Rollin' Down Rodeo with a RaincoatThe highlight of Saturday afternoon at Fall Festival is the annual rodeo, which draws quite a few Stetson fans from the surrounding areas. More accurately for me, the highlight of Saturday afternoon is paying $5 to go to the rodeo then wishing I had it back twenty minutes later because I'm bored and on my way to buy a twelve pack and watch college football for the next four hours.
While I had planned to loiter there a little longer this year and get some sweet pictures and stories, the rains came steady and strong all day. Through all of this, the rodeo did go on. Instead of people sitting outside on their tailgates and lawn chairs watching bull riding, however, the spectators that did come out sat in their vehicles for the duration of the rain-drenched show. It can be logically inferred that the number of open container violations in Leonard on that day is directly proportional to the number of vehicles on the rodeo grounds.
As hinted to before, I'm not much of a rodeo fan, so the downpour gave me an excuse to stay home and engage in alternative fun like doing laundry. More importantly, though, it gave me an excuse to get to Fargo for the first football game of the year at my alma mater, North Dakota State University, and start tailgating. Rain might dissaude me from watching some tough bastards ride horses in the mud, but it's not going to keep me from eating cold hot dogs and drinking shitty beer. Pictured at left is not the team bus, but rather a bus owned by some rabid fans of cold hot dogs, shitty beer, and presumably Bison football. It is one of many in an impressively painted fleet.