Our last day of boards was on St. Patrick's day, and 10 minutes after the last section we were in the bar having a beer.
Stop #2: Griff's.
The main reason we went here is we found a coupon for cheap food.
They had some bands, but we wanted something a little more Irish, so we headed to the Mucky Duck.
We parked a few blocks away, by chance in a parking lot with an Amy's Ice Cream, which Jenny loves. So we ate our cones on the walk there.
A fair number of people.
That's a little more traditional.
Us in lots of green.
Some women and girls from the audience dancing.
After that we headed to Lucky's Pub, which had a huge block party.
There were tons of people in there; you couldn't even move.
A neat motorcycle.
We actually didn't even go in because the line was so long and wasn't moving at all.
Uh oh, that's not good.
Arg, lots of traffic.
I've always wondered if cops who are speeding without their lights will pick you up if you go the same speed as them.
A free Redbox rental from a McDonald's pull-off. Although they only cost a dollar, but I guess it's better than small fries or something.
We went to the apartment where a couple of Jenny's coworkers lived. The office puts on a free bingo game once a month, and they give out prizes like $100 gift certificates and $200 off of rent. They play eight games and not many people show up, so your chances of winning are actually pretty good.
Saturday we went to the rodeo. Huge line of cars to the parking lot.
Plus, it was cold and raining, so the ground was all muddy.
The opening.
Us in our cowboy hats.
Bucking broncos.
Bucked off.
Jumping off.
Bucked off.
This was the only cowboy to get really hurt.
The horse got hurt, too, although they never said the results.
Bull riding.
Barrel racing. I think this woman was from South Dakota, and there were usually one or two from SD in each event.
Calf roping.
Steer wrestling.
George HW Bush was there for the calf scramble.
And they're off.
The kids had to drag a calf back to the center.
Only one left.
Wagon racing.
These kids near us were having fun with their light-up swords.
Us again. We actually got the really cheap seats and moved down into better seats, and then we moved around when we felt like it or when the people who actually were seated there showed up.
Little kids riding sheep.
Brooks & Dunn.
Although we decided not to stay so we could avoid traffic.
We had planned on going to the carnival that night, but it was freezing, like 40 degrees, so we decided to come back the next day.
And it was a good thing we did because we spent a really long time there. Jenny trying on a rather expensive hat.
The expo building had lots of animals. These guys are shaving their cow to make it look perfect, I guess.
This guy is just happily eating away.
You could sit on a real cow with huge horns, but it was $30, so we skipped it.
The petting zoo.
Baby sheep.
Baby chickens.
A turkey.
Jenny petting a rabbit.
A hat for $10,000. Although really, I think I could make the same in a few hours with a few supplies from a craft store.
Belts for a few hundred dollars, which doesn't seem nearly as expensive after looking at that hat.
Neat wood tables.
Steer horns.
Night lights made out of beer bottles.
We had a booklet of tickets for the carnival, but this ride was free. It was put on by the army, though, so they wanted a copy of your driver's license so they could try to recruit you.
It was actually a lot of fun.
Especially because it went upside down.
One of the rides.
Jenny really didn't want to go on the one that drops you straight down.
Although I think I screamed louder than her.
This one had the longest wait because there were only four seats on each end, whereas most of the rides had like 20-40 seats. We usually waited less than 5 minutes, but we waited 40 for this one.
Although it was one of the most fun. Jenny hanging on for dear life.
A view from the top.
These guys won so many things at the carnival they had two whole bags filled. The kid was super happy.
A neat prize.
The green dog in the back was the biggest prize I saw anybody win.
We waited until we were done with rides to try the games, though, because otherwise what do you do with them on the ride? At least on the bumper cars you can have it as a passenger, like this lady and her banana.
Having fun.
Time to calculate out which rides we could do with our remaining points.
Most of the games we tried only gave us one ball, which meant it was over in like two seconds.
Although this one we got 10 ping pong balls a time, so it was much more fun, even though we never won anything. And it was funny because the guy running the game didn't seem to care at all and just randomly dumped a bunch of balls into a basket for you, so we actually got like 12 or 13 instead of 10. Some friends who also went said the guy did the same for them.
We had heard about a mechanical bull, but we could never find it. Finally one guy who was working there told us where it was. It was $7 a ride, though, so we decided to skip it.
A video of us on the carnival rides.