Rodeo day today. Tucson Rodeo is on and we have tickets.
However, it started with a cold morning with snow overnight... View from our room.
But weather forecast was for improved weather and it seemed unlikely that yesterday's weather would continue as that was very unusual for Tucson.
The parade started at 9 am, the junior events at 12.30pm and the main action from 2pm, so we decided to first check out Barrio Historico District, a neighbourhood just southwest of downtown that we didn't see yesterday because of the weather and also on the way to the Rodeo Grounds.
We were very glad that we did. The Barrio Historico District neighborhood has lots of beautiful and colorful old mexican homes and businesses. Di is here standing outside an old theatre.
This is the wishing wall where people write down wishes on a piece of paper and stick it into holes in the wall. You are then supposed to light a candle and if the flame is still burning the following morning, your wish apparently will come true.
Good luck with that last one after yesterday's snow and last nights strong winds...
More examples of the beautiful houses...
Meyer Ave seemed to have the bulk of the nice houses.
Even the bars in the front of the windows are artistic...
This row of small dwellings are probably worth a lot of money these days.
After a while, we continued down 6th Ave towards the Rodeo Grounds south of town and just south of I10. The parade was in progress when we arrived.
Not often you see a bunch of cowboys on horses checking out a parade.
And here are two other suspicious looking punters...
It seemed to be a bit of "anything goes" among the parade participants, except motorized vehicles. You walk or it is old fashioned horse power. Here are the Mormons...
And then the parade was over. A flotilla of council trucks drove through the street to clean up the horse leftovers and any other remaining junk. A very smooth organization from what we could tell...
The distant mountains looked great with all the overnight snow.
Of course, all around the parade route there was a party atmosphere, with anything from cowboy hats to tacos on offer. And a mechanical bull for kids...
We picked up our tickets and wandered around the arena. There was another 45 minutes before the action started so the arena itself was very empty.
The unwilling participants await their time in the limelight...
As this is America, all different kinds of products and services were on offer inside the arena compound. We thought that US marines were a good choice for an event like this.
The Marines had a chin up competition with prices to be won. Note also the inflatable "cash cow" behind, for some financial services campaign.
The below was part of an exhibit for the public US Game and Fish.
Then the action kicked off. First off was "mutton busting" where 4-6 years old sat on and were holding onto a sheep. All very cute.
Roping of goats who were tied down with a rope to a pole.
The Tucson Rodeo is GREAT fun.
These girls looked GREAT!
Being a family event, of course there was a clown too, Crash Cooper. Well, we have to admit that he was pretty funny.
We finish off the photo campaign with various rodeo shots...
There were 2 Aussies competing too. One did very well, but the other feel off and had his foot jammed and twisted badly under the beast. He linked off the field pretty badly.
At 4pm, the rodeo was all over, and we went back to University Inn Motel via Fry's supermarket on Grant Ave and got ingredients for another superb serving of "Di's Sludge" in the motel room.
WiFi did not work on the ipad and iphone, but on Di's Kindle it did, so Hans went down to the lobby. They are in the progress of doing some upgrade, and Hans' ipad ended up being used as a test machine for more than an hour before they could get it to work (issue was that they hadn't coded the Safari settings correctly). Hey, happy to oblige.
Another full on day so we were tired and in bed before 10pm. Good night.
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