It’s March and in Houston that means that it’s rodeo season. The Houston Livestock and Rodeo is in town for the month, and per tradition it’s kicked off with the cook-off. It’s a 3 night competition showcasing the talent of teams from all around the world. The carnival was open, but I was gifted tent passes for Friday and Saturday night so I headed to the back and spent the night eating all the BBQ I could and partaking in adult beverages. Our tent had a full bar so I stuck with Crown and Cokes and beer on Friday night, and Saturday night I decided not to mix drinks and stuck with Jack and Coke.
The rodeo’s been known to bring in the bad weather, but it held off the entire time I was on the fair grounds. Friday night I went with co-workers-turned-friends and we had a blast walking around the fair grounds singing and dancing to all of the different music that was playing. We were a few drinks in when we came across a tent blasting Selena and put on a show for the people around us, and that was only one of the shows we put on that night. We ended up staying out until well after midnight, and I would’ve been home sooner had transportation not been an issue. After being told that I was going to have to pay a pedi-cab $80 to take me a mile and a half away from the stadium to my apartment, I decided to wait in the line for a taxi. Forty-five minutes and a few rounds of ‘Heads Up’ with a group of strangers later I was finally in a cab headed home. Needless to say I welcomed the sight of my bed and went to sleep shortly after walking through the door.
Saturday night was a bit different. It’d been raining all day so my cousin and I waited until we caught a break in it before heading to Fannin South Park and Ride and catching the train in. We were even able to catch a shuttle over to the cook-off area and saved our feet some pain. It wasn’t raining, but it was still really wet outside so we spent most of the night in our tent eating, drinking and dancing the night away. So many line dances! I’m sure I did every line dance I knew how to do and I even got to do a bit of dancing with (and even serenaded) a cutie I met there. We wanted to make sure we caught the shuttle back so we left a bit early and made it home around 11PM. All in all I had so much fun at the cook-off and I’m thoroughly ready to kick off this rodeo season.
I saw quite a few pictures and posts from the cook-off, so if you were there please feel free to comment below or tweet me and let me know what tent you were in!