Armadillos are as rare as Bigfoot

I haven't forgotten to post about this year's War Damn Rodeo. Don't worry, pretty shortly you'll be able to feel the warm southern humidity in your hair, and see the bright red Alabama clay rising up under the tires of a shiny lifted truck.

Let's begin...

The trip began as usual: loading up the car after work on a Thursday night and heading south on 65, into the night. We were lucky enough, this time around, to have recruited some friends to make the journey with us. This made for some interesting conversation on the way down. Sleep deprivation can do that to you.

We arrived in the dirty south around 2 AM.The lively discussion on the long drive circled around two elements: armadillos and aliens. One of which was proven.

As we pulled into the trailer park, there, hobbling before us was the object of our argument. I had vowed the entire way down that my friend had seen an actual armadillo in Alabama before. No one was on my side. Armadillos, they said, only lived in places with tumbleweeds. But lo and behold! There he was! Not an alien... but an armadillo.

We unloaded as much as possible, settled in and napped for a few hours. Upon awaking we whipped up a breakfast of deer bacon and goldfish crackers.Champs.

Bueter was off to vet school to save some lives or birth some cows, something along those lines, so the rest of us decided to hit the "town". We cleaned up around the trailer and set off for downtown Auburn.

We spent the day walking through the gorgeous campus, admiring all of the blooming flowers, and appreciating the most perfect weather anyone could ever experience. We drank the famous lemonade from Toomer's Drugs, with extra special crunchy ice. The boys had some ice cream while the girls stopped in several of the cute little boutiques. We admired the quaintness of the whole place.

We stopped for lunch at a little BBQ joint around the corner with giant trees firmly situated in the middle of the restaurant. Nothing is better on a beautiful southern day than lemonade and BBQ.

When we decided to head back to the TP to get ready for the night we were welcomed by the thick fog of bacon smoke, still lingering in the air. So we opened up all of the windows, and took ol' Fred for a walk.

By the time we had come back from our jaunt around Gentilly, other Rodeoers had started to arrive. We quickly changed, unpacked, and set off, to the Rodeo ring to see the set up.

The fields were all but empty, except for a few dusty cars lined along the dirt trail. This was a stark contrast to what I knew the place would look like in a mere 24 hours: people sprawled out on the grass, music blaring, lights flashing, beer cans crushed under the thousands of boots quickly turning the dry, dusty field in to a sloppy beer/mud mixture.

After we checked out the site we headed back to the "city" for some pizza and beers. We knew we were in for a long day ahead...