friends old and new

While I brushed the surface of my adventures the past few days, there was a lot more to it than fried food and beer and livestock. My friend Myron is far and away my best friend from my days in Dallas. We meet up every year for several rodeos, new years, and the AllStar game. He is the perfect travel buddy. We seem to share a similar level of energy and patience with travel and activities and people, along with a common sensibility of amusement and amazement about the world around us. Our friend Tres often joins us, adding another view on the world that is always refreshing and full of laughs. Though they both still live half the country away from me and we may go weeks without even an email, time with them always feels like it hasn't missed a beat even though it has been eight years since I left Dallas.

This trip also brought a couple unexpected run-ins with old friends like Don who now lives in Denver, and Verdell, a creative genius that I was lucky to work with in Dallas who is always ready with wry wit and stories of the funny thing that happened the other day.

Rodeos are always fun because after going to so many for twelve years now, I never know who I am going to run into. Over time, you make new friends and get to know old ones better, even though many you never have contact with outside of these rodeos. Its comforting to run into old friends and acquaintances with a ready smile, and always fun to make new friends. This year we found ourselves spending a lot of time with my friend Jeff from Austin and his posse, some of whom were joining the gang for their first rodeo, so even then we found ourselves with both old and new friends at once.

I always try to include pictures of the stock and events in my rodeo postings because last January my Dad asked me jokingly "are there any animals at these rodeos you go to?". Of course there are, but the real fun and lasting value comes from what's in the stands, not in the arena.