The road to Cowboy Christmas

8 states/ 6 rodeos in 6 days? Why not?!

So for the past week and a half, Josey and I hit the road with Ericka Nelson again to give her some company on the rodeo road during Cowboy Christmas! (Ericka is sitting 15th in the pro rodeo standings right now and she’s been doing well so far!) We left on Sunday, the 28th of June from Troy, Alabama and headed to Tyler, Texas to the performance horse spa to pick up her backup horse, Abby. 

After we picked Abby up, we headed to Brock, Texas to stay for a few days at our awesome friends’ ranch. 

 

Their back patio & my view from my coffee mug every morning :) 

While we were there, Ericka rode with someone to a rodeo in Arizona that got entered the same time as her so Josey and I stayed and hit some western thrift stores in Weatherford, Texas, and of course stopped at Teskeys a few (several) times. We ended up finding several awesome western thrift stores and I managed to snag a good bit of old Wranglers for myself and some super cool vintage jackets! 

fun fact : Texas goodwills are much much better than Alabama’s ;) 

of course I bought this shirt 

very proud of buying myself the Charlie1horse hat I’ve been wanting for forever (thanks Teskeys) 

We stumbled onto this really cool western strip in downtown Weatherford and this store in particular had a sitting area with ready to make coffee and a bakery!!! We found out later that the super nice woman that owned it is a trick horse rider!!! 

So later in the afternoon on the second day of our shopping trip, we went with everyone to a barrel race for Ericka to run Abby and see how things go since Abby is notorious for having some serious alleyway issues... but if you get her in the pen, you’ll do great. So Abby warmed up great, but got loose before she went in the pen. Someone awesome on their horse ran after her, chased her down, and caught her. So they pushed Ericka back to being the last person to run to give her a better chance. Abby already knew what was going on (she panicks and wants to run in the pen regardless if someone is on her or not) so Ericka got her taken care of and sure enough they would’ve beat the arena record, but knocked the first barrel :( but Ericka is going to see if she can get Abby figured out so she can rely on her as a good backup horse.

aren’t they cute! 

So the day after that (Wednesday), Josey and I were sent to pick up Ericka’s new trailer in Seguin, Texas (5 hour trip) while she went to Pecos, Texas for a rodeo that night. So Josey and I grabbed her trailer and swapped everything out to the new one and headed to Pecos (8 hour drive). We got there at 3 AM where we picked up Ericka and Sarah McDonald and her horse so they could haul with us for a few days. They hopped in the trailer and we started the 14 hour drive to Prescott, Arizona (where they were up in the performance and slack the next afternoon). So Josey drove all night and I stayed up (for the most part) to be DJ and keep her awake and then at around 9 AM the next morning we swapped with Ericka and Sarah and got in the trailer to sleep for a few hours. So we got to Prescott and had a few hours until they were ready to run in the performance and again in the slack after the rodeo. We went to an awesome Italian restaurant for dinner in downtown Prescott. 

Prescott Frontier Days - Prescott, Arizona 

Ericka had two pretty runs on Friday and is placing well there. After she ran in the slack after the perf, we loaded up the horses and headed to New Mexico (3 hour drive) to a place we could turn the horses out for a few hours in big pens and let them run around some. We ended up getting there around 7 AM and got the horses taken care of and went and got breakfast then loaded back up and headed the rest of the way to Greeley, Colorado (8 hours). Ericka was up there in the performance that night. 

We saw some of the pretty nasty wild fires when we passed through Colorado. 

After Ericka ran at Greeley we loaded up and headed to Belle Fourche, South Dakota for her next run in the slack there. 

Ericka had a nice clean run here that morning then we loaded up once again and headed to the Livingston Round Up in Montana. This arena was my favorite because it had a backdrop full of mountains!

Josey is a serious form of entertainment lol

So we ended up leaving this rodeo at maybe 1 AM and headed to Red Lodge, Montana, where Ericka was up the next morning. After the red lodge rodeo was my absolute favorite part of the trip (wyoming). Ericka was getting some sleep while Josey and I drove through some of the most gorgeous mountains I’ve ever seen. I believe it’s the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Enjoy the pictures : 

This was the absolute highlight of my life. I know that’s very dramatic to say but it was the most gorgeous place I’ve ever seen. We also drove through two rock tunnels that I didn’t manage to get any pictures of, but you can probably imagine how cool it was. 

So funny story about this specific stretch of road. Once we got home within the next week, Josey and I had to make a fast trip out there again, (30 hours of straight driving, hopped on a plane, and came back to Bama). We actually ended up going through this road AGAIN. It was awesome. I recognized it and tuned in the whole time since Josey was driving this time. It was even better the second time. The river had white caps, there were tee-pees alongside the rivers and places to camp and stay and I can promise you I’ll be there one day to vacation for a little while. It was amazing. 

But anyways, after that little drive, we headed to Utah where Josey and I hopped on a plane and headed home to Alabama. 

It was an amazing trip full of awesome rodeos and scenery and I couldn’t be any happier I got to go along for the ride. I leave again this Friday, July 20th, to fly out to Utah and meet up with Ericka to join her for two more weeks!