Friday, August 22, 2008

Ralston Rodeo

It's been another very hot week here in Alberta. The highlight this week has been the annual Ralston Rodeo; Yee-Haa! Trucks, RVs, burger vans, horses, cowboys and, of course, numerous angry bulls rolled into the village to transform the Ralston Rodeo Arena, aka 'Fort Whoop-Up', into a full scale Rodeo event. It must be the Canadian equivalent of a travelling circus that moves from town to town; bizarrely the next day there was hardly any evidence that the Rodeo was ever here!

This year we only spent a few hours at the Rodeo as it was so incredibly hot (35+) and we left earlier than originally planned to cool off in the pool at Medicine Hat. We had a brilliant time and got to see a few (short!) attempts of the cowboys riding the bulls. Alongside that the kids had a great time clambering over the various displays of armoured vehicles laid on by the Prairie Staff (as did Leigh!). The travelling cowboys are absolutely crazy & I am surprised that in our current climate of `Health & Safety` they do not wear crash helmets, let alone the event ever being allowed to go ahead at all! As you would expect, there were lots of ``oohs and ahhs`` from the crowd as each cowboy nearly got impaled on a horn or got carried off on a stretcher - but I guess that`s all the fun of the Rodeo!

It is a relief that the current MEDMAN exercise has just finished and Leigh has a few days off. The plan is to spend more time at the pool and have days out at Echodale & Elkwater. The children only have 1 more week off school; Ben is particularly gutted about that, but, unsurprisingly I am doing cartwheels around the garden!

By the way, don`t worry if you can`t understand the North American drawl - neither could the rest of us!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

After 2 cases of Moosehead beer I could understand the commentary perfectly!

Anonymous said...

howdy cowgirl, is that rip in your jeans from trying out the bull riding? How long did you last?