Woke up to warm and humid again this morning with the temperature climbing to 27C.
After lunch we headed into the nearby town of Los Fresnos for the annual rodeo and agricultural fair. On the way in funny tones emitted from the radio followed by a computerised voice announcing that there were severe thunderstorm warnings in effect. We didn’t know the areas mentioned, so we didn’t worry!
We drove into a large field that was being used as a parking lot (car park!) and walked over to the fair grounds. There were a number of rides there, and round the outside of the fair were some open barns with livestock in one and a cake auction in the other!! Evidently the participants in the cake bake-off earlier in the day get to have their cakes auctioned off and they keep the profits!
In a large tent was a team of Clydesdale horses owned by the Budweiser brewery, unfortunately they weren’t on performing today, they were just there for viewing. Even so they are magnificent beasts.
We headed over to the stands surrounding the rodeo arena and were surprised to be met by our next door neighbours here at the resort. Turns out that they volunteer at the show each year, and they were acting as guides to the seats. While we sitting there waiting for the show to begin, there was a road roller, followed by a tractor preparing the arena.
Zamboni - Texas Style
For the European readers a Zamboni is the machine that goes out and grooms the ice at hockey games.
As the time marched towards the start the skies grew darker, then they started flashing then water started falling gently; however it looked as though we would be lucky and miss the storm.
Rodeo Horses - Los Fresnos, Tx
Unfortunately, the weather had decided not to avoid us, and the rain got a little heavier…. It was time to move under the stands and keep dry. This worked fine for about 15 minutes, then the heavens opened and the stands provided very little protection, in fact given the proximity of some of the lightning strikes and the fact that the stand structure was metal, it probably was not a good place to be! By this time we were (literally) soaked to the skin so we decided to call it a day. We couldn’t get any wetter, and it was cooling off, so we waded back to the truck. In places in the field the water was 2-3 inches deep already. We made it back to the truck and I was glad we had 4 wheel drive to get through the muddy field and out onto the road.
An unfortunate end to the day, neither of us had seen a rodeo before and we were both looking forward to it. Five hours later it is still raining, and the wind is strong enough to cause the trailer to shudder at times. Looking at the radar, there is still more rough weather to come over night and the temperature has dropped to 12C..