"Daddy of 'em All"

 

For those who don't know what the "Daddy of 'em All" is, it is a 9 day rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming also know as Frontier Days. They have a rodeo, carnival, chuck wagon cook offs, art shows, a museum and lots of vendors for food, clothes and souvenirs. Dave bought tickets to go the rodeo on Friday July 30. The rodeo started at 12:45 P.M., so we were up bright and early Friday morning and left at 5 A.M.! As we drove I have decided I could move to certain parts of Wyoming. It is beautiful! The rodeo was awesome! They had the best stock to watch, all the animals were bigger and tougher. I would say it was the best rodeo I have been to yet. They had many events you don't see at the rodeos here in Utah, like steer roping, track races, and the wild horse race. We had good seats, but it made me realize how badly I need a new camera! So bear with me of some of these photos.

Tickets, to keep something going a 114 years is amazing.

"On the road again..."

The arena, it is huge! Normally on timed events like calf roping, steer wrestling and team roping they give the cows a 10 foot head start, here at Cheyenne they give them a 30 foot head start! That makes a big difference its harder to catch up to your cow, more of a challenge for the cowboys.

Dave and me 

Bull riding

The bulls were massive.

Bareback riding. (extremely bright photo! Sorry!)

Barrel Racer

Calf roping, calves are normally 200 pounds, there they are 300 to 400 pounds.

Rodeo Queens

Saddle bronc riding

Steer roping, this is harder than calf roping, those steers aren't light in weight.

Steer wrestling, these steers are normally 400 pounds, there they are up to 600 pounds. One of the guys over shot his steer and fell off in front of him, as he was getting up the steer hit him head on into his chest. The steer wrestler grabbed his horns and wrestled with him, he finally threw him up over his head and onto the steers back, almost like the steer did a somersault over him.

Team roping

One of the horses before the track race, this rider fell off just before the finishing line. She was able to get up and walk away without injury.

The wild horse race. A team of three is brought a horse that has never been ridden. They have to hold the horse while one of the guys gets a saddle on and than gets on himself and rides around the track.

They struggled, this horse did not want anything to do them.

He put up a fight! I don't think this team made it around the track.

After the rodeo we wandered through the vendors and over to see the chuck wagon cook off. Sadly we missed the cook off, but we got to see the cool rigs they had. When we were done with that it was off to dinner and than time to head home.

A chuck wagon set up. I think it would be fun to have a chuck wagon set up. I love to cook in the dutch oven. 

Dave and me and dinner, we ate at a place called The Capitol Grill in downtown Cheyenne.

The salad, it had some stuff in it Dave and I weren't use to in salad, like artichoke hearts and sprouts, but it was dang good. And that crouton was amazing!

We shared a meal of an assortment of green vegetables (Dave even said they were good and he doesn't like to many green vegetables), garlic whipped mashed potatoes and a nicely cooked rib eye steak. What a way to end an day in Cheyenne.

I will leave you with a couple photos of Wyoming I took from my car window, I can't roll down the window so they might have a glare. They don't do the beauty of Wyoming justice but you will get the idea.