A Night at the Rodeo

Action! Skill! Showmanship! Points! RIDE-EM-COWBOY VAUDEVILLE!! Rodeo on Friday night. Big crowd. Stetsons, Levis and Justins – head to toe cowpoke-dressed. The Blues Festival for ranchers and cow-punchers.

Pre-show was “mutton-bustin’” in which a 5 year old child was latched onto the back of an unshorn-sheep and the sheep was set loose. Kid wearing a helmet; kid either dumped in the loam or plucked off by an adult as the sheep charged by. Longest time a kid clung to a sheep – about 5 seconds. This is how you train human rag dolls to grow up and latch themselves voluntarily on a 2,000lb brahma bull. Or as the announcer called it, “Red-necked child abuse.” I think he was trying to be funny.

Patriotic! American Flag! Honor Guards! STARS-AND-STRIPES Salute!! Rodeos are intensely patriotic. The ticket stub had ARMY STRONG on one side, and New Mexico National Guard on the other. The Guard presented the colors.

Pro rodeo started at 8 pm with the bareback bull riding. Watch my video and see who reigns in the ring – the bull chased the clown over the rail! The guy who won the bull riding event was out of uniform – he wore a motocycle crash helmet fitted with an umpire or hockey-style face guard instead of his cowboy hat. This event was followed by bareback on bucking broncos, by saddled bucking broncos, by bull-dogging where the cowboy jumps off a horse at about 30 mph onto a running, horned bull, wrestles it to the ground onto its side. This was followed by calf roping as singles and calf roping in teams. And that was followed by the only event of the evening for the “fairer sex” which was barrel racing (not that rodeo is overtly macho :->). I had been waiting for this event, but had finally gotten up to go to the johhny-spot and the barrel racing was half over by the time I got back. I’m not really making fun: we both had fun at the rodeo. It was my first time and I got a kick out of the crowds, not to mention admiring the willingness of the riders to commit their bodies to the abuse of trying to staying on an animal who is moving in 4 different directions simultaneously. Nick remembered rodeo from Tucson as a kid and was anxious to re-experience it. I’d go back again next year. I’m not sure Nick will be so interested. We left about 9:30, and there were events yet to follow. If each individual stayed on his animal an average of 10 seconds, there were 6 to 7 men in each event, and I think there were six events, that meant that in 90 minutes that we stayed, there was 7 minutes of actual riding. Add to that the 6 women competing in barrel-racing, at about 18 seconds each for another 1.8 minutes and the approximately 3 minutes of a trick rider. We saw 11.8 minutes of rodeo riding and 78 minutes of waiting while they settled an animal down in the gate or while they chased an animal out of the ring. And I used to complain about commercials taking up all the air time on TV. My most humorous impression from the rodeo? The calves and bulls in the roping contests wore helmets!

Yesterday, we went to Tucson to meet our friends who used to live there until the ocean called them to the Bay area. They were back for a gathering of friends at their former church, and we drove down to meet them for dinner and, this morning, breakfast. We went to a real chinese restaurant. REAL chinese restaurant. It is true that there is a scarcity of good restaurants here in Silver City. For all the attractions natural, educational and artistic and the the stimulations visual, auditory, and olfactory, you don’t visit Silver City for the food.

A Bluz Weekend Wuz Had By All

The 13th Annual Blues Festival – Simply put, a party that lasted all weekend. Great performers! Good crowd all out for a good time. Terrific junk – or should I say – carnival food. The best kettle corn we’ve ever had – you know it must be good for someone who grew up next to Coney Island to say that. And fire-roasted corn-on-the-cob, roasted in the husk and soaked with sweet butter and salt. There was also bar-b-q that was so good it was almost illegal, or so said the side of the cooker where we bought it, and the Texas burgers with chile bar-b-q sauce and the Mexican dish made with corn…I don’t know what they were, but they were good.

