Field Notes - Dispatch 8 – Palm
Desert
Hello Fellow Adventurers!
This morning MR and I were having
coffee and reading the paper when she asked if I wanted go watch some
equine jumping at the Desert Horse Park. Well, I am an Idahoan and
like a rodeo as much as the next fellow so I said, sure, count me in!
She showed me the ad and I thought it said it was being sponsored by
Tony Lama but MR said it was pronounced Lamborghini down here. Then
she called me a knucklehead. I went and put on my bolo tie and
Wranglers and off we went.
When I got there I was the only guy
moseying around in a cowboy hat (purchased at Target on the way) and
no one had a bolo tie. When I saw the sponsor's products I was
dismayed to find they did not even make pickup trucks and what they
had on display would not haul one bail of hay or pull a trailer.
“Cripes, who are these guys?” I wondered as I looked around for a
Dodge Ram.
Anyway, I finally saw some nice
looking horses and, yep, you guessed it, the riders had helmets on,
not cowboy hats, and they were going to jump fences, not rope or
barrel race, or anything. There was not a cow in sight! Some rodeo.
Gosh, I thought, even I could jump a fence, but what fool would want
to? Just ride over and open the gate, that's why we invented the
darn things!
These comments were not met with the
universal agreement I was expecting from my fellow audience members.
To compound my astonishment, I learned that by jumping over a few
fences without knocking off any boards one of these “cowhands”
was going to take home at least $350,000.00 and a total of
$1,000.000.00 was going to be given away by sundown. Had I known
that I would have bought a horse when I got my hat!
Besides fences, the poor horses would
have to jump over “water obstacles.” Now even in the shade it
was hot so why not let the darn horse drink the water instead of
jumping over it? All the horses I know would just splash through the
creek and refresh themselves. They sure do things different here in
California!
Well, we watched for a couple of hours
and had a good time. One little gal, cute a as a button, did go home
with the big cardboard check and everyone was happy for her. It was
all on TV down here and made quiet a impression with the locals.
Here is a photo.
