July 22nd-25th
Ashley and I left Monterey very early Tuesday morning for Cheyenne. We were on different flights, which we initially thought was unlucky. However, when I arrived in Cheyenne, Ashley had the last laugh and admitted that she was very lucky not to have my flight schedule. It was an interesting trip—I had four flights on four different airlines that day (Monterey to LAX, Los Angeles to Phoenix, Phoenix to Denver, and Denver to Cheyenne) and when I finally arrived in Cheyenne, I didn’t have any bags! Happily, my bags made it in to Cheyenne later that night, just in time for the “Daddy of ‘Em All.”
On my first night in Cheyenne, I attended the Cheyenne Frontier Days PBR (Professional Bull Riders) event. At opening of the PBR, each of the visiting state queens had the opportunity to give a short introduction and welcome the crowd. It was a terrific experience to stand in front of that gigantic crowd! The PBR was very exciting—the cowboys definitely rode some tough bulls and set the stage for the great rodeo action that I would see in the next few days.
My first morning in Cheyenne began “bright and early” at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Pancake Breakfast in downtown Cheyenne. The free Pancake Breakfasts during the Cheyenne Frontier Days are huge—nearly 10,000 people come to downtown Cheyenne during the week for pancakes, a little butter, syrup, and orange juice. At the pancake breakfast, visiting queens and volunteers cook the pancakes on huge griddles on chuck wagons, and then flip the pancakes up and outward for local boy scouts to catch on platters. The boy scouts in turn run a relay of sorts with the platters back and forth to the serving stations. As you can probably tell from the pancake breakfast pictures in my Cheyenne album, I was a tad bit nervous about my pancake flipping skills. Happily, however, I would like to report that I only lost one pancake all morning!
The Cheyenne Frontier Days (or CFD) Rodeo is extremely difficult to describe; the best description that I can pen is simply the rodeo’s slogan—it’s the “Daddy of ‘Em All.” The arena is 700’ x 200’ with a racetrack that circles the arena and one-half of the grandstands. Most rodeo arenas are usually only about 200’ x 120’! At the rodeo, I narrated a section of the steer wrestling event on the radio (the CFD is covered on the radio LIVE!), sampled the western shops on the grounds, watched the rodeo action, went on a behind the chutes tour, and rode on a “fly by.” A “fly by” is what the call a queen’s run at Cheyenne. Ms. Arlene Kensinger’s late husband coined the term “fly by” when he first asked Ms. Arlene years ago, “so who [meaning visiting queens] is “flying by” today.” Mr. Kensinger called it “flying by” because the queens run their horses at a full gallop on the track by the grandstands during a Cheyenne queen’s run, rather than just loping (a slower gait than a full gallop). My “fly bys” on Hawk (my horse for the week) were unbelievable; it was an unforgettable experience to run full speed by those huge arena grandstands!
If a great rodeo, parade, and pancake breakfast weren’t enough, I also attended the annual Thunderbirds Air Show. Each year the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds put on an air show during the Cheyenne Frontier Days. The Thunderbirds are the elite demonstration squadron of the U.S. Air Force and are simply “the best of the best” when it comes to performing aerial maneuvers. I had the chance to get to know a few of the Thunderbirds at the Pancake Breakfast, so it was especially neat to know the men and women flying during the show.
I spent my last night in Cheyenne at the Taylor Swift concert. My younger sister had seen Taylor in concert earlier this year and she tried to tell me “how amazing Taylor Swift is,” but I did not fully appreciate the young lady’s talent and charisma until I saw her in concert. At her concert, we (the visiting queens) introduced ourselves prior to the show as we had done at the PBR, and then took front row seats (well, behind the standing room only section) to watch Taylor’s concert. I will vouch that the Tim McGraw/Our Song/Love Story singer can definitely sing and put on a fantastic concert. The concert was a great wrap-up for my three days in Cheyenne.
Thank you to the CFD committee for inviting me to their prestigious rodeo, to Ms. Arlene Kensinger for coordinating my visit and for hosting us in her home for dinner, and to my host mom in Cheyenne, Ms. Jeffie Wiggins. My trip to the “Daddy of ‘Em All” will be one that I will always cherish—thank you to the Cowboy State and CFD committee for their hospitality!
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