Monday, December 8th, we started our first full day with breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. This place had our Nissa written all over it. She loves bears. I enjoyed a delightful breakfast of avocado toast and fruit. Everyone one else has their bacon, egg, etc., breakfast. It appears I am the odd duck out when it comes to eating with this crew!
After breakfast, Kris drove us down the Las Vegas Strip to the Bellagio. We were in search of their Atrium. They decorate this area for each season. Time to check out Christmas. This year it was a train theme. We entered by walking through a locomotive engine. Check out Claude in the second picture in his Christmas present vest.
This piece is made entirely of organic material.
This is a chocolate fountain that reaches from ceiling to floor.
Kris scored extra tickets for Monday evening. Her friend Jodie joined us. Cordell would not be able to attend any of the nights. Jodie used his ticket. Her husband also can't attend this type of an event. The National Rodeo Finals (NFR) is held at the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of North Las Vegas campus. The NFR began on Thursday, December 4th and goes through Saturday, December 13th. Each entrant in each category rides every night. They accumulate points based on the total of each night throughout the rodeo. Somehow this aggregate is computed with other scoring to find the top cowboy/cowgirl in each event. There would be 26 states and 2 or 3 countries participating. The participants all qualified through other rodeos with regional finals deciding the final participants for this final rodeo. The rodeo we saw in Louisville in November was a regional finals rodeo for this event.
There are all kinds of things to do and snack foods to eat outside the arena. Kris headed the four of us to the photo booth. You can get a free photo. You have to understand it is AI assisted. These are our two photos. First is the group of us: Claude, Jodie, Sandi and Chris. The second is Claude and me. We chose that background because Claude's family had a dry farm and raised wheat when he was growing up.
To help me remember what the AI did, Claude was wearing his new leather vest. Other than that, not of the clothes we are pictured in are our own. None of us was wearing a hat. In the second picture, I have on a watch. I do not wear a watch. It was a fun things to do.
Into Thomas & Mack Center we go.
The National Anthem.
Every evening they feature one live country music artist singing one song at the beginning of the event. The stage is actually lowered to the arena floor from the ceiling and raised after they sing for the rodeo to use that space.
This year there was an illness in some of the horses. Because of