Bear!
Game and Fish Exhibit
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Green River Rendezvous Days in Pinedale 2017
by Terry Allen
July 11, 2017
Rendezvous this year started out with Main Street Pinedale’s High Altitude Market in American Legion Park. There I met an impressively competent young man named Kayden from Lander. He gets up at 5:00 o’clock in the morning and milks his four goats and milks them again at 5 in the evening. I tried his goat cheese he makes with sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, pesto, pine nuts and olives. "This is my 4-H project," he said. "All the proceeds of the project are donated to causes we choose as a team."
Delsa Allen got a prime spot on Pine Street to display her beautiful photography; and I asked her where one image was taken. "That’s kind of a secret spot off the beaten path," she said. "I found it years ago but finally went back with friends Meghann and Isabel and did some photography. There was a bad lightning storm and our dogs took off and we were afraid to go after them. We had to wait to go look for their bodies, but we found them alive and unharmed."
Gaige and Daxton Zook raise worms thru their 4-H program. They set up at the farmer’s market but in among all the traditional food they didn’t do so well, so they set up at the fishing pond a couple days later and were happy with their sales. I suggested they could do better at the farmer’s market if they sold sandwiches and French fried red wigglers.
I found Zed Merrell having a beer at the Cowboy Bar a few hours before his bull riding event. He’s 24 and has been riding for 7 years. "I like the rush," he said. "I wanted to ride since I was 2, but didn’t get started till I was 17."
A guy speaking in a German accent caught my attention and I met Jogi (Yogi) from Bavaria, Germany. This is his 3rd Rendezvous he and his wife have been to and he takes part in the Pageant, too. Western history is pretty big in his part of Germany. There are stores that sell everything one needs for their own Rendezvous. They even do civil war re-enactments.
Madeline was the only girl I saw in red lipstick until I saw Caitlin and Brooke at the beard shaving, so she laughingly posed for a photo…and then kissed her boyfriend…who looked an awful lot just like her.
Danielle and Alex of our forest service were sitting in some shade eating one of those Gyros sandwiches everyone was talking about. You might remember Danielle who was cuddling Smokey the Bear at the last big event at the PAC.
Over at St. Andrews they were having a pie sale and Juli Cook was out front by the creek selling them. Everyone around here knows they are really great pies…all made by hand with great care by people in the community. 135 pies were made and sold. Mary Lankford cleans up the alter at the church and after she was done someone told her there was one pie left and that she could have it. We had been talking about ice cream and that led to talking about pie and ice cream and that led to the pie sale.
Sara Hixon said she was a member of Pie-Over-Eaters Anonymous and had already eaten 2 Bobaloo Berry pies and it wasn’t even noon yet. Coralee also made some Crab Apple jelly from the tree right out in front of the Episcopal Church and Coralee and the jelly both looked so nice she agreed to help me make a nice photo.
Juli’s husband Paul and I started talking about bears for some reason and he thought I should wrap myself in bacon and go off into the woods if I loved bears so much, and in response I told him he had a funny looking moustache that looked suspiciously like a wolfs. A crowd soon gathered and threatened us with a pie fight so we each went in opposite directions down the sidewalk throwing creative insults over our shoulder until we couldn’t hear each other anymore.
I thought it was real cute this year how so many kids just walked up…or rode up and asked to have their picture taken, so of course I had to take them. A few people showed off babies…so you’ll see some of them in the photo section, too.
Up at the rodeo grounds Doug Vickery was helping Josh Adams hook The Stars and Stripes to a big boom crane to be raised above the crowd. He was holding the anchor rope and I thought I might get a good photo. Eventually the flag went up about 70 feet and all the hats came off in respect.
After that, Todd Stevie had a mic in his hands and announced a $100 prize if someone could hook their cowboy hat on the horns of the bull no one had been able to ride. Only one person tried and I think he did it, but the announcer’s angle must have been better than mine.
Next came bull poker and there were only 2 guys dumb enough to play. The bull came running and the guy at the far end of the table took off, spinning his boots in the dirt like they were tires losing traction, but the near end guy stayed put…he was a big tree trunk looking man and the bull gave him a good bump with his horns and that was all, so the guy made money.
Sorry to be all NASCAR wreck lover on the saddle bronc photos, but some of those "get offs" were pretty spectacular and I checked with Doc Sare’ and he said it was okay to show them, so…enjoy!
Up at the Pageant, I met Jared Rogerson who was playing the role of early explorer Captain Stewart. As I took photos I said I liked his horse. "I sort of inherited the horse," he said. "He had been in the Rendezvous about 8 times before and I liked the sound of that so I bought him."
After that I saw Rex Hamner who was running the 4-H hamburger stand. He said he was thinking of taking a meat temperature probe over and check to see if any mountain men were getting too over-heated. It was about 86 degrees and I agreed they looked awful hot under all that fur, but where was he going to stick ‘em? "Oh no, not me," Rex said. "That’s where you come in. I’ve seen your interview techniques…I think you can get away with it without getting cut up too bad."
The last event was the Annual Rendezvous Beard Shaving and Calcutta Fundraiser. 31 competitors entered this year and $12,485 was raised. I hardly recognized people when they were all done with the shaving. I guess I didn’t write down his name, but one young man that got his moustache shaved off had had it for 18 years. He must be getting married or something.
Well, there it is folks…the end of another Rendezvous. I’m sorry everyone I took photos of didn’t make it into the story. But if you contact me we might be able to find them if you want to buy a copy. All the low rez photos on the site can be used for personal purposes. I sell the hi-rez images to friends and family of the person only. If you feel I have made an error in any way, please let me know and I'll make corrections.
Terry Allen: txpartisan@gmail.com
A special thank you to Dawn Ballou of Pinedale Online for hiring me to cover the Rendezvous story this year.
If you have a story you think deserves to be told, please contact Dawn.
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