30TH ANNUAL HOUSTON ART CAR PARADE

Saturday, April 8 – It seems like there is something interesting and unique going on in Houston, TX, just about every weekend. Today was no exception! The Art Car Parade fills the streets of downtown Houston. The history of the Art Car Parade is very interesting. You can read about it here. The cars are parked on display at 11 a.m. So after a quick breakfast at one of the many mid-town/downtown restaurants, we along with daughter, Carrie, headed over to the show.

Carrie works downtown, so we took advantage of her parking garage. There are over 250 cars in the show. Many are professionally done but that doesn't stop the local school art programs, elementary schools and just ordinary everyday people from entering their own creations. The following are entries that did not win in any categories. We will show you the winners of the parade in the next post.

Camera car.

Guess what this car was entirely made of.

That is right…Peeps.

Carrie just couldn’t pass up a Shock Top beer out of this car.

The Houston Opera sponsored this one.

This car was completely made out of wood. It was beautiful.

Their motto:  We are #1 in a #2 business.

We walked several miles taking in the sights. These crazy events bring out some people looking to party and have a good time, so the “people watching” is in full-swing as well.

Many of these decorated cars will end up in the Art Car Museum which is also located in Houston. That is a stop we've made in the past and is enjoyable and FREE. We planned on walking around viewing the cars, and then high tailing it before the parade started.  But we were having so much fun, we just headed back to the parking garage where we moved the car to the 2^nd floor railing and sat there to enjoy the parade. What a hoot!

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

HOUSTON RODEO

Wednesday, March 22 – After we visited many of the events going on at the Houston Livestock Show, we headed over to the rodeo. The Houston rodeo is held in the Reliant Football Stadium. It holds over 72,000 people, and it was nearly full. Amazing!

Presenting of the colors.

We enjoyed the steer roping, bucking bronco riding, bull riding, barrel races, and more. We particularly enjoy the girls barrel racing and the buckboard races.

The ladies could really ride! Several broke the record.

These kids get a chance to wrestle down a calf and keep it. It is a riot watching them.

After the rodeo is the concert. Tonight was Chris Young. We decided not to stay for the concert and beat the thousands and thousands of people to the exit. It was a very long day but well worth it. The rodeo is a blast!

The rides were packed when we left at 9:30.

We'll be staying at the Houston Elks Lodge until mid or late April. If you're in the area give us a shout!

Thanks to Mary and Marlene for sending Marsha the name of our mystery bird. It is a Loggerhead Shrike, also known as a "thorn bird". The Loggerhead Shrike skewers their kill on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. What a way to eat a meal.

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

HOUSTON RODEO, BABY!

Wednesday, March 22 – It's rodeo time in Houston. We spent the day enjoying the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show. Wednesday is senior day with free admission. We chose to pay $10 so we could also see the rodeo events and the concert. The rodeo is held at the huge Reliant Stadium and nearby events center.

We were going to park off site and ride the light rail to the stadium, but the place we normally park was full so we bit the bullet and paid $15 for parking. It turned out pretty good because we were early enough to get close-up parking and jumped on the shuttle for a ride to the front gate.

We started at the horse arena and watched the kids showing their horses. We enjoy the kids that work so hard to prepare for these events. Even though we are not ranchers and don't really know much about horses, it is obvious these kids spend hours and hours preparing to show their horses.

This little girls was so proud parading her horse around the arena.

Next, we went over to the events center where the livestock show is held. We started with the kids area where they were showing piglets being born, chickens laying eggs, cows being milked, and a petting arena for the kids. So far this livestock show there have been 12 lambs, 58 piglets, 16 calves born at the birthing area. Marsha just loves mingling with the kids and seeing these all goings on.

These guys acted like they were starving.

The boss man checking things out.

We then strolled through the livestock area. Today was cattle judging day. The livestock show is so huge they have to move animals in for the particular events. Pigs one week, sheep & goats another, cattle another week and so on.

Established as the Houston Fat Stock Show in 1932, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has grown to more than 30,000 entries. The Houston Livestock Show is organized by three categories of competitions: Junior Show, Open Show and Youth Show.

The Show is not only the largest livestock show, but also sets world records at the junior market show auctions. In 2016, junior auctions, including school art, totaled a record $12,350,133. (All info taken from the official website.) This year we saw some very unique colors on the cattle.

It was nice to see our neck brace for cows was a big hit.

After judging in the arena the winners are moved to an area where they are weighed and branded with the official Houston Rodeo brand. That was really cool to watch!

In the following photo, we saw this little girl with her dad earlier getting her prize position ready for the show. She took third place in her group.

Look how hot that iron is.

End result. No pun intended…lol

There is a sales area where everything from cowboy boots and hats to toffee is for sale. We did pickup a couple free toffee samples but passed on any additional purchases.

What a steal at only $175.00. We passed.

This guy was amazing.

No Paul!

How many of you go to a rodeo looking for a puppet? So strange.

They have wonderful information about Texas throughout the entire building.

Don’t worry about going hungry here. There are tons of places to eat with just about anything available under the sun.

Next up was relaxing at the wine garden. We shared a bottle of wine and listened to some music killing a little time until the rodeo began at the stadium. The weather was perfect and the wine garden was soon packed. We grabbed a quick sandwich and then headed over to the main event – the rodeo.

The gal at the table next to us had boots on that Marsha wants. She even poised so Marsha could get a photo.

Everything is bigger in Texas.

In our next blog, we’ll tell you all about the big rodeo!

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