The Guddat Gang

So last Friday was a big day for me. Not only did I get to see the Pendleton Round Up down south in Oregon, but I also took a detour (via Hwy 21, which drives through God's country in the middle of nowhere) on my way home to watch the mighty Warriors of Almira/Coulee/Hartline dismantle Odessa on Odessa's home field. Even better, they did it during their annual German festival where lots of men come into town and eat sausage and drink beer (yep, kind of sounds like a double sausage fest to me). Anyway, coach Brandon Walsh and the boys left Odessa with a huge 58-8 win in B8 football. Anyone who follows B8 football knows that the mercy rule is enforced after halftime. Any time you're leading by 45 or more after halftime, it's a done deal. Well, the Warriors scored on the second play in the third quarter to end the night early. They 45'd 'em! I'd like to take a bit of credit for this victory. Walsh was my boss when we both worked the Tunstall Dining Hall. He man...

This is Jon. I burned a day of vacation on Friday to head south to the Pendleton Roundup, probably one of the most historical and prestigious rodeos in the world. It was my first visit there and definitely won't be my last. Pendleton is the final stop for every cowboy and cowgirl who is up here for the famed "Northwest Run" which is exactly how it's described, a bunch of rodeos in the Pacific Northwest over a two-month period. Pendleton began in 1910 (Ellensburg started up in 1923) and there are some instances where it still feels like it's 1910. For one, it has a "Wild West Show" feel to it with old school competitions and a wide open, untamed feel to it. The arena is huge, bigger than E-burg's and E-burg has a huge arena. The inner arena is grass (they play football here) while the outer track is the more-familiar dirt, but the world famous grass infield is where most of the events take place due to its proximity to the roughstock and timed chutes....

Well, fall is definitely upon us now as our garden is free of most of our vegetables. Just the pumpkins remain now, 6 weeks before Halloween. These next couple of shots are of me and the girls shucking corn. Our final tally was 10 ears earlier this week, although we left a handful in the garden as they didn't really grow much. Brittany and I learned a few things: We probably should've watered more and we're going to position the corn in a different spot in our backyard next year. Someone also told us to line the corn in a North/South formation. We went West/East. The corn we did get was good. I was impressed. I'm really happy, as were my three girls. The girls: proud of their bounty! We were going to roast this corn but decided against it since it looks like I was already roasted myself. Great photo of me.

This is Jon. In addition to taking in the rodeo at the Puyallup Fair, I also took a picture of Brittany in front of fudge, the best of both worlds. What follows in the below pictures are a photo documentary of our time on the big white roller coaster and the Wild Cat at the Puyallup Fair. We paid crazy amounts of hard earned cash for two rides (and there were plenty more we could have ridden), but since we're true Americans, you can't go to a fair without riding a roller coaster. She's so stunning. I'm the luckiest guy.

This is Jon. On my next rodeo tour stop of the Northwest (I call it my "Northwest Run" when I write about my travels in the newspaper, separate from my weekly column) Brittany and I traveled to Puyallup. Puyallup's a huge rodeo for a couple of reasons: 1. It pays out more than $500,000, and 2. It's a championship event of the ProRodeo Tour, which means basically refer back to reason #1. This is Will Lowe. He's a three-time world champion bareback rider. He rodeo Mad Money to an 86-point ride in Sunday's semifinal round. Gabe LeDoux in bulldogging, another term for steer wrestling. The guy on the horse is called the hazer. Both cowboys exit the chutes and flank the steer on each side to keep its direction consistent. While the steer wrestler gets all the credit, a percentage of his earnings goes toward the hazer because without the hazer your steer's going to go wherever the heck it wants to. The above and below photos are of Stran Smith. This guy's th...

This is Jon. I found three more photos I think are cute. Here you go......... The girls were sitting togther just resting their heads on each other while watching some rodeo on Thursday. The only thing that would make this photo even cuter is if Addy wasn't sticking her hand in the garbage........

This is Jon. Well, the Ellensburg Rodeo is complete for us. Five days of competition (if you include slack. Don't know what slack is? I described it in another post below). It's 1:30 in the morning on Monday night/Tuesday morning and I just got done with some stories. Great, great time like always. It rained and poured on Saturday and Sunday, first time ever it's rained at the Ellensburg Rodeo like that and probably the most rain I've ever seen here in my 13 years here. Still a great time with my beautiful rodeo queen, Brittany. Brittany and I stand in the photo pit immediately adjacent to the roughstock chutes (where the bareback, saddle bronc and bull riding happens). It also gives us a great view of the timed events (barrel racing, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling and steer roping). Brittany takes all my stats while I'm chasing cowboys and cowgirls around for interviews. It's a great system that we accidentally fell into when we were first dating. I ...

This is Jon. Labor Day weekend always signals the Kittitas County Fair and the Ellensburg Rodeo. This is my 10th straight year of covering rodeo for the Daily Record with Brittany by my side and of course the girls over the last few years have truly enjoyed going to see the fair. I took plenty of vacation time to make sure we got to take it all in. These pictures are from Thursday's opening day, probably the easiest day to take the girls because the rodeo schedule is light. Everyone's so excited that only one person's looking at the camera. I think Brittany is stunning in this photo. Delaney playing peek-a-boo with one of the horsies on display. Delaney was mesmerized by the "moo-ing" cows. This one was being washed and dried outside of its stall while we took the picture. D-Rae checking out a just shorn sheep. Many of them were wearing blankets and she thought that was so cute that they were getting ready for bed. Addy Bear meeting with the goats. Two pretty gi...

This is Jon. We had our own Cash For Clunkers extravaganza in KTOWN on Wednesday. "Milt" our 1991 Chev Lumina was sold to Gerry's Foreign Auto Parts for a cool $50. This car was sweet to drive. When I worked at Sunfair, slinging cars for a year, a guy came in, took way too long to make a decision on a new car and traded "Milt" in. I negotiated the trade in value hard because I was 99.9% sure I was going to buy the car from my dealership because at the time, Brittany and I were BROKE, so broke that both of our cars were dead and I was driving dealership cars to and from work. Anyway, I closed the deal and while that guy was finishing up the paperwork for his new car, I drove his old car right by him on the way home from work. But time and 190,000 miles took its toll on Milt and the tranny went out on me about three blocks from home one night forcing me to push him home for his final ride home. I chose this picture because you can see the back side of the "Fi...