Just the opposite, my friends. It was some serious competition! Danger! Excitement! Fried food! Exclamation points!!!
The presentation of the Anmerican, Illinois, ILGRA, rainbow, and Canadian flags started the ceremony, followed by the ceremony of the riderless horse.
The first event was calf roping, but the setup wasn't great for taking pictures, so we didn't take many. Chute dogging, where contestants try to wrestle a biggish calf to the ground and have the nose and all four feet pointing the same way at the end, was really exciting.
And far away!
There was calf roping on horseback:
We were sort of worried it would rain, but we ended up getting pretty badly sunburnt afterall. Stupid lack of sunscreen...
And we'd have felt better if we'd had one of these:
I think we were some of the only people there without cowboy hats. Next year we'll dress differently...tight Wranglers and western shirts with a hot stetson and cowboy boots. Mmhmm. We'd fit right in.
The Chicago Spirit Brigade was there, too.
Come on! It WAS a gay rodeo, after all.
Our favorite event was goat dressing, where to people run down the field and catch a goat. One of them lifts ist rear legs and the other tried to put a pair of briefs on the goat. They have to stay on the goat until the team makes it back across the starting line. Very fun!
The goats didn't agree, I think...
But the horses...they got a few words in.
They were pretty rowdy, actually. One lady almost got trampled, and I swear a guy got his balls stomped...but he got up. I guess it was just a close call.
About halfway through, we went and saw the Windy City Cowboys perform. And boy did they!
They looked great in their boots and hats and matching shirts.
And they could move! Granted, they danced to These Boots Are Made For Walkin' (the Jessica Simpson version...ugh), but they were HOT.
This photo is having issues loading, but we'll see if it shows up...
If not, oh well...just a hot shot of them pointing their fingers like guns.
The last event of the day was what they called the "wild drag race".
Guys dressed accordingly (this is "The Church Lady") had to ride a young bull across a line on the field, which sounds easy but was very, very difficult.
We got to see a lot of big wigs in the dirt. So funny!
After all was said and done, people retired to the dancing tent, where they were playing two steppers.
We watched some drama unfold, watched some cowboys get all sweaty on the dance floor, and wished we could dance. Even Happy Jack (bottom photo, back) got a spin around the floor by a really hot cowpoke.
It was a really great day, and despite being a little nervous abuot going, I'm glad we went. It was so much fun! If you're interested, www.ilgra.com is the place to be.
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3 comments:
Wow! That did look fun and I love 'drag racing'.
oh, man, i wish i could've been there!
I wish you could have been, too. They had a cowboy there who had no use of his bottom legs. He was in a wheelchair and still was riding and roping using all his upper body strength. It was pretty neat to see that his disability didn't have anything to do with his success.
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