We've traveled thousands of miles and haven't quite hit our lucky streak yet. But we are hauling on with our heads up high!
Since Ace flew to Reno, he would ride another horse for his runs out there. As I wasn't there, I anxiously listened to his run online. Ace rode
Cody Quaney’s horse, Spook, and made the fastest run of the performance that
evening, 9.6 seconds.
Unfortunately, after the first round ended his run didn’t place in the
round. However, since he placed
top three in the performance he came home with a little day money. Day money is prize money given to the winners in the performance.
The next morning, Ace and Spook would match their second
calf. The calf came out of the
chute and ducked left towards the fence and didn’t give Ace a chance to
rope her, as the judge standing outside the barrier would come between
them. As much as rodeo is a
drawing contest, it seems a little unfair to me that there are no options for a
judge to offer a re-run option to cowboys that this happens to.
I got in a little workout on Saturday morning before going
to finish the rest of our laundry.
I had a little time to burn before I could pick up Ace’s clothes from
the dry cleaners, so I went to Kohl’s and did a little shopping. Ace’s plane was supposed to land around
10pm at the Denver airport, but his flight got delayed numerous times. I watched a food documentary on
Netflix: Food, Inc. After this documentary was over, I
checked the flight tracker app and saw that Ace’s flight was delayed once again
and was to land around 1:15am. I
started another documentary and set an alarm for 12:30am and quickly dozed
off. I woke up at 12:45am and
hustled to the airport and drove up to arrivals just as Ace was getting off the
plane.
On Sunday, we caught up on sleep and didn’t have any alarms
set. A knock on our trailer door
awoke us to JoJo LeMond. He came
to pick up Porkchop to try him out at a few rodeos. Ace and I had a fairly relaxing morning and a late breakfast
at The Egg and I. When we got back
to the arena, we went for a jog/walk around the Adams County Regional Park and
headed back to the trailer so Ace could watch the US Open.
The arena was right
next to a golf course and Ace wanted to get in a quick game on Monday morning
before we took off to our next destination. We called the course and unfortunately they didn’t
have any tee times available until later in the morning, so we decided to get
breakfast and get on the road.
We had breakfast at the Delectable Egg and headed back to the arena to
load up. While getting everything
together, Ace had the idea to clean out the 35 gallon water tank that is
mounted to the top of our trailer.
The tank has been full of gunk for quite sometime and we figured it was
time to clean it. A little
dish-soap, hydrogen peroxide, a toilet brush, and some elbow grease later – we
have a very clean water tank!
We headed towards
Greeley, CO where Ace had set-up to rope some calves and try a horse at Ricky
Lambert’s place. After roping, we
played a game of baseball in the arena with Ricky’s son, Boedy. Boedy is one of the wisest seven year olds we have ever met! We stayed the night at Ricky’s and left
for Santa Fe, NM on Tuesday morning.
On our drive, we listened to Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” on
audible. Cody got to Santa Fe
before we did, so he snagged a stall for us.
On Wednesday the 24th,
we woke up and got ready for the slack.
Santa Fe was hot and dusty – just as you’d imagine New Mexico to
be. We didn't have any luck on the first run in Santa Fe. I cooked lunch for the guys – chicken
pasta – and we all re-grouped. Ace
and I went to play golf with Byron Wilkerson and had a fun afternoon, while Cody went to a local gym to get in a workout.
I loved being able to see the mountains on the horizon.
So many of these little guys were on the golf course... This one even posed for a picture!
I just loved this site! A blooming rose bush positioned right by a cactus plant.
Ace and Byron had a good match!
Thursday morning’s
slack was a repeat of Wednesday morning, so we loaded up and headed to Pecos,
TX. We made it to Pecos at about
6pm and went to the hospitality for dinner. Right as the performance started, we were plundered with
rain and hail. This would make for
a very muddy slack on Friday morning.
On Friday morning,
Ace rode a horse that Frank Holliday sent for him to try. Ace had no luck on both calves, so we
really couldn’t gauge how he and the horse got along. Cody made a good run and made it back to the performance
that night. During the day, Cody
took the truck to a local park to workout. I went for a run around the arena before Ace and I went to
lunch. We all finished listening to
“Gone Girl” and started watching the "Gone Girl" dvd before the perf that evening.
Saturday morning
would take us to Sonora, TX. When
we arrived, we turned the horses out on a baseball field while we threw the
football around.
Sonora had gotten a
little bit of rain, which made for pretty muddy arena conditions. Ace and Cody both rode Frank’s horse
and Ace placed fifth overall.
After the rodeo, Ace
was debating on horses and trying to rope some to help him make a
decision. This led us back home to
Cuero, TX and we arrived around 3am.
On Sunday morning, Ace’s mom and sister brought us breakfast and a baby
– boy was Stratton excited to see Uncle Ace and to meet a new face – Cody!
I cleaned up the
trailer and started our laundry, while the guys started roping. I filmed a few runs and ran into town
to get a few more cases of water for our trailer. I heated up our leftover Paleo Porkchops and broccoli
(click HERE for the recipe) that I made in Sonora and Ace’s mom, Lonna, put some
stuffed bell peppers in the oven.
We had a late lunch/early dinner and made a horse decision before
loading up. Ace and Mexico have
been getting along good the past few runs, so we loaded Mexico, Spook (Cody’s
horse), and Sleepy – Alan Thibodeaux’s horse that Ace split the Jackpot in
Buffalo, TX on. Ace drove from Cuero
to Luling, I took over for the next few hours, and Cody got us to Amarillo
around 4am.
We slept until about
10am on Monday and started towards Greeley, CO. We made it to Greeley about 30 minutes before the perf started. Ace and Mexico had a good start on a quick calf. Once he flanked her, she kicked a bit but he got her tied in one of the fastest times of the perf.
Our schedule for the
remainder of our Fourth of July Run:
6/30 – Cody flew to
St. Paul, OR to rope on 7/1; Ace and I headed towards Caspar, Wyoming
7/1 – Pick up Cody
from the airport in Billings, MT and head to Cody, WY
7/2 – Cody, WY am
slack; West Jordan, UT perf at 7:30pm; Oakley City, UT slack after perf at 8pm
7/3 – Prescott, AZ
7/4 - Day off
7/4 - Day off
We hope everyone has a fun-filled and safe Fourth of July!!
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