A Most Unlikely Cowgirl: #19 Everyone Loves A Parade...

The months following our autumn flood were perfect...

...yet perfectly awful.

The sun shone. The skies were blue. The air soft and warm. It was perfect. Yet for a small tourist business, it couldn't be worse.

Access to our business had been cut off with the flood. Far to the south a bridge remained and directing visitors to us was difficult and complicated. Yet we did... slowly at first and with more and more regularity.

We had to be clever, offering incentives to travel the extra distance. We had to be better because we were hard to find. We had to make ourselves known and make people want to come to us.

In February, Tucson celebrates it's western heritage... it celebrates with a rodeo!

Beautiful Arizona spring weather draws many cowboy's and vaquero's to test their skills in old time ranch activities. For ten days, the city celebrates it's western roots.

Tucsonans threw themselves into this annual event. Dressing the part in cowboy garb... hats, shirts and boots! Pretend lawmen would round up tourists to lock in mock western jails and everyone would have a good laugh at the practice. Tourists and locals alike, loved it all. Yet for most, the big event was not the rodeo... it was the parade.

Billed the "oldest, non mechanized parade in the USA!" it was a big thing. This was the "big time" at the time, long before baseball and golf took away the title. It was a place where horses reigned supreme and it was a terrific way to promote ourselves.

Teams of horses pulled big wagons, single horses pulled buggies, donkeys, mules, ponies, goats, dogs and even oxen, provided the muscle behind the transportation. Hundreds of animals paraded through the streets.

Schools closed. Shops did too. Everyone wanted to watch the parade. Everyone wanted to be in it.

My Cowboy was still working for another guest ranch and that ranch had a float. He was obligated to represent them and drove their team of horses. Our stable closed for the day and a small group of ladies, all regular riders with us, became our official contingent.

We left the stable at 4 am... loading horses in the dark. A local TV station, KGUN Channel 9, had booked several horses for their on air news staff to ride and with our ladies group, we left with ten horses.

The ladies all wore similar clothes... blue jeans, blue shirts and big bandanna's. Tall, thin, short, plump and in between, we were a sight to see. The final touch... matching blue and white straw hats with perky feathers stuck in the band. It was simple western bling!

One crafty lady sewed matching saddle cloths for each horse. We were a sight to see.

The parade wound through the city streets, crowds lined the way cheering and shouting their approval. At the official grandstand, a deep voiced announcer described our group over a loudspeaker. We heard our stable business named and described. We were in horse heaven!

That was the one and only time our little stable was in the parade...

...as ourselves.

The years which followed were filled with requests for our horses and wagons. Soon every horse, every wagon, every driver... was booked a year in advance by groups wanting their moment of glory in the parade.

It was a hectic time but we were part of the city's western tradition. It was exciting and fun but times have changed. The luster has dimmed. Tucson is now a modern city and the old western ways have been slipping away. Yet the crowds, although smaller, still cheer as horses prance by.

For those few days each spring, Tucson remembers...

...and so do I.

The ladies in the rodeo parade