And the blues unite! We know this is a diverse community. Yet, I’ve observed that many of the activities we attend – Western Institute of Lifelong Learning, the performances at the university’s theatre, other musical events – don’t draw a diverse group. Almost everyone in those venues looks like me. The blues brought us all out, and all together. There were families, singles, couples, mashed groups, young and old, no-gray and white-haired, 60’s hippies, university hippie kids, anglo, Latino, African-American, Native American, clean-cut veterans, long-haired harley-ridin’ veterans, just-plain-old harley riders (must have been over 100 motorcycles parked, including some really amazing custom bikes and trikes), new high-school grads, basket-ball-playing young black, mexican-american and white men and skate-board-riding kids, men with flags in their headbands, men with feathers in their hair, men with knives on their belts, women with kids on their hip, women with tank tops, women with pink hats, women with parasols, and those who cannot be described or categorized.

Friday night we went to the Buffalo Dance Hall for the first group, the Jump Back Brothers. They had the hall rockin’ and everyone on the dance floor till the lights went up and the last guitar lick died away. Saturday morning it rained and we did Saturday chores, so didn’t get there until about 4 pm. Stayed until the last performer in the park, Coco Montoya. He didn’t have a roof to raise, but the air vibrated and the bandstand all but levitated with his hot, contemporary blues, with a few oldies thrown in for good measure. His guitar moaned, sang, crooned, cried and wailed, and the crowd right along with it. We didn’t think he could be topped. But we went back Sunday to see ‘em try. We were there all day, from 12:30 for the first performer and with the intention of staying until the last performer, Ruthie Foster, the main headliner for the day. And the day started just fine – warm, bright, sunny. We carefully chose our spot to sit, where the shade from a tall tree would catch up with us about mid-afternoon. Until then, we had hats and umbrellas to shade us. So did a lot of other people – here’s what it looked like in the early afternoon.

And then the clouds came up. With heavy, gray bottoms that were dragged across the sky by our ever-present spring winds. When the bottoms opened up, the umbrellas served their more natural purpose! Some families went home, since it was almost the end of the day. Another large number gathered under the pavilion to wait out the rain. The festival decided to move down to the Buffalo for Ruthie’s performance though, so those of us left – and of age to get in – gathered up wet chairs, wet bags, wet umbrellas and everything, loaded ourselves into our cars and moved downtown, which is all of a few blocks. Urban legend had it that this was the second time the festival had been rained out – and the last time was just before Ruthie’s performance, again the last performance of the festival. She declared herself Silver City’s official rain-maker. And then she sang. And my god, can she sing. She’s southern black roots, gospel and juke-joint acoustic bluz. People may have taken seats in the Buff, but by her second song, few of those seats were occupied. Rather, almost the entire crowd was on the dance floor, but they weren’t dancin’. They were faced to the stage, hands in the air, swaying and moving – just like an old-time revival meeting. You’ll notice I’m saying ‘they,’ because by now, after dancing for two days and two nights, we didn’t have much dancing left in us, and I think maybe there’s a possibility of a chance that Nick ate too much good junky food!

Take a look at my 2009 Blues Festival album here, as well as two little videos of sunny bluz and rainy blues. We’ll be hummin’ till next year. Sonnie

Are we there yet? How much farther???

We – Nick, Nutmeg and I – climbed Gomez Peak on Sunday. About 800 feet elevation gain/loss. I whined most of the way up and Nutmeg whined most of the way down.

Our intention was to take Nutmeg for a “bit of exercise,” an extended poop-walk, if you will; she hadn’t had much exercise for the last couple of days, except walking around the block. Gomez Peak/Little Walnut Picnic area is a short 10 minute drive from here. The trails range from a nice walk to a healthy walk to a flat-out hike-and-climb. I was thinking nice walk or healthy walk. I was not prepared for a flat-out hike-and-climb. We had with us 3 water bottles, two apples and two granola bars. Ok for snacks on a walk of an hour or so, but since we left a little before 11, not enough to cover lunch and water for 3 over a period of 3+ hours.

