Some Must Push and Some Must [Shove] – Day 1

As you may or may not know, I had been looking forward to this past weekend for quite a while.  We had been planning for on going to Enterprise, Utah (near St. George) for Pioneer Day-Weekend since May or so.

Seeing as it is my first summer in Utah, I’ve never had what some may call, a traditional Pioneer Day experience.  But let me tell ya folks, this weekend was incredible. Now, I am going to warn you, I’m going to write a lot of details, simply because I want to remember every bit of it.

Friday afternoon T.J. and I packed up the car and headed on down to the little town in the middle of nowhere.  T.J. was tired from working, so as he slept, I rocked out to my new playlist that I downloaded for the drive.  You know how some days you just want to hop in the car and drive with your windows down and music playing loud?  That’s exactly how I felt.  The last stretch of the drive from Cedar City to Enterprise was the best.  It was a scenic little route through the mountains with windy roads and a beautiful sunset.

{sidebar: a post coming shortly with the list of songs in my summer series playlist}

As soon as we got there, I fell in love with the town.  There were a bunch of old buildings that looked like they were straight from an old western movie.  Ya know what I mean? Like the classic post office building?  I don’t know how to describe it… Also, everyone kept such great care of their lawns, the houses were beautiful and whole place gave off a great “small town vibe.”

When we got to T.J.’s grandparents house, the house was filled with people.  If my family were to have that many present, it would have been a huge family reunion that had been planned out for years, but it was completely normal for all of his family. Most of them I had met but I couldn’t quite match them to the right names.  But one person I noticed immediately was his Great-Grandfather, Leland. Leland is 100 years old, soon to be 101.  He looks healthy and bright.  He always has a quaint smile on his face, although he doesn’t say too much any more.  I gave him a hug, along with T.J.’s grandpa Lyman who is a blunt. hilarious, and down-to-earth farmer.

We got there just in time to head over to the rodeo with his parents, cousins, aunts and uncles.  We listened to his Uncle Brian play with his band beforehand, which was a lot of fun to meet another member of Kelly’s (my mother-in-law’s) family.

The rodeo was a blast.  It was my first one ever.  Although I felt bad for some of the calfs that were lassoed and tied up, I was always amazed when they would just run away like nothing happened! The bull riders were so intense too.  I screamed at the top of my lungs over and over because I was so scared for the people when the bull would come after them.  What crazy person would ever want to do that?  One guy even got pretty beat up and had to be taken out by EMTs.

Probably the most fun part to watch was the chicken catch.  All the little kids tried to catch chickens that were running around the grounds.  It was hilarious to see the little boys walking away triumphantly, chicken in hand.  All night long, they held there chickens under there arms.  I saw one little girl tie a rope to her chicken’s leg.

Precious girl, poor chicken.

After the rodeo was a town dance.  A town dance. How cute is that??  I actually didn’t go though because I was so tired and knew we had a big day ahead of us on Saturday, so I hit the hay pretty early that night at Wade and Angel’s house (another one of T.J.’s Uncles).

So that ends day one of the weekend.  More to come…