Ro-day-o weekend in Gaad-nah

Woo hoo rodeo! It's a Father's Day weekend tradition that Gardiner hosts the Montana Rodeo Association. Fun weekend. This is the second year that I've volunteered for the rodeo. It's strange, but it really is a LOT of fun to volunteer for this. The events are basically the same every year, but the behind the scenes rarely is. You get to see most of the Gardiner town folks and there are some real wackos that come out of the woodwork.
So, Friday, I scooted straight from work over to the rodeo. I was working in the food tent but got a chance to get out and watch a couple of events. One of them being a goat chasing event. Yes, a real goat. Apparently this is the first year they've done it here in Gardiner but a couple days before the rodeo, someone called up and asked if the rodeo committee wanted some goats. They said, "Um, sure" and this is the event that came out of it.

So, they put jackets on the goats and then duct tape money to the jackets. As the rodeo folks are doing this, kids are gathering behind a line. Then they release the kids and the goats and it's a free-for-all.




For this particular event, they had all of the kids 7 and under come out to participate. The kids were so cute. There were a bunch that couldn't have been much more than 2. This little guy, in particular, had no idea what was going on. He wandered all over the grounds before they let the kids loose, and then he kept chasing this goat, even after the money was gone.



Of course, the crowd was dying the whole time. I snuck over and got this picture of Holly, Lauren and Alicia. It was a great night.






After the rodeo was the dance. The band this year was 10 Feet Tall and 80 Proof. They're out of Bozeman and completely AWESOME! Apparently there was a fight at the Community Center (where the dance was being held) but I missed the entire thing. Oh well. Maybe I'll see it next year. Believe you me, tons of cowboys, all hopped up on adrenaline and hormones, doing some drinking, mixing with Parkies, there're always some fights.

Saturday is the parade and then another night of rodeo.

This year I rode on the K-Bar float. The theme for the parade was favorite country song. We did "Five O'Clock Somewhere." I don't think that you can see it, but each of the circles is a clock with different states and countries written on it and it's 5 o'clock... everywhere. We also had a globe on top of the lead car. We had the song on loop with the back doors open and screamed the refrain whole way through. I don't know if we won best float, but we were most certainly the loudest.


Probably not in the least because we had Dottie and Patty (my boss at the K-Bar) on board. Every once in awhile, Patty would yell out, "What time is it?" and if the audience yelled back "Five o'clock!" we would throw candy at them. Of course, all of the kids got candy as well. It was really funny, the number of people who would look at their watches. The worst part was that I discovered I am allergic to alfalfa. Tears were streaming down my face for most of the ride. Oh well, it was still totally awesome.




And that made it time for the first barbecue of the summer. I ran home and got ready. It was supposed to start at 3, but at 3:30, we still had a small-ish crowd.




But, this being Gardiner, I wasn't expecting it to get busy until at least 3:30-3:45. And people really did start pouring in. Everyone had a great time. I have to send a thank you out to CCG who was the sous host for this event. She manned the grill in the food pit and kept everyone fed. This is really a key to hosting a good event, feeding people. We have decided to call all further events CJ parties (because JC sounds like a store and,well, I think that Carrie likes to be first).

Then, it was back to the rodeo! Yay!