“First’s” are always awkward. No matter how you might prepare for it there seems to always be a feeling…
First parades and rodeos!
“First’s” are always awkward. No matter how you might prepare for it there seems to always be a feeling of “wait… what?” tumbled in with the excitement. Either it is a first date or the first day of school, everyone wants to just squish the butterflies dancing in their bellies.
The Wild Rouge Pro Rodeo wasn’t just my first rodeo as Miss Rodeo Oregon but it was Nike’s first rodeo also. If you don’t know who Nike is, he is my 5 year old sorrel American Quarter Horse. I bought him in the fall and have been working with him for the past couple months. He has a really good mind so I didn’t worry a whole bunch about him. When my mother and I arrived at the fairgrounds and started to set the trailer up we both realized that we did not have the correct connector for the plug-in. I had to get ready for the sponsor dinner so lets just say I was a little frustrated at myself. I gave Stacy Binder, Miss Wild Rouge Pro Rodeo, a call and asked if she had one or could go buy one for us. Luckily she is a really nice person and brought my mother and me one within an hour. After I had gotten ready the rodeo put on a sponsor dinner to give thanks to the many businesses and individuals who had helped fund the rodeo. It was a great event and should be a staple at every rodeo. The next day, for some reason, I had lost my voice and started to sound like a frog. Luckily we had a radio interview so no one found out that I had swallowed Kermit. The first performance was that evening and I have to admit that I was pretty nervous. I knew that Nike was a really smart horse and not spooky at all but this was a full rodeo and he had never been introduced to that atmosphere at all. To my delight he was the best horse in the arena! He loped in, stood during the National Anthem and loped out of the arena. With that bit of stress out of the way I allowed myself to totally enjoy the rodeo. It was a great performance. Everyone was just having a total ball! The second performance was just the same! Filled with fun and rodeo joy.
Before I left for my next event, Stacy Binder and her family invited me to an outdoor family dinner. It was so nice to get to know the rodeo queen and her family. After my mother and I said our goodbyes, we loaded my trusty steed into our sponsor ridden horse trailer and set off for St. Paul for their annual trail ride! I had never participated in the event and was so excited for it.
What is interesting about my mother and I traveling together is that something ALWAYS goes wrong… or at least, is very interesting. When we pulled into the St. Paul rodeo grounds we drove into the field that we generally park in. what we didn’t know was that it had been raining very hard for the past couple days and that the field was a literal swamp! So it goes to say that we got stuck in the mud. But we weren’t the only ones begging for a tractor, about eleven other horse trailers were stranded also. When everything had settled down, I was able to enjoy the trail ride. I tell everyone that the St. Paul area is beautiful and being apart of the trail ride didn’t disappoint me at all! The surrounding area is lush and prolific. Its full of hops fields and flowers.
After this eventful weekend I allowed myself to relax for a day or two and then started really packing and cleaning for the next month to come. As everyone knows, this is Oregon rodeo season!
The next weekend is known as the “Weekend of NO sleep!” For a Miss Rodeo Oregon this is a true test of strength and organization. On Thursday I packed up a small rental car and headed to Union, Oregon for the Eastern Oregon Live Stock Show. This is a rodeo I definitely advise everyone attend. The view from the grandstands is amazing! Steve Kenyon was the announcer which made for a wonderful reunion; he had been one of the announcers for when I was participating in h.s. rodeo. When I rounded my last corner I jumped back into my car and drove to Portland for the Rose Festival Floral Parade. I have the best parents; while I was in Union they picked up my horse Kobus and hauled him to Portland.
Rose Parade morning is hectic and exciting! Everyone is trying to get ready while being rubber-neckers to check out the other flower packs. I had the honor of being able to use the same horse I used for the Cherry Festival Parade for this parade also. A personal friend, Kelly Kauffman-Cole, got him all cleaned up. He was impressive when I pulled him out of the trailer. Getting ready for the parade made me feel like I was in the pit at a Nascar race! Everyone had a job and did what they could to make everything go smoothly. I am a person of themes and it was no difference when it came to this parade. I chose to represent the Tough Enough To Wear Pink program. Bry Taylor made a beautiful flower pack that consisted of roses and breast cancer ribbons. She even went as far as to put ribbons in his mane which he ate and played with as soon as I got him in the parade. I am lucky to report that I was honored to have won the first place trophy in the State or Regional Queen Category.
Sometimes my intelligence surprises me… this also goes for my inability to pay attention sometimes. While we were all getting ready for the parade I made the wonderful mistake of locking my keys in the trunk of my rental car… I know, smart and swift! For the most part I was cool, calm and collected but when I realized that I might be late for the second performance of the Sisters Rodeo I got nervous. This was when Stacy Binder’s handy boyfriend came to my rescue and broke into my car! I was so happy, I actually thought that I might’ve had to call a tow truck and forego the rodeo.
The Sisters Rodeo is one of the rodeos I had been looking forward to all year. I was surprised at the location of the rodeo grounds. It was tucked into the trees of the Sisters area. Due to some unforeseen circumstances I was not able to bring my trusty steed Nike to the rodeo but I had the chance to use one of the pickup men’s horses. This is another funny story, when I walked up to the pickup man and asked for a horse, he said “Well, let me see… You can ride Lucifer.” To me honest, I asked him again what his name was and then looked at the long line of horses tied to his trailer. He then said. “He’s the one on the end.” I walked down there and realized that I was going to be riding a giraffe! This horse so lovingly named Lucifer was 17.2 hands! It was the biggest horse I had ever ridden. Luckily he was a really good run-in horse. He was fast… well he was large enough and took big enough steps that he looked fast and he stood in the middle of the arena so I was pretty happy.
This section of rodeo was so much fun! I was able to get myself started on the rodeo season and I was able to meet so many of the people who put on the rodeos. Thank you everyone for making my first few rodeos a great success!
