WORLD’S CHAMPIONSHIP BAR-B-QUE…HOUSTON

Saturday, February 27 – We attended the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest (often refereed to as the Houston Bar-B-Que) with our daughter, Carrie, and a whole gang of her friends.

It is held at Reliant Stadium. This is the same location as the Houston Rodeo. It is the unofficial kick-off for the rodeo.

Carrie co-sponsors one of the cook-off tents, the Holy Cow Cookers, and sells tickets to dozens of her friends.

Sponsors get recognition on the 15+ TVs in the tent.

You can see in the background of the next photo, that the Holy Cow Cookers won the Most Colorful Team and runner-up to Best Team Skit.

Mike, Carrie, Paul and Marsha

We were there early so we could grab a few photos of inside the tent. All drinks are included in the price of the ticket.

Besides delicious BBQ ribs, brisket, chicken and all the fixin’s, they have tons of different kinds of coffee, fried Oreos, delicious ice cream, homemade cookies, etc.

Carrie is so sweet to provide us with free entry tickets to her tent and even paid our way into the stadium grounds. This is another amazing Houston event with more than 250 entries, with three international teams competing for the first year from Great Britain and Japan. And they don't do things small here either. Remember, this is Texas and everything is bigger in Texas. These tents are crazy with all types of Texas decorations, bands, picture booths, free drinks, and of course all the barbeque you can eat.

Even a group from Japan.

We sure enjoyed the evening with Carrie's friends. It's so nice they include us “old folks” in this social event.

We spent the evening eating, drinking, laughing with the group, dancing, people watching and just having a great time.

If you attend the Bar-B-Que or Rodeo, be sure to wear your boots.

Just a sample of how big her group was. People kept coming and going.

There are bands in most of the tents and one out in the public arena for those not entering one of the private sponsored tents. Entry fee to the Bar-B-Que includes a free barbecue lunch.

Carrie’s tent even had three photo booths.

The carnival rides for the rodeo are open, and 1000's of people take advantage of enjoying the rides. Eating barbecue and drinking just doesn't go with carnival spinning rides so we steered clear of the rides.

One of the nice things about the Houston Rail is it makes a stop at the stadium so there is no reason to drive and no reason to pay the $20 parking fee. Of course the train was packed with 100's of people packed into each train car. We did buy a train ticket for $1.25, but there was no way anyone was collecting tickets among this mass of humanity.

Next up is the largest rodeo in America.....the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show.. It runs the entire month of March. We plan on attending on Wednesday which is $10 day. Now that's a bargain! Stop back and enjoy the rodeo with us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!