Hoodoo you think you are? A french cowboy?!

Of all the ridiculous places we've been on this roadtrip, Bryce Canyon National park might qualify as the most nuts so far. Combining stuh-ning landscapes and natural beauty with boatloads (we can only assume) of European tourists and classic tacky American tourist junk, Bryce Canyon is probably the most entertaining place around.

Bryce is most famous for its rock formations. They resemble towers cut out of rock, and create amazing views like the ones pictured below. The thing is, when coming up for a name for these beautiful and unique geological structures, the best name the Native Americans could come up with was, get this: Hoodoo. (insert pun here). There is some sort of geological explanation about how these came to be, something about rain and lightening and erosion. Anyway, they look pretty cool. We spent about a day either driving or hiking around looking at these majestic, breathtaking, well, hoodoos.

Hoodooes that?



While driving towards the National Park, we saw a bunch of cow pens and a stadium, with a sign that said: Rodeo Starts at 7:00 Pm. So obviously, we made our way over there tonight for the show. After paying our 8$ at the gate, we sat down and were then treated to one of the most ridiculous spectacles we have ever seen. Hosting the show were a redneck guy dressed as a clown on the field itself, and a deadpan redneck in a hat in the announcer booth. Their banter was especially entertaining as they realized that about half of the crowd had absolutely no idea what the heck they were saying, and only responded when the name of their country was mentioned.

The events included both youthful local cowboys as well as volunteers from the crowd. It started off with young kids picked from the crowd trying to hold on to bucking calfs. Most of the kids were French, so the clown guy counted unh dooh twa for them, and most of them lasted about 1.76 seconds before eating it face first in the dirt and getting stepped on. They also let all the kids come down from the bleachers and chase around three calves with ribbons tied to their tails. If they got the ribbons, prizes were awarded.

The locals were a little bit better at staying on their somewhat larger animals. They had names like Wyatt, Trent, Summer (she was riding with her dad), Gil Manning, and Shmuely (he had a black hat). Among the tricks they did for the ooohhing and ahhing continentals were riding crazy bulls, barrell racing, and lassoing steers on the head and the feet and trying to lift them off the ground. Crazy stuff. The clown dude also had some girl from the crowd shoot a shotgun at one of the cowboy-helper guys after signing her bullet. The bullet ended up right in the guys mouth. Pretty slick. Clown dude also borrowed some kid from the crowd's cowboy hat, and dynamited it. I'm not sure what the heck that was for. Anyway, here are some pictures, and we'll post sommo when we get internet access again
Frenchie about to eat it

This guy's name was Hayes. He was really really good at rodeo-ing. He's on the high school circuit.

Clown guy sitting in a barrell waiting to be creamed by oncoming bull.



Hoo-doo le hashem Ki Tov.