Snake River Stampede

Leaving the Salmon River and heading to Nampa Idaho for the Snake River Stampede to get the first part of our rodeo fix.  We did not hit a winner with our RV Park choice (we are campground snobs) but the rodeo has made up for that.  The landscape changed rapidly from mountains to valley - still gorgeous!

Hard to get photos of flat dry looking fields!  We did see some packing plants - for shipping potatoes!!!

The rodeo had some spectacular elements.  The announcer was not up in a booth - he was on his horse in the arena the entire time.  Loved seeing him check his cell phone and slide it back into a special slot on his saddle.  The participants for this weeklong event number over 700 with purses totalling over $444k.  The World Champion Bareback Rider, Bull Rider, and Bronc Rider are here too.  There was a drill team that rode into a darkened arena with red, white and blue lights on their saddles preceded by a rider with a lighted Anerican flag - really impressive!  Then there were the kids as young as 5 riding lambs - funny to watch and there was a sheep dog who made sure the lambs behaved.  Teenagers participated in the calf crawl - fifteen calves were released into the arena and the teens had to catch one and bring it to the center with a rope - and collect $1000 for college!  Then there was my favorite: an old cowboy and his adopted Mustang plus his two mutts - the photo shows all.

Liked the rodeo so much we are going back tonight.  Maybe I can get some photos of the horses - theyall got  photobombed last night.