The beautiful summer weather has been holding so far, the days are warm and sunny; the skies blue with fluffy white clouds and yes, we still have the occasional thunderstorm in the evening, although fortunately no more hail.

(But let me go and knock on wood after that statement, because Custer had a foot of hail 3 days ago during one of those summer storms! One FOOT!)

As you see in the picture above we went to Deadwood during their annual ‘Days of 76’ celebrations, but the weekend before that we were in Spearfish for their annual ‘Arts in the Park’ event.

It’s one of the largest arts and crafts events in this part of the country and draws a lot of people. Especially when the weather is good and it was a beautiful day so the place was packed.

Other than lots of booths with all kinds of handmade ‘stuff’ (who don’t allow you take pictures of their booths and/or creations) there was a big food court:

 ….. adjacent to the stage with ‘live’ music:

         
                                                       
Since all that walking around made us hungry we went for one massive turkey leg and an ‘awesome blossom'.

  

OK, so much for that event, now fast forwarding to the ‘Days of 76’ of Deadwood.

Amongst several other festivities, one of the main events was a parade on Saturday morning.

As usual, we were running late, due to somebody’s legendary disastrous time management, but this time that turned into a good thing since we got to park right at the town’s entrance, where they just started to close of the road for the start of the parade.

(‘Somebody’ saved his tail with that lucky coincidence).

Main Street was packed when we set up our chairs at a rather quiet, but perfect, corner towards the end of the route …..

   

Since the days of ‘76 celebrate the days of the (gold) miners and trappers that lived in the area, in particular during the famous shoot out and killing of ‘Wild Bill’ Hancock in 1876, the parade leaned heavily towards cowboys and horses ...

                 

                       ...... pioneers and their donkeys ..

  

... even Indians …

….. and some cowgirls and other ‘ladies’.

Lots of horse drawn coaches, carriages and wagons ….

… and ... what the ha..?

A nice parade, as far as parades go, but I think they’re going the same way as the pioneer museums …. no more (at least for a while) please!

By far the most important event of these celebrations is the award winning rodeo.

We had tickets for the Saturday matinee show and since we had some time to kill we visited the Days of ’76 (rodeo) museum, which is conveniently located on the rodeo grounds.

It turned out to be quite an interesting museum. 

We picked up a lot of information about the rules and regulations and history of bull and bronco riding, calf roping and barrel racing and more about Deadwood’s history in general.

                                     

                               Tourist ... (sigh)

After lunch we picked a good seat at the bleachers, fortunately in the shade, since the sun was blazing down,

… and watched the rodeo ‘Queen’ and her  ‘Ladies in waiting’ opening the show:

   

First up: Wild Bronco riding …

Quite a lot of these guys limp away after they’re done. I can see why!

Followed by some calf roping:

After which the girls came in action for the’ Barrel racing:

During the short intermissions the rodeo-clown told his jokes and did some silly horse-tricks …

…. and we did some people watching. There’s the real cowboys:

... and the old ones ...

…. and than there's ‘wannabees’ …

  

And last but not least, the big boys … Bull riding!

I made some videos but have not managed to get them to work in the blog. I’ll have to add them later, so be sure to check in every now and than. They’re fun!

Well, that’s all she wrote for now.

We’re getting all geared up for the Sturgis Rally over here. It’s the Friday ‘before’ and the bikes are starting to roll in. It’s going to be a zoo for the next week everybody is telling me, so I hope I’ll get some time to write at all. We’ll see!