Yeehaw Day Was Not To Be

When I stepped off the plane last night at McCarren International Airport, I already had plans for today. An article in the inflight magazine noted that the rodeo was back in town. They were in Las Vegas the last time I was here back in October, but I didn't have time to go.

The last time I was at a real rootin' tootin' rodeo was back in the late '60s when a bunch of us college kids went to one at the Rose Bowl. All I remember about that one was that the participants looked not so big ... we were pretty high up. There was one moment of excitement when one of the ancilliary performers was doing stunts and fell pretty hard. They had to carry him off.

As soon as I could, I drove over to the University of Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center to see if I could get in. They'd been here since the start of the week and were winding it up tonight and tomorrow.

First problem - parking. I had to walk about a quarter mile across a vast and empty parking lot to get to the ticket office. Then the bad news. They were sold out for the rest of the event.

I could, however, buy a "mad dash" ticket that would enable me to stand around and make a mad dash to an empty seat if there was no one there. The problem of course is the real occupants might arrive and kick me out. But the bigger problem was that there going to be a lot of mad dashers trying to block me out of a seat. Kind of like musical chairs on cowboy steroids.

So I said gosh darn it, ma'am in my best cowboy polite talk, tipped my hat and thank you kindly but that's not my style.

Know what I did then? I did the next best thing and joined all the other cowboys in town at the Cowboy Christmas Fair, raht thar, smacky dab in the new-fangled Las Vegas Convention Center thangie on Paradise Road.

I'll tell you about it tomorrow.