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Sonoita Labor Day Rodeo 2009
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Sonoita Rodeo 2008 bull pen. Photo courtesy of Allen Gerzoff.
94th Annual Labor Day Rodeo begins Saturday, September 5th and concludes on Monday, September 7th. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for kids ages 5-12 and free for children 4 and under. The Sonoita Fairgrounds are located 1/4 mile south of the intersection of Highway 82 and Highway 83. www.mapquest.com/maps. From I-10, you take the Sonoita-Patagonia exit (Highway 83) about 30 minutes south to the town of Sonoita and you can't miss the fairgrounds on your right hand side. The rodeo starts at 1 pm with the kids' rodeo and the adults start as soon as they're done.
What you should bring with you for a day trip:
1. Definitely water! It usually only gets up to the mid 80's, but the sun beats down hard on you while watching a rodeo all day outside.
2.Sunscreen. It's very easy to get sunburned while being outside for 4 or 5 hours.
3. A jacket. Even though it's usually warm during the day, almost every Labor Day weekend it rains at night and usually a storm during one day of events.
4. Camera. This is a great rodeo to take pictures and document a family trip. Last year, Allen Gerzoff was a photographer taking pictures of the events at the rodeo and you can purchase his great pictures of last year's rodeo on his website at www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/pictures.
If you plan on camping out and catching all 3 days of rodeo events, enter in through the contestants' gate (there's big signs posted) and it's $5 for a dry camping site or $10 for a site with electricity. Stalls for your horses are also available on a first come first serve basis for $10 a night. Make sure to bring a very sturdy tent or better yet a camper if you have one. Last year's storms ripped many tents and left people with no place to sleep. Bring extra clothes! If it does rain, you're going to want to get out of the wet clothes and into dry, warm ones. You can bring an ice chest with food and beverages or the fairgrounds have many food and drink vendors available. So you don't have bring perishables with you if you don't want to.
The events you should expect to see are bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, team roping, steer wrestling, ladies breakaway roping, barrel racing, the wild horse race and of course the kids' rodeo events like mutton bustin' and steer riding. The contestants and stock at this rodeo are of a very high caliber so all the events are a lot of fun to watch. And then there's always the rodeo clowns that keep everyone entertained throughout.
After the rodeo is over is when more fun begins. Immediately following the rodeo on Saturday and Sunday is when they offer the steak fry dinner behind the grandstands. You can buy a great steak dinner and dance to live music until 11 pm. The contestants usually attend this event so pictures and autographs can be had with your favorite cowboy or cowgirl. Also, a quarter mile up the road is the Steak Out Restaurant and Saloon where they too offer great food, cheap drinks and toe tapping good music. For the rodeo weekend, they usually stay open until 2 am.
Labor Day weekend is definitely worth checking out as there is never a dull moment. This year they have over 700 entries and $40,000 in cash and buckles to hand out. It should be a great rodeo to attend this year!
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