April 1, 2019

December 15, 2018

We started our day out by meeting a friend for breakfast/lunch. It sure is fun catching up with friends you don’t see very often. Next, was our trip to the movie theater to see The Mule. It was a great movie. Gotta see this one. Clint Eastwood did a great job portraying his character. He is such a professional actor. Jeff and I are partial to this actor for his western pictures.

Dinner was at the Cheesecake Factory and then on to dancing at a very unique place. It’s called Saddles and Spurs! If you like country western dancing like we do, this a place NOT to miss! It is situated about 15-20 min, from The Strip and definitely worth the experience.

When you enter the venue you are automatically reminded of what a real western saloon must have been. There’s lots of western motif a real hard wood dance floor that is well maintained. Food and drinks are reasonably price. The Bobby Kingston Band was outstanding on this Saturday night. All country western songs were a danceable tempo with a mix of two-step, line and swing. The staff and patrons are so friendly and helpful especially while we tried to learn a new line dance. This time we found that Rock Me was slightly different than the way we learned it but close enough that we just adapted to the different steps. It was so much fun. At first, we thought the dance floor might be too small, but that was not the case for the size of this group. Very personable group of people. We highly recommend this place. This a among the best of the places that we visited for country western dancing without the rock and roll country wannabe songs. WooHoo!  We loved this place and plan to return to it on our next trip out this way:)!!

Tonight is the final night of the rodeo. We want to give a big shout out and applause to all these cowboys for all their hard work to be the best that they can be. We saw so many fine contenders for bronco riding, team roping, steer wrestling, tie down roping and bull riding. It takes a lot of practicing and competitions to compete at this level and qualify for the final rounds. Congratulations to the cowboys that won their division. Each was well deserved. Until next year, we look forward to attending and cheering on these daring boys and men.

December 13, 2018

Such a beautiful day!  Clear blue skies. We decided to go off the beaten path today for breakfast. Very happy we did too. We found the Egg and I, good food, reasonable prices and great service! Our waitress was Carole Ann. Everything came out perfect.

We finished the delicious breakfast and headed out to the Cowboy Christmas Convention. What a country western find! There are so many vendors. Everything you could want to care for your horses, to kitchenware, house décor with western themes, boots, western gear, hats, and accessories. Wrangler is a sponsor of the NFR (National Final Rodeo) and they were also at the convention with a great sale! Buy any two Wrangler items and the third one was FREE! And it was anyway we liked it. Pants or shirts or combine them, men’s or  women’s. Couldn’t pass that up.

Next, we visited Montana Silversmith. They are also a sponsor of the NFR. This company provides the beautiful championship buckles for all the deserving division winners. They also have quality jewelry and accessories. Our next stop was to look at the Christmas decorations at the Wynn. They were as beautiful as always and a perfect photo opportunity for the season.

Our dance place tonight was Gilley’s. Last night we were too tired to make it. So we walked over after dinner. The place was crowded but for our first time there during the rodeo we didn’t know that they were just showing the rodeo on the TV screens. Dancing was to start after the rodeo for the day. Plan to go back another day. Finished seeing the rodeo at The Mirage and realized there were give aways and contests on the closed circuit Mirage telecasting. Among the various prizes tonight was a give away RAM truck!