COLORADO ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2004 (Part 2)

What I like about the different contrasts of the cultures & landscapes of travelling to foreign countries, is the absolute diversity one can find, even at the basic level. Yes, I'm talking cowboys.

Here in the Wild West, one can find a wide variety of cowboys. Take this chappie on the left here. I snapped him with the old swivel lens after we had just gone for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Don't be fooled by the matcho stance whilst leaning against the post - he had three little daughters, his wife, and some other guy with him. When we were waiting inside the store/restaurant for our table, him and his friend were standing in the corner - I thought they were part of some exhibit, or promotion! Luckily, they weren't armed except for the visual armoury of bad taste boots which was kind of offending to the eyes.

On the otherhand, this guy on the truck was definately something to talk about. We were on our way to Sterling, when I spied this guy on this side of the dusty highway. And sure enough, as Sue spun the car around to go back to get a closer look at him - it was, indeed, a cowboy playing a guitar on the back of his truck! I mean, he was out in the middle of nowhere. (Actually he was on the city limits of Thornton as you can see, but it was all fields and housing developments being built in the distance). Very bizarre. But allow me to disgress a minute from the current cowboy theme. I did come across another example of this need/want/wish to be standing out in the middle of nowhere playing a musical instrument .

Now this young man deserves some kind of special award.  There we were, minding our own business, just leaving one of those outrageously large, (sprawled across several hundreds of acres of former Arapaho hunting grounds), American shopping malls, when the school bus pulled up. The driver got out, and so did the lad with the saxaphone. The driver went off for a coffee or something, and the lad just started to jam - all by himself. If you are concerned about this young man's welfare, or just want to grass him up to the authorities, then click here - it'll take you to the St. Vrain Valley School District website. I'm sure he'll be famous one day - and be playing bigger shopping malls across Colorado. Maybe him and the cowboy should get together? :)

But I must get back to the subject at hand - cowboys. How can you not come so far west and get some decent pictures of cowboys in action? This is Jon. Jon is a modern day cowboy - as you can see from the baseball cap, and the super new high tensile, industrial, orange fluro rope he is holding in the non-slip/friction 21st century comfy wear cowboy gloves he has on.  Jon has a small ranch just outside Denver.

Helping Jon on the ranch is this guy - Able. Both Jon & Able were very willing to show off their roping skills.

In fact, the day we were there, they were practising for a local competition where there would have been some cash prizes for various cowboy type activities.



Of course, not wishing to be left out of anything, I decided to show them cowboys just what a city slicker like me can do. So, "I mossied on over to the coral and picked me the meanest looking critter I could find!".....sort of.....lol. Then I plunged myself into the roping arena!

Okay - I know what it looks like. It looks like some daft English guy on a horse being lead around a coral by the bloke who owns it. But what is really happening here is that I'm in control of a wild stallion whose bucking bronco antics have been brought under control by my superb horsemanship. In fact, I'd just saved Jon from being trampled to death* - which is why everyone is smiling - except the horse.

Actually, the horse was probably thinking:
"I know what's going on here. I'm going to end up on this English guy's website as Unamed Horse - it's so humilating! Maybe I should behave like a wild stallion and throw the little bugger off my back?! Nah - Jon wouldn't feed me later on. S'pose I'll just play the tourist horse for the camera".
(* You know this really never happened don't you? LOL)
 
And just to show you that I can really control a horse under my own steam, here' a little piccie of me directing Sue how to use the digital camera to get the right piccie of me posing on the horse....lol. Look at the horsemanship. The poise. The balance. The disregard for his own safety in the field of battle, as he aids his wife in getting the right results with the camera.

It must have been tough on those wagon trains in the pioneering days when the nearest flash card distributor was either in Portland, Maine ......or Portland, Oregon....lol...:)