Weeks before “Stampede”. Shops began decorating in a cowboy theme. More people began dressing like cowboys. I like the clothes, leather or suede jackets, with frills, in all colors, scarves, hats, belts, etc.
The first day of the Stampede, we got up early and rode down-town by bus. There you have free breakfasts, mostly pancakes from chuck-wagons. There were thousands of people, all well behaved, lining the streets for the “Parade”. Hundreds of horses, Rodeo princesses, some from as far as Australia, well known people, such as Sam Elliot, Bands from places like UK, lovely floats, veteran cars, first nations, in full costume and make -up, Chinese dragons, etc. Every now and then the street sweeper trucks comes past to clean the horse and bull manure. The atmosphere was lovely, lots of hee-haws !, Ja-Hoo’s !
We met the some other South-Africans there. Believe it or not, after the parade when the people left -THERE WAS NO LITTER !
Then we all took the C- train to the stampede grounds. Everybody buys train tickets, which nobody collects on the train. The stampede is like the trade fair, a bit bigger, with a cowboy theme. Chuck wagon races, rodeos, lumber-jack competitions etc.
The stampede lasts 10 days, fortunately we went the first day, as it rained and rained for the next few days. . We watched some of the rodeos and chuck-wagon races on TV, what a mud bath.
When the rain stopped it got very hot. We have had the hottest temperatures of the year. U.S.A are experiencing heat waves.
Tokeloshe ©
No comments:
Post a Comment