Fortuna tried to kill us

Well, alright, no it didn't. Other than marveling at the bright yellow orb in the strangely blue sky, nobody could tell we were from Arcata. Which I have mixed feeling about: I like to represent my wacky little town when I venture outside it's tie-dyed city limits. But...the guy handing out water and sodas saw my stadium pad and thanked me for coming "all the way down from Orick," and when I said, We're from Arcata! a guy next to us in line said, way out of the blue, "I'm barred from Arcata. That's 'cause I keep running down dreads." As in, "...you weird, dreadlock-wearing hippies."

What?!

Sometimes I wish I had a "blending in" hat like Greg's John Deere hat or Alisha's Hayfork Future Farmers of America hat (in stunning camo). Mine doesn't blend at all.

Instead, we just sat down in the stands (one for George Carlin), listened to the announcer make fun of Crescent City and watched us some rodeo. First up! Steer wrasslin':

First, stand around discussing the weather, the horses, and that pretty young thing on the big sorrel in the barrel racing...

Time to get 'er done. Chase down a steer on your trusty cowpony...

Jump off your galloping horse onto the head (and horns) of your steer...

Next, grab the steer by the horns...

And twist its head to try and get it to lie down. It only weighs 600 or 700 lbs, shouldn't be too hard...

Yes! You wrassled your steer to the ground. Good work, cowboy.

How long ago was this?

Tomorrow's cowboys keeping cool in the dirt bowl beside the arena.

So American: a monster truck (with longhorn ornament!), buffalo, and cowboys. Throw in some cheap beer and flag-waving and I just might OD. D'oh!
The stunt here was to get the buffalo on top of the trailer. They got one of them up there, but never both. What can I say? Buffalo are not pliable personalities.

But the cowboy rode his horse to the top of the trailer, and that was nice.

Oh! One of the bulls in the bull-riding event was named Crab-man!

So, a good day in Fortuna, even if we did fry in the direct sun.