| 2008 Silver Spurs Rodeo As I head to Florida again, this time I went to the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee, Florida. This was a trip that was packed with adventures and memories! From the moment I got there the fun started and did not end until the moment I left to fly back home. I arrived into Orlando on February 13th, where I was picked up by Mrs. Laura, which was the lady that in charge of all the queens; that is, visiting queens and Miss Silver Spur queens. On the way to Kissimmee, she treated me to a great lunch and then off to get a small amount of rest before it was time to go to the Little Miss Silver Spurs pageant and coronation. There were 19 adorable Little Miss contestants. The next morning (Valentine’s Day), we had an early start of going to speak at two different schools within the county about the rodeo; the schools have a day out of school on Friday for “Rodeo Day.” While at the first school, we were treated with a home-cooked meal that we were all happy to have before going to the next school to do more explaining and demonstrating on how the rodeo events worked. After leaving the schools, we had to hurry to get to our Air Boating tour. This was full of excitement; riding on a quick Air Boat that could skim water that is a foot deep or so, seeing alligators, watching Amy – Miss Rodeo America trying to rope an alligator, and observing the beauty of nature that has bald eagles, cranes, and other water birds. Our tour ended about the time the sun was setting, so that was a sweet time since it was Valentine’s Day and all of us girls were together. To follow that, we went to eat a huge Florida House special plate of food at The Catfish Place. The plate that I got, which I shared with Sydnye – Miss Rodeo Florida, was piled high with frog legs, turtle, alligator tail, clam strips, oysters, scallions, catfish and fries. I did try it all because when else would I ever get the opportunity to try this kind of food? However, the turtle is what I enjoyed the most. To compare it to Arkansas food, it was a dark meat, a lot like chicken gizzards but not as tough, very tasty! The plate was piled high when the waitress brought it to us and was still piled when we were done; yes, they did not want you to go home hungry. Later that night we went out hog hunting. On this hunting adventure we got to ride in an enormous dune buggy; the tires were taller than I was. However, during our hog hunting trip all we saw was one skunk! We headed back in after a few hours of searching and spotting nothing to get some sleep for a busy beach day tomorrow. We woke up early Friday morning to head to Coco Beach on the east coast. After we had been there a little while, Katie – Miss Rodeo Arizona talked us into buggy boarding with her. I had no idea what this was, but it is like surfing, just on a shorter board and on your belly. The initial shock of the water was cold but after I got in the water it was great. I learned a lot about waves and was even able to succeed at catching some! It was such an adrenaline rush! When we left there we had to hurry back to get to the first performance of the Silver Spurs Rodeo. I was introduced each night following Miss Rodeo Arizona. In addition, there were several state queens in attendance as well as Miss Rodeo America, Amy Wilson, and the court of this year and last year Miss Silver Spurs. Saturday morning we awoke again for our trip to Disney World. Our ride was late so Kristen - Miss Rodeo Nebraska and I decided to walk a block down the road to Mrs. Laura’s house since that is where Amy was staying and we were riding with her. When we arrived at the house, they had unfortunately forgotten us; I don’t know how? The vehicle must have been very quiet without us. At Disney, I rode the Tower of Terror and the Rock’n’Roller Coaster with Jenna – Miss Rodeo Kansas and RaeLynn – Miss Rodeo New Mexico. We were screaming our heads off on both rides but had a blast! Saturday night was the second performance of the rodeo, where again I was introduced and then went to the sky boxes to visit with the sponsors and sign autographs. It was amazing because every time I turned around there was someone who had been to Arkansas or used to live in Arkansas. They were always talking about how beautiful my home state is! To end a Saturday night in Florida, we went hog hunting on a different ranch. This ranch used dogs to bay the pigs. The funny thing is that Katie and I thought we were actually going to rope a pig. Needless to say, after the dogs bayed the first pig and the guys we were with dragged the pig out, we decided we did not want to rope a pig. The first pig was a 250# castrated boar that had been caught at a younger age. We got our picture taken with the hog as though we had actually done something, but the dogs and guys did all the work for us queens to be able to say we had been hog hunting! After the first pig, we decide to catch one more pig, so the dogs bayed one, the guys roped and tied it up. Following dragging both pigs out, we decided to call it a night. We got back to our host home at about 4:00 am, and I packed and got about two hours of sleep before having to be ready for breakfast with Mr. Mark, Mrs. Laura, Amy and Kristen. Following breakfast we headed to the arena for the Special Kids Rodeo. I had a lot of entertainment there; besides just helping teach the kids how to rope, which is my forte, I got to experience all the replicated events (bull riding, bareback riding, and steer wrestling). The third and final performance was at 2:00 pm. I did my introduction run and before the rodeo was over I had to head to the airport to catch my flight to get back to Arkansas. To wrap up my weekend, I would have to say it was an experience of a lifetime! I was able to experience things there that we do not have in Arkansas. If this is only the start of my year as Miss Rodeo Arkansas, I am very anxious to see what I will encounter during the rest of my year! -Dilynn |
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