every fiber from my trailer light hookup. Great. Now with one lightless trailer and the wrong hitch… we had a pretty a good idea where things were headed.

Jessica’s dad was kind enough to let us borrow his truck! After getting hitched and moving things from one truck to another we hit the road around 4:30. Twenty minutes into the drive the tack room door flew open (even though it was locked!), so we stopped and closed it. Thirty minutes later it was open again! It happened seven times! Thankfully, we had our fix it man, Nathan, and he tied a ratchet strap to a horse tie on the trailer and latched down the door.

So the truck thermostat may have been a bit off...
but it felt like 134 degrees!

We arrived at 6:15. Warmed up the horses, our poor boys were drenched with sweat in no time. We changed in the truck with A/C. We had the privilege of meeting several other queens, including the reining junior and Miss Will Rogers Memorial Rodeo, Junior Miss Rodeo Oklahoma and Miss 101 Rodeo. During the queens runs, the current queens had to do a run and a half then continue to a second gate so that they can push cows later… Jessica and I were under the impression we

were to do the same thing.  As I approached the gate that they exited, people started pointed and yelling “no keep going!” So we got to do double queens runs! All we could do was laugh because we were the only ones out in the arena as we finished our runs and the announcer played “How bout them Cowgirls” over the system. Maximus’ first queens run was a success. He was very controlled, now we just have to work on speed! After cooling off our horses, we signed all of our autograph sheets plus a few hats and boots in about 30 minutes because the kids were so ecstatic that we were there.

My favorite thing is meeting eyes with a child who really wants to talk with you but is too shy. I love when they decide to open up and before too long, it's hard to find a stopping point in the conversation because the kid is so excited about rodeo. I hope to help make kids' first rodeo experience a memory; because often times that memory can turn into tradition. And tradition is what rodeo is all about.