Bonus: The Casey Tibbs Match of Champions

You may have heard that much of this part of the country was being smacked in the face by triple digit temperatures at the moment.  In fact, many of my DC friends reported that they'd seen South Dakota on their local news as an example of how hot it has gotten.  And indeed, it has gotten VERY hot.  So hot that I got out my Bob Ross sunshade for my car, and people are scrapping over shady parking spots as I haven't seen since living in Little Rock.

Now, I've been many places where they say "Yeah, but it's a dry heat!" and you get to such a place and all you feel is sweltering humidity.  Like when I went to Tucson in 2011 and it turns out Tucson has a monsoon season and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  Well, here in Pierre, all you hear about is the humidity from the dam, lake, and river nearby.  So we were fully prepared for death by humidity.  Fortunately, the central air in our house works great, and we have an amazing basement that is nice and cool, and we thought we'd just hang out there till the heatwave passed.

However, the opposite of what we were told turned out to be true.  We've actually had very little humidity. It has been a very dry heat.  We've been in and out all weekend.  Bob Ross is still getting us through the hot car, but otherwise, we feel pretty good.

Consequently, last night we decided to take our chances and attend our first ever rodeo.  Now, if you've ever been to Pierre, I can just about guarantee that you've heard of the grand master of them all, Casey Tibbs. We haven't been to his museum yet, but he has a big statue across the river in Ft. Pierre and a giant museum in his honor.  He was apparently one of the best rodeo riders to ever live, and he went on to become an actor and stunt man.  He is a big deal around here.  And once a year, the local Stanley County Fairgrounds (where we went to the auction mentioned in an earlier post) hosts the Casey Tibbs Match of Champions.  It's a biggie.  And I was darned sure going to go.

We went over at 5pm when we were told there'd be a steak fry dinner and the gates would open.  However, the actual riding didn't start till 7PM, so we agreed not to sit in the heat aimlessly for two hours and went back home until closer to time.  After we got back, we enjoyed dinner in the barn with hot dogs and BBQ sandwiches all around.  We got our souvenir programs and armed with bottles of water, we hit the stands.

I didn't appreciate what a big deal this was till it came time for the colors to be unveiled for the National Anthem. Look at this tough customer.  Any idea who he is?

None other than the lieutenant governor, Mr. Larry Rhoden, who I wouldn't have known if I fell over.  The number three bronco rider in the world was competing last night, and they had kiddos as young as 8 (!) competing.  

The cowboys lined up and ready to ride

 

Now, here's what you need to know...  

1.  There is a lot of downtime in bronco riding.  Like, the announcer was so long winded that at least three times in the second round, the horses got bored and wouldn't come out of the chutes when they were opened.  So for instance, even though it was 104* outside, they had some dignitaries that they put on an old wagon and drove in circles around the arena not one but seven times.

So by the end of the second round, needless to say, Leah was over it.  She did say she enjoyed watching it when the action was happening, but she had reached her limit with the guy announcing and the princesses riding by with flags from the electric company and grain companies.  So we did leave early, but not because we didn't enjoy the bronco riding.

2.  I started learning to keep score.  This is not overall that difficult, because the scores are announced at the end of each 8 second ride, but there are two special acronyms in scoring, one being NS for "no score" which means the rider did not reach a full 8 seconds, and the other being RR for "re-ride", meaning the horse was uncooperative and the rider gets to try again.  There were four re-rides in the second set of riders, to tell you how grumpy the horses were getting.  Each rider can get up to 100 points--50 for their talent and 50 for how the horse does--something to do with vertical leaps and some other horse things.  The highest score we saw was an 87, and that was by the third overall bronc rider in the world.

3.  The standard wear of the American male at a rodeo is a blue plaid button down shirt, a cowboy hat, and jeans.  I will absolutely not be going with Gregory again until he conforms.  There were cowboy hats as far as the eye could see--all white straw.  

So that's what I learned as a first timer...

Here are some pictures I took.  I got videos as well, but I'm not fully confident on whether Blogger will let me post them.  I'll put some on Facebook if not...

The cowboy on the spotted horse was competing.  The two homeboys in purple are the ones who get him off the crazy horse after his turn is over and calm the bucking horse down.

Eventually, we left around 8:30PM and decided to get some ice cream.  We went to Ft. Pierre's alternative to Zesto: the Cool Spot.  We weren't so impressed.  It took forever to get ice cream, but it was good!  Then I decided to take the scenic route home and showed Greg and Leah the Oahe dam area.  We stopped at the scenic overlook and checked out the sunset over the Missouri.

