Way back in January, even before I went to Panama, I ordered tickets for the final two performances of the Calgary Stampede in July. There was to be a new format-- an invitation only of the top rodeo hands in the US and Canada. We wanted to say "We were there". So after retrieving the tickets from our safety deposit box along with my passport (complete with ugly picture) and Mont's birth certificate, we battened down the hatches on our not -too- trusty '99 Ford pickup (it was having intermittent bouts of clutch problems that Mont hoped his mechanic had fixed), loaded the popup camper with last minute items, and left Wednesday morning July 12. Our first stop was the Missouri River Breaks campground, 333 miles from home. It was horribly hot when we pulled in.
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