Australia: Show Day - the lost blog...

Hello all! I just popped on to update the blog after a long time off, and lo and behold there was a draft blog from the 4th of July weekend last year just sitting here unpublished! So, without further ado, here it is!

-Trent

The weekend of the 4th of July (I know, that was a long time ago!) in the Alice is when the "The Show" comes to town. The Show is basically like a small county fair where they have livestock showing, horse competitions, car exhibits, bird exhibits, etc. etc. etc. - oh, and of course carnival rides! The RDA (Riding for the Disabled) has their yearly riding competition during the weekend of the Show, and since the RDA facility is within the local "fairgrounds", we were right in the middle of the action. The kids got their fancy duds on and were ready to strut their stuff in front the of judges and audience at the RDA! The riding competition was Friday and Saturday, and they hauled in all kinds of awards both days.

There were two events each day that the kids participated in. Hilary and the kids went down to the RDA the day before the Show to help fancy up the horses. They (the horses) all got there manes tied up in knobs and their tails braided. The kids got to wear special riding clothes - girls were dressed in a traditional English style and boys were dressed western with bolo ties and belts with big fancy belt buckles. The kids really had quite a lot of fun doing the competition, which surprised us because they are usually so shy and don't want to do anything in front of people. But they did really well and had so much fun! Adam Giles, Chief Minister of the Norther Territory (like a Senator/Governor) judged one of the competitions and handed out awards, and one other politician did the same on a different competition (I can't remember who he was).

Participation in the competition was free, but we had to pay to get into the Show both days. So for our whole family, that was $72 EACH DAY just to get through the gate! We were told by the RDA to just come in a different gate and park near the RDA, but the traffic control folks wouldn't hear of it unless we had an RDA vehicle pass. Since we didn't know that, we had to park on the far opposite side of the fairgrounds from the RDA and walk literally about 1/2 mile to get there. Later in the day, I was able to get a vehicle pass from the RDA and move the car. On Saturday, we let the kids each pick 2 carnival rides to go on. Rides were an average $10 PER RIDE (they don't do wrist bands), so the kids only got to pick two rides to do. They all did bumper cars and there was a little oval track where they had little 4-wheelers that the kids could drive in circles, so they each did that as well.

Everything was lots of fun, but Hilary and I were beat at the end of the weekend! It is one of those three day weekends that makes it feel like you never had a weekend and leaves you more tired rather than rested. We took lots of pictures and enjoyed every minute though!

Trent