Rodeo Time!

Before we left home for our trip, I spent some time looking through some Web sites for things to do while we were in Dillon. On one community calendar, I noticed that the Summit Mountain Community Fair & Rodeo was going to be held the first weekend we were there. It wasn't outrageously expensive, and since the kids had just had the opportunity to ride a horse in Wyoming, we thought they might enjoy watching a rodeo.

So on Saturday evening, we headed over to the rodeo area (not far from where we were staying). For those familiar with the area, the parking was just past the "Red" Outlet stores (Eddie Bauer, etc. -- down from the McDonald's / Office Max, etc. complex) and out where the baseball diamonds are you can see if you look down driving across Dillon Dam Road.

There weren't many people there and we really had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be a fairly small production, and definitly "small-town." But I think everyone had fun.

When we arrived, we found out that the kid play area was free (with the exception of the pony rides, which we didn't do) and if you wanted to go over to the actual rodeo events in the small arena, you would need to pay the entrance fee. So first, we checked out the kid area, since we arrived before the rodeo.

They had some carnival-type games that the kids could win different colored tickets for, and then exchange for little trinkets. They did the bean-bag toss:

McKay's favorite was the balloon darts (he did this several times):

And the local high school cheerleading team had a little table set up for face painting. Not surprisingly, McKay stayed as far away from that table as possible, but Hannah and Courtney were quite willing.

Hannah wanted a butterfly and chose a full-face design from some sample pictures they had (she picked the colors).

Courtney opted for a smaller ladybug on her cheek. (Hayley also didn't want to get her face painted.)

Also in the kid play area, they had several big "blow-up" play areas. There was the traditional bouncing house, but also a big slide:

and a large blow-up castle obstacle course that Hannah and Courtney went through multiple times. (The worst part about this was that the kids had to take off their shoes, so when they got to the end, they would just run back through the dirt to the entrance -- or to another blow-up place -- and their socks got incredibly dirty!)

Hayley wanted to do it, but it seemed kind of hard for her by herself, so McKay tried to help her. It's hard to see through the netting, but here he is trying to help her over one of the walls (she kept slipping). I ended up pulling her out before the end because there was no way she was going to make it up for the final big slide.

They also had a small petting zoo in the kid area that we went in briefly.

The little baby horse had just had a big bottle and was very sleepy -- it was so cute to see it lay down right next to the turtle!

Then it was time to head over to the rodeo area. We decided to go ahead and pay the entrance fee to see the rodeo events. We initially found some seats on the bleachers on the far side of the area, but it was right in the sun, so we ended up going back around to the area they referred to as the "dog pound" (not sure why!) which were some bleachers up a little hill with a higher view and most importantly in the shade.

We got there in time to see some of the initial "shows" before the actual rodeo. They had a group of teenagers doing various types of trick riding, as well as some "precision" teams (not as exciting as the trick riding). In this picture, the performers are each standing on two horses, "Roman" style.

McKay and I left briefly to drive over to Burger King and bring back some dinner for everyone while we waited (we wondered if they would object to our bringing in outside food, but they didn't have a problem with it).

There ended up being a fair amount of waiting time before the rodeo and the kids got a little restless waiting. They played with their toy trucks from their Kid's Meals, but kept dropping them down through the bleachers and then trying to retrieve them (Courtney got a big scrape on her leg doing this).

A little side story -- just before the rodeo was going to start, I took all the kids to find the port-a-pottys. Hannah was running and when she went from dirt to an asphalt section, she tripped and skinned her knee so it started bleeding. She is one to really freak out when she bleeds (even a tiny amount), so she was going nuts on me. I sent McKay back to the seats with the other girls and set off to see if I could find a first aid station. We walked around the arena to the other side and saw an ambulance, so we went over and asked them if they were the first aid. They said they were indeed and would be happy to help us. So Hannah and I got to climb in the back of the amublance while the paramedic searched for a small band-aid (at first all he could find were big pieces of gauze -- where's a little band-aid when you need one?). At one point, he was trying to be funny and asked Hannah if he should cut her leg off at the knee or the ankle. She really freaked out (you have to be careful sometimes what you say to her!) and the poor guy immediately back-pedaled with lots of "I'm just kidding!" As we were patching her up, we heard them start the announce the start of the rodeo and Hannah got all upset that she was missing it. I assured her it hadn't actually started yet and we did manage to make it back to our seats in time. (I think she was expecting some kind of big horse race because she kept asking us when the race was going to start.)

Back to the rodeo... here is McKay with the arena below as the riders warmed up (he is standing at the edge of the hill area where we were sitting).

Finally, the rodeo events started. And, it was definitely a small-town rodeo! Brian and I both got a chuckle over the size of the rodeo and caliber of the riders. For several events, they only had two or three participants and most of the time, the riders couldn't even complete they event (they would miss their lasso of the steer, etc.). Here is a picture from one of the bucking bronco riders:

In the end, the kids enjoyed it but not enough to last the full two hours (especially Hayley). :-) Hayley had a hard time sitting on the bleachers and just wouldn't stay put. So we left early -- probably about an hour into the actual rodeo (we had been there quite a while already) and called it a night!