The boys just called, and they’re almost home.

Good time for coming all the way from Eureka. They’ll have no problem getting home, swapping horses, and making the Firebaugh roping.

It’s been a long couple of days though; eight hours up there last night, sleeping in the trailer, roping in the morning, and getting out of there and hauling ass home. And all for nothing; Cowboy missed his steer and Chris broke out.

I think they’ve decided to quit trying to hit those far northern rodeos. It’s not like they’re fighting for one of the top spots. They’re in something like 26th place in the team roping, and they haven’t been doing any good. It sucks up a lot of money to keep doing without winning. They’ll go to the closer rodeos, like Merced, Turlock, and Mariposa.

Now, at a roping, their luck is different. Usually one of them comes home in the black. But they can go more times per pot, and there are several pots per night. I think this one is a pick one—draw two, which means they designate a roping partner in each pot and the computer draws the other two, usually based on their roping numbers. And I think there are at least three pots tonight, so I expect they’ll go a minimum of nine times each, and not necessarily together. Sometimes they’ll go in for more partners, especially Chris, since jackpot ropings are usually a little short on heelers.

Anyway, I wish them luck, but I’m not going to drag the kids down to watch tonight. It gets a little boring for the short attention span set, and it will be too dark to play with the camera.

One more north state trip though, and that’s next week. There’s a major jackpot roping up in Taylorsville, a town where Cowboy spent a lot of his youth. They’re going up on Thursday, and Dennis and I are driving up to meet them on Friday.

Dennis has really got into the roping. He’s been working really hard on throwing a loop correctly ever since I met him, but hooking him up with Cowboy was the best thing for him. We have good horses there that will teach him to rate, and he’s been out there every night with us. He started just chasing them out of the box—I’m not even there yet myself, but I am starting to chase them from the side lines. Then he started roping them, but not dallying, then with dallying, and now he’s starting to turn them. It’s all coming together for him, but then, he’s put a huge amount of effort into it.

Jeff had wanted to learn to rope, and came out a few times with us last year. Cowboy said he’s willing to teach people as long as they are willing to pay attention and learn. He’s not out there for his health, and teaching someone cuts into his own roping time.

Well, it became clear pretty quickly that Jeff didn’t want to spend the time to learn it right. I took him aside, since he’s my friend, and told him that if he doesn’t listen, nobody’s going to waste the time on him. And then what does he do the very next time, but take a rope into the box with him when all of the experienced ropers told him that he wasn’t ready for it. He didn’t come back. He’d rather get into something that doesn’t take effort to be impressive—the motorcycles are a good choice for him.

But Dennis has given up all the partying in order to spend time roping. The guys really have a lot of respect for him, and say he’s doing really well. He’s passing on the traditional 4th of July lake trip to go just watch a roping, although I do know that he was getting as tired of the party crowd as I was when I met Cowboy and left it. He and I had been talking already about just knocking it off already.

So now he’s got himself hooked into a hugely expensive sport—expensive in time and money. But he can use our horses and JR’s all he wants; probably even to rope in a jackpot when he’s ready for it. And he’s doing something he loves; not just faking it for the image like certain other of our friends. I’m proud of him. I’ve always thought he reminded me of Cowboy (well, more like Cowboy reminded me of Dennis, since I knew him first;) they’re both good people.

I’m incredibly lucky to have two men like that in my life. Well, no, three; my Dad has a lot of the same qualities. I’m lucky to have found a man that much like my Dad too.