The Rodeo

Every Wednesday during the summer, the town of Snowmass Village holds a rodeo. They have been doing it for decades, which answered my question of how permanent is the rodeo arena. It wasn't a free event, but we thought that it would be worth the price to check out some cowboys in action. We were not disappointed.

The experience began with walking through the gate and being greeted by some qualifying events in the arena, as well as an electronic bull for the kids to ride. We made our way through the crowd to the dinner tent, where they were serving up some delicious bbq. You can't call him a roving minstrel, but there was a cowboy with a guitar wandering around the dinner area taking some requests. Honestly, I don't think that hearing John Denver's 'Rocky Mountain High' will ever get old while we are out here.

Next up was finding a seat on the grandstands to watch the main event. We found a place high up, which proved to be good so that the kids could see. All four of them were enthralled the entire time. The show included cattle roping, mutton bustin', bull riding, bronco bustin', mule riding, and just about anything else that they could toss into the arena. We got to see some cowboys get tossed off of the bulls and horses, but thankfully everyone walked away.

The start of the rodeo. All of the horses and riders at attention.

A graceful dismount, but I don't think that this bull is done.

Don't worry, he was off of this horse in no time.

I enjoyed working on some fast motion photography. An event like this presented some challenges, but I am happy to have come away with a few good shots. It was fun to see faces in the background reacting to what was happening in the arena. It is things like that I do not notice while the event is going on, and may never notice unless it is captured in one still frame.

Everything wrapped up just after dusk, sending us along our merry way into the night. In addition to some mild temperatures, we got to have a nice sunset and see some stars peeking out as we went home. I think that we will definitely attend more rodeos down the line.