We planned to follow a trail we had followed before when Nick’s sister Maria was here – trail head to post 2 to post 3 to 4 to 5 and then back to the trail head. This would have been a healthy walk, with a little uphill, plenty of flat and then back downhill to the parking lot. Elevation gain, maybe 300 feet over a long stretch. But we reached Post 5, with most of 2 of our 3 bottles of water plus all our food, and only 45 minutes into the walk, and decided to go up to Post 6. We had also walked part of that way before, turning back when the trail narrowed. Sunday, we figured we could turn back whenever.

The problem wasn’t getting to Post 6. Along the trail, we found a shady spot with an excellent view, dug out the apples and munched away, sharing with Nutmeg, of course. Past Post 6, the trail begins a series of switchbacks at an ever increasing angle, until there’s no more mountain to switch back on and the trail turns straight up steps to the top. And that’s where I started to whine. At first it was in jest. And then the jest became more serious. At one point, after Nick had told me for the third time, “only about 5 more minutes; we just have one more switchback…” I looked up and still couldn’t see the top and just sat down! Nutmeg was flagging as well.

I was persuaded and we managed the last two switch-backs and the 3 flights of steps – a loose term meaning large stones and small boulders creating a stairway up to the tip of the mountain. Here, Nutmeg really had to scramble – 4 legs lost their advantage over 2.

When we finally made the tippy top, I found it was about the size of a large bedroom. There was one scrubby tree throwing broken shade, into which Nutmeg immediately retreated. She dug furiously to create a fresh bed of cool earth, turned around twice and flopped down with a huge sigh.

We stood looking at the view. I have to admit, it was something. 360 degrees and 75 miles in every direction. South: Mexico. North and east: Black Range. South and east: Cooks Peak, all the way over by Las Cruces. West: Mogollon range and due North into the heart of the Gila Wilderness. The Gila National Forest spread from the Black Range over there, to the Mogollon way over that way. Silver City tucked in below us. Could really appreciate the ecological transition zones which we occupy here. Looking south beyond Silver City, you see nothing but brown – the high desert; then there’s Silver with swaths of cottonwoods following the creek beds that run through the town and the transition to pinion, juniper and scrub oak. Moving north by the mile, the ecozone changes from pinion/juniper to ponderosa, except for the hillsides that are patched from either long-ago fires or logging.

Other lovelies up there – there was a type of barrel cactus that was blooming with large, brilliant, rich orange blossoms. Lots of teddy bear cholla with large yellow bloom pods on the tips and even some prickly pear with pears. Lots of birds. If only I had my binoculars to look down into the treetops. How many times do you get that opportunity – to look down on the tops of the trees to pick out the crown-dwellers. Well, and for that matter, if I had had my camera, I would have been showing pictures, rather than trying feebly to describe it.

But we were down to our last bottle of water and we needed to get our panting pup down. So off we started. I felt much better going down, knowing I’d probably get down before my blood sugar did. Remember me, I never miss a meal. Plus I could watch my feet, watch for snakes on the trail ahead, watch Nutmeg and still get glimpses of the views. An impossibility going up. And yes, I did say, snakes. It’s rattler season now. And they love nothing more on a sunny day than to find a bare spot or a rock to sun and trails are perfect for that.

Nutmeg was so tired – or perhaps more hot than tired – that every time we came to any significant shade, she just fell out. And whined when we urged her up and downward. I know this was her version of, “aw gee aren’t we there yet?” She was heartened when she got to familiar ground on the lower trail heading for the trail head and she didn’t drag as much. Gave her more water at the car, and when we got home, she raced for her water bowl, then for her rug and we didn’t see her again till dinner!

I’ll climb Gomez Peak again, but: I’ll get an earlier start; I’ll leave the dog home; I’ll take my camera; I’ll take more water; I’ll take more food; I’ll take my binoculars; and I’ll be ready to rock, uhmm, to climb that rock. ss