Anniversary Weekend - 1

Doing this in parts because one would be too long. 

First, for Mom-

(sorry these are blurry, but I tried)

 But of course, this one was my favorite butt of the night-

Ok, moving on. The weekend started Saturday afternoon with me getting to drive this beauty around for an hour or so. It was so fun and brought back memories.  There's something about the loose steering, brakes that you have to press to the floor with all your quad, and a bouncy seat. I love it! It was such a treat!!

And then we grabbed grub at our go to restaurant, and headed for the Battle of the Bay Built Ford Tough PBR action in Oakland!!

 For those who watched this on TV the next day, if you look above the chutes to the left, you'll see the bright TV lights. That's where Ty Murry and the other announcer were. We did not know they were even there till watching on tv. The announcers we heard were on the  stage that's on our end of the arena, they are standing right behind the CAT banner.  We could not hear any of what was said on TV, but we could see all the filming happening and it is quite a production!! If you look close, there's a big camera on a boom sticking out from the middle of the platform above the chutes, it's aiming to the right in this picture.

 These next few are blurry because I was zoomed in. I'm not going to make them bigger because they just look more blurry, but you'll get the jist.

 There are people sitting inside that round green thing in the arena. You can kind of see the bars they watch through. They pulled 3 different couples from the audience and would swap them out between the action.  Nice seats!

 These next few are from the big screen, these are more like the shots that were on tv.

 This is for mom, too.

 And now the winner is getting his payday- new boots, buckle, and $50,000.

 And this, well, we just don't see this sort of scene often in Oakland. I don't know where all these folks came from, but most were legit cowboys.  There were a few in Levis, and a few who had on cowboy hats with sneakers - all dead giveaways that your' just trying too hard.  But, man....overall, I was totally impressed with the turnout!

We really had a great time!  I do have to say that it's been about 17 years since I've been to a rodeo or bull riding event (there was on in San Fran but it was at least 14 years ago), and boy has my perspective changed!  It used to be about the cute cowboys and the tight jeans and lets just say a lot of checking out the view.

Now, I'm old enough to be some of these boys mom.  I was so nervous that they were going to get hurt, and some did get hurt pretty darn bad.  I found myself way more concerned about their safety than I was about their Wrangler butts.

We had a blast, but man, I came away from the night feeling mighty old!!