Howdy All!

On Tuesday, Rick and I and a few other drivers, attended the Grande Prairie Stompede Bust Out Kick Off.  This was like the main start to the week of Stompede here in the city.  There was a free lunch provided to all that came out, and many presentations were made.

We were thrilled to see our friend Dougie.  He was born and raised here in Grande Prairie.  He attends so many functions of every nature in the city.  From hockey games to the rodeo and chuckwagons, special olympics and more.  He is always a ray of sunshine when you see him.  He will be down on the grounds greeting the fans these next few days.

The crowd was many that came out on this beautiful afternoon.  We met a lot of new faces and were able to catch up with some of the others that we’ve known over the years.

Jim Watson has contributed countless hours over the years to making what the Stompede is today here in the city of Grande Prairie.  We appreciate all the work that he and many others have done to put together such a successful venue.

Another team of special folks, are the Grande Prairie Heritage Foundation.  They are a not for profit group dedicated volunteers that promote the preservation of Alberta’s number one sport, professional Chuckwagon Racing.  Since the conception of the group, they also have put countless hours into keeping our heritage alive.   The world revolves around so many volunteers and all of them are great people who want to make an impact in life and they are doing just that.

While at the Kick Off, a special moment occurred.  The unveiling of a unique chuckwagon.  The Stompede committee were looking for a Chucwkagon that they could use to take to different functions to utilize  to promote the sport.  Rick and I donated Rick’s dads, the late Dave Lewis’s chuckwagon.  They took it and did an amazing job shining it all up.

The luncheon ended with some highfives with some cute little kids that were enjoying a hotdog, pop and received a poster too.

Well race day #1 of the 2017 Chuckwagon season arrived.  Rick likes to have a little pep talk with the boys before they go out to run.

Tonight we were off the 2 barrel.  Rick felt really good about the crew that was going.  We had Spirit on the Left Lead, Speedy on the Right Lead, Cowboy on the Left Wheel, and Glory on the Right Wheel.  Our outriders were Cole, as the lead man riding Beau, and Casey in behind throwing the stove with Ice.  Both these fellas are very good riders.  And tonight they made things happen.  When the horn sounded the team started fairly hard.   They didn’t get around the barrels as fast as Rick would have like, so he ended up trailing behind.  On the 3rd turn, he decided to pull and go to the rail, which was good thing.  The team picked up speed, and almost caught the others at the finish line.  We managed a 10th place on the day with a time of 1:19.52.  All around for all the outfits, it was a pretty good night.

The northern country up here in Grande Prairie, can produce such amazing skies at night with beautiful sunsets and fantastic northern lights.  But to see those, you need to stay up fairly late as the sun doesn’t go down until pretty near midnight.

Until tomorrow,

From the Travelin Trailer

Sue, with Rick and “Team 23”

P.S.  No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.