TUCSON RODEO 2/19 -2/27

We pulled away from the house yesterday around 8:30 am, stopped at the high school to hook up the jeep, then headed south and east toward Tucson, AZ. It's a little over 300 miles from Lake Havasu to Tucson, and we usually make the trip in about 6 hours, with one fuel stop. That fuel stop was at $3.47 a gallon, the most we've paid in several years. With a 130 gallon tank, if we're close to the empty side, it's starting to get expensive to fill up the motor home. This might be a good summer to stay parked at the Grand Canyon, working at the south rim. We still don't know for sure about my bus driving job, but Patty has been offered a job at the grocery store/gift shop. Hopefully, we'll know for sure in a couple of weeks, if that's where we'll be for the summer.

This is where the motor home will be parked for the next 10 days, at the Tucson Rodeo Grounds in Tucson, AZ. I think this is our 6th year working the Tucson Rodeo, but it was touch and go whether it was going to happen this year.

In the past, the majority of the merchandise we have sold in Tucson, has been left over from the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, which takes place in early December. Since the company we contract with (MainGate), doesn't do the NFR any more, we speculated that without that merchandise, MainGate wouldn't want to continue with the Tucson Rodeo. We got the word while we were working the NFR, that MainGate was going to take a trailer to Tucson, and it would be filled with just Tucson Rodeo merchandise. We were a little surprised, but glad, because we enjoy working this rodeo. Over the years, we've gotten to know many of the workers, and volunteers who dedicate their time to the "La Fiesta de los Vaqueros", one of the oldest & largest rodeos in the country. We kind of feel like part of the family, when we return to the rodeo grounds each year.

I hope to capture some of the action on film as the rodeo progresses, but as in the past, we're kind of limited, in that we're mostly confined to our merchandise trailer. It's always kind of exciting when we make our first sale to someone on horseback.