Stock Show Stuff

Meet Silverado Shadow, the biggest kid on the playground. At five years old, he weighs in at 1700 pounds. His horn span measures seven feet, tip to tip, and even though he looks like the biggest, baddest Longhorn you've ever seen, he's also a kind, gentle fellow who will eat from your hand.

He's just one of the many friends I make volunteering at the National Western Stock Show every year. This weekend, I spent my time helping out with the Wild West Show and we were encouraged to dress in costume. HEAVEN.

I still shake my head in wonder when I think about how I had to move east to really understand The West but it's so true.

As a nation, we look westward, always have. When you grow up in LA, you don't think toward any direction at all because you are already there, which gives you plenty of time to worry about your tan and sit in traffic.

And so, I must declare that there may not be any place so fervently Western in this country as the place where The West really began, right along the Continental Divide.

This year, I got to help with dragging a giant metal 'Ring of Fire' into the arena. Yup, it's a big metal hoop that was indeed set aflame so that a guy STANDING on TWO horses at full gallop could jump BOTH OF THEM through the flaming ring. Have I mentioned that horses hate fire?

You know what else they hate? Boredom.