Texas 2013 Day 2: Rodeo

6/29/2013
Texas 2013 Day 2: Rodeo

Frank is teaching me how to be a real Texan, so first things first: breakfast tacos.

More explictly: Frank's sister Susie is a legend worthy of song. Not only is she awesome, let us stay over last night and picked us up at roughly blergh-'o-clock from the airport last night... but she HAD BREAKFAST TACOS READY WAITING FOR US as we got up. WHAT?!?!?!! This was also beautifully timed at 11:30am, or what's known in some circles as the "perfect waking-up-to-breakfast-tacos" time. I had a beans and cheese and an egg and potato one, and both rocked.

Susie's awesome cat

Frank and breakfast tacos

From there it was off to the lake house in New Braunfels, where we'd be staying for the majority of the trip. It took about 1.5 hrs because lots of traffic was heading down there, but I enjoyed the drive and seeing the absurdly hilarious situation of (many) trucks getting tired of waiting on the main highway road and driving off the shoulder, and through a grassy ditch/side area onto a feeder road where traffic was moving better. And then, people would eventually "merge" back over onto the actual highway. This was hilarious and most definitely would never happen in Canada.

Downtown Austin

People getting impatient and "changing lanes", um, "legally"

It was SUPER hot outside... 105F, 42C. Not too humid thankfully, but man were we ever rockin' the air conditioning in that car. Fortunately the rest of the trip won't be as hot... but DANG is it ever hot out there. A/C is pretty much everywhere and in every store. Glad to hear from Frank that the lake house has A/C!

We drove past the (HUGE) Buc-ee's in New Braunfels, literally the largest convenience store in the entire world. It was awesome and I am psyched to go there later in the week. We got to the lake house to be greeted by Frank's awesome Dad who was waiting for us with an amazing cherry and apple strudel in-hand. Amazing. We chatted a bit, checked out the dock, and even put our feet in the water for a bit.

Jess had been visiting her family already for a week, so she arrived soon after us with her family... bearing lots more food, homemade peach crumble and brownies!! There is gonna be a lot of snacking this trip! We chilled and caught up for a while and then headed off to dinner 1hr away at a place called Tejas Roadhouse.

Tejas Rodeo!

Awesome seats

For dinner I got a KC Steak, beans, sweet potato fries, and a baked sweet potato. This was a stellar dinner with so much awesome family from both sides in attendance, and just such a fun and exciting launch to the trip. Everyone was in great spirits and happy to all be together for what was to be an awesome evening!

Papa and Son

Haha not sure what's happening here

Frank's Mom

"Critters we don't rope"

Me and a real-life cowboy (Frank's Dad!) :)

Chiewe

Happy families

Dinner time, Kansas City Steak

Family pic

From there, off we went to the rodeo. This was incredible and hilarious and kindof like the Ilderton Ontario county fair but way bigger and with more hilarious accents. It started with "Mutton busting", a mutton race where kids get dressed up in a helmet and pads and jump onto a sheep that is running really fast, and they need to stay on as long as possible.

Mutton busting

This kid went super far

Then there were lots of horse events like kids riding really fast and then around obstacles. After that there was a bucking bull and that was nuts. People were really crazy to jump on those crazy bulls and it looked crazily dangerous. No one got hurt though and it was fun to watch too. The announcer was hilarious and SUPER Texan and kept saying "Now this young lady here, she's not just a champion of Bulverde, Texas. Nope. Not just a champion of the state of Texas... nope, she's a wuuuuurrrld chaaammmppyoooonnnn!" He said that phrase "world champion" about 100,00 times and I was laughing so hard at his hilarious accent. It sounded like someone on The Simpsons intentionally trying to make a ridiculous Texas accent. It was amazing.

Ropin'

Checking out the horse

Run!

Run!

Run the other way!

haha the opposite of the "running of the bulls"

After the "calf scramble", we then had lots of water to cool off and headed for the dance floor. I watched some 2-step dancing for a while and had some more water, before joining in on the dancing fun. I didn't know how to do the step, so Jess taught me how and then Jess's Mom did too!! That was fun. I needed to get more into the spirit of the situation, so Frank and I bought sweet cowboy hats for a great price and mine has a cool Texas star on the front. It's awesome.

After dinner at the Dance floor

Me and Griz in our new hats

Cool lookin' guys

After getting our amazing hats, we headed back to the dance floor, just in time for a "new style" line dance called "The Wiggle", which was basically shakin' your butt and busting some dirty hip-hop moves, gangsta line-dance style. These are my jams! I tore it up for a bit and Jess said it looked like I'd known the dance for a while. haha. Just put this Canadian in a cowboy hat and drop some dirrtty beats and I'll bust a move! Then there were some more 2 step songs and Susie and her friend taught me some more about the steps for 2-step. I started to get the hang of it, but definitely I'm much better at dropping the beats. After beer and chillin' finally we cooled off (the snow cone helped too). After an exciting and epic first day in Texas, we headed back to the lake house to rest our feet and look forward to the rest of an amazing trip.