Our Yellowstone Trip: Rodeo

We got away from the house at about 9:30 on Saturday morning.  We pulled off in Bountiful because Nathan needed to retrieve something from the house, and as we were driving up Orchard Drive about five minutes from the house, Mark turned to me and said, "Did you bring the keys to the cabin?"  If anybody ever had deer-in-the-headlights look, it was me.  It had completely slipped my mind - as it obviously had Mark's - to retrieve the keys to the cabin we were going to be using outside of West Yellowstone.

We were glad, however, that we had remembered the keys only 30 minutes from the house instead of three hours away.  So, we retraced out steps and drove all the way back to our house in Salt Lake to retrieve the keys, then we were really on our way.

Things went fairly well after that.  We stopped at a rest stop outside Idaho Falls for lunch, then drove on to the cabin on Henry's Lake, outside West Yellowstone.  It belongs to a colleague of Mark's who had graciously offered it to us for the three days we'd be up there.  I didn't know what to expect.  I had been told it was pretty "rustic."  But I was very pleasantly surprised.

It wasn't large, by any means, but it was very comfortable, with running water and a nice kitchen.

Plus, the views were gorgeous, with Henry's Lake to the south and the mountains beyond, with another big mountain behind us, to the north.

We arrived in time to settle in and make a spaghetti dinner before heading toward West Yellowstone to go to a rodeo.  This was a first for me as well as the kids.  It wasn't quite as large as I had expected, but it was still fun.

A line of riders in the distance as the sun was setting

Mark, who had a horse when he was a young feller, took the kids up close to see some of the horses.

Nathan posed in a cowboy hat borrowed from the cabin

We posed for a group picture before the rodeo started

The highlight of the evening for the kids was when they called out all the kids ages 4-8, then from 9-12.  Levi went out with the first group, whereupon the clown explained to the kids what they needed to do once a calf was released (grab the flag off the calf's tail).  These videos show what happened - first with the younger group, then the older group.  In the first group, Levi can be seen with the red shirt and beige shorts.  Esther and Aaron both participated in the second group, but I can't quite spot them.  Esther nearly grabbed the flag.

It was a fun evening.