A 70 year old cowboy rides off into the sunset

As we were finishing the tour of the Old Trail Town, we peeked into one of the final store fronts that housed some artifacts from decades ago.

“SO WHAD’DYA THINK?” a voice called out from behind.

We turned and saw an older man, probably around 70 years old or so, standing in front of us, hunched over just slightly.  

We both said at the same time that we thought it was really cool.  I added something to our simulataneous comment as a way to fill the inevitable awkward silence that follows when strangers meet strangers and realize that they don’t have much, if anything, in common.

He didn’t notice.

“Yea, really neat,” said the man in an accent I couldn’t quite placed.  It could have been a southern accent, or just a rancher’s tone.

“Welp…” he continued,” I almost forgot, I’ve got to get my oxy on.” He reached down and I saw that the object I thought was a can was in fact an oxygen tank on wheels.  He started to pull some tubes up to his nose.

“Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to make it halfway down there.”

We gave a nervous chuckle and with a wave and a nod, we said our good-byes.

And then we went our separate ways as he pulled his oxygen cart cart into the western sky.

Ride ‘em cowboy

After the shootout downtown, we went to see the Cody Nite Rodeo, something they have every night during the late spring, summer, and early fall. This was the first time either of us had been to a rodeo, so we didn’t quite know what to expect. 

 

We left surprised at how entertaining the rodeo actually was to watch. They had an announcer and the head bullfighter (the clown who gets the bull to chase him – a job I have no desire in having) set up on remote microphones and the two just bantered back and forth. We were even surprised when there was a joke thrown in there at Rush Limbaugh’s expense (the joke isn’t funny enough to repeat), but they did a good job of keeping the energy flowing during a cold evening between the events.

 

We saw the traditional bronco riding, the event where the cowgirls race around three barrels (forgot the name), and calf tying. The bull riding, though, was fantastic. And those bulls were big. And angry. One of them kept trying to jump out of his cage only to be settled by the group of riders hanging around the pen.

 

At the end of the night, only one cowboy did a full qualified ride of eight seconds (another one did the eight seconds, but was disqualified because he put his hand on the bull). I’m sure that if you go to a higher level of competition you’ll see a lot more success, but we didn’t know the difference.