It was magic

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There was a certain calm on the first  morning of the rodeo.  Everyone shaking hands, having breakfast, standing around their trucks. Crowds starting to arrive and claim their spots on the hill side or at start line.  It was especially awkward for me… I drove across country to hang out with truckers and watch them race in a place where everyone knows almost everyone else.  No one can believe that I came All the way out here for rodeo.  Sure my buddies, the truck drivers I work with get it, but alas, most of them dudes are working. So I am shyly trying to find a group of people who know me or will welcome me.

I wandered around by myself for just about the whole weekend.  But as soon as the parade started… And then trucks start pumping out that black smoke, tires start smoking, music blaring at the start line and the frame twisting craziness began, I forgot all about the fact that I’m alone, the awkwardness of not being a local in a small town where quite literally; everyone grew up together! All of that evaporates and I’m taken by the yearning to learn to gear jam myself, I am transported to a coal rolling nirvana where the locals suddenly don’t care that I’m an intruder from the west, I’m just screaming in harmony with the turbos and dancing to the sensuous rhythm of the snapping pipes and music from the Djs.  And as the tires leave the pavement when the trucks strain and twist against the loaded super b trailers on a 12% grade; the crowd screams again in adulation of the power the bad ass sexiness of it all;  I am one of them and I have that feeling that I have found my tribe.