Then home we went and cooled off and headed to bed!  It was a really fun thing to do together, and we enjoyed ourselves so much, which I did not expect.  I thought we would attend rather ironically, but it was so good!  We are really immersing ourselves in the culture here and there are pleasant surprises around every turn. 

Starting to Plan a Life

Our lives in Pierre are slowly starting to take shape.  Here in NY, we are finishing--we accepted an offer on our house this week, and the packing is coming along nicely.  The garage is full of yard sale treasures and it's much fuller than our shed of keep items (that will change, I'm quite sure!).  I packed all the baking items! :-(  Officially no more baking till the other side!

What's exciting to me is making plans on the other end!  We actually have South Dakota dates penned on our calendar at home.  I can't wait for some of this good stuff...

On May 19, we will finally get to see our house in person!  On May 20, we will close on our little cottage in the city and on May 21, we will have our stuff delivered.  We'll spend the weekend trying to get somewhat organized, and then the real fun begins!

I start work on May 24th.  It will be the first time, I realized today, that I have worked full time in 12 years.  I am both excited and terrified to have a real schedule, and my own work space, which I have never, ever had in my professional life--it's always been shared space.  Funny what a luxury my own cube seems!

Mary sent me the Zesto recipe calendar for May.  Zesto is the local ice cream joint and on May 24, we will definitely be enjoying blackberry ice cream--it's like they knew we were coming!  On May 25, the local Expedition League baseball team, the Pierre Trappers, has its home opener for the season, and I bought Greg season tickets for his May 27 birthday, so we have a fun family activity to do throughout the summer.

Mary also clued me in to Oahe Days, a local arts and music festival with a small rodeo and carnival and food trucks, which sounds like so much fun!  So that is on our June calendar. 

Since we'll be living kind of right downtown, we've been mapping everything for walking and biking, and I think we're going to manage to be much more active.  Leah has already charted a course for the local grocery and convenience stores for snack runs, as well as the Y and the library so she won't be stuck home all summer.  This brings with it a lot of fear for me, letting her zip around alone, but I'll get her a phone plan and she'll be under strict instructions to keep me posted on her whereabouts.  

Right now I am, if I'm being honest, struggling with sitting around waiting to get moved and going.  Our reasons for waiting are valid--Leah is performing in her last show here at her current school and she's got the lead role.  Greg has two weeks of college left.  We need to get the house in order for our buyer.  There's so much to do, it's not worth rushing.  But boy do I want to! 

Just a short update for you all, and sorry there are no interesting pictures, but I hope you've enjoyed getting a little local flavor of life in Pierre for now! 

Moving Out and Fitting In

This weekend we started getting serious and getting organized for moving.  We finalized squaring away our finances to pay for our future party pad, as well as working out how we were going to pay to physically move three humans and four feisty felines halfway across the country.  The timing is also going to be challenging, as Greg doesn't finish school till May 15, and I start work May 24.

We've decided to have a moving sale in early May, as well as starting to clear out things to go to charity that we don't think people will buy (people don't tend to buy adult clothing at yard sales in my experience).  

To that end, tonight Gregory and I went through our shirt drawers.  Each partner was allowed to vote to toss a shirt or keep it, and it was based on how it looks on the person, what condition it was in, and our personal sense of style, as well as how we feel we might fit in while we're there.  (For instance, while I'm not getting rid of them or hiding my liberalness, I maybe don't always need to poke the bear with my extensive collection of political tee shirts, so the rattiest ones went adios!).  Our pile was pretty impressive (I can now shut my drawers!),  and we did the Marie Kondo method of honoring the items and thanking them for their service in our lives, which made me feel a bit better about tossing so many things that a month ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about.

This led to a conversation about how my experience in the Pierre WalMart indicates that there does not seem to be a reusable bag/paper only policy.  We are running low on plastic bags here and were trying to decide how to bag up these shirts.  So I told Greg that when we move, we'll have all the plastic bags we can possibly handle.  He said, "Well, I think I'll still want to use my reusable bags."  To which I replied, "Greg!  Do you want them to think we're a bunch of hippies!?"  Apparently yes.  Yes he does.

So I said, "Ok, but can you at least do it wearing a cowboy hat?"  And he said he would if I got him a cowboy hat.  So look out, Pierre, because this tough customer is going to be strolling through a grocery store near you sometime soon.

Then he decided I should try out this look...  So being the excellent sport I am, I did.  

George is dubious.

Of course, this is all very stereotypical, both of South Dakota and of the East Coast.  I find myself wondering a lot about what it will really be like to live there and if we'll fit in.  I liked all the people I met there at first blush, so I'm hopeful that we'll find our squad eventually.