Yee-haa Cowboy!

Saturday - mooching in the morning
Woke up fairly early - Helen and Rob had already gone to work, so we were left to our own devices and decided to take the Honda (CRV) into Winter Park to look at the local shops and practice driving on the right whilst we were in still in a quiet(ish) area. The drive into town went OK, if you don't count not being able to start the vehicle in the first place (clutch in!), missing a turning and realising a little too late what the function of the turning lane was..

We wandered around the touristy shops for a while, long enough for the kids to buy croc shoe-like charm bracelets and a replica yellow snowball (hmm). Lots of nice statues here - cowboys, frontiersmen, bison, deer and (huge) moose (mooses? meese?). The drive back was trouble free, so we celebrated our victory against the American transport network by eating another wedge of Helen and Rob's provisions.

BBQ
Rob and Helen returned to find us relaxing in front of Herbie Fully Loaded, and we split into boys and girls to buy provisions and prepare the barbie for the afternoon before Helen and Rob's other guests, Andy and Stacey, arrived. The kids took a shine to them instantly. You could tell this by Jack's exuberant toilet humour and Ellie's display of domestic confidence in the kitchen, helping to prepare the fruit salad. We ate, chatted, played frisbee and chatted some more before cleaning up and heading out to the local Rodeo for some authentic cowboy entertainment.

High Country Stampede Rodeo
A short drive (nobody walks in this country!) and we arrived at the Rodeo, full of families in baseball caps, mounted cowboys in full western gear, twanging accents and surrounded by more 4x4s than you could shake a branding iron at. We sat in the stalls amidst the smell of horses, cattle and hot dogs whilst the cowboy clown went through some introductions and the local rodeo queens rode in formation, holding up the Stars 'n' Stripes and then gathering in the centre of the enclosure to lead a rendition of Star Spangled Banner. The events that followed looked skilful, painful or a mixture of both. Broncos bucked. Calves were chased, roped and tied down, Steers were wrestled to the ground by cowboys jumping from their horses. Even the kids got a go with 3-5 year olds sitting on the backs of sheep for four seconds. Two person teams lasso'ed steers by head and feet and an octogenarian stood on the backs of two horses at the same time, keeping a rope in the air around him and doing other tricks on the floor (with varying degrees of success, but entertaining anyhow). The big event was the bull riding, though. This looked both dangerous and painful, with only a few of the cowboys making the 8 second time target.

Since the kids wre beginning to expire and Rob and Helen had work in the morning, we went back to Icicle Way and hit the sack after saying goodbye to Helen since we would miss her in the morning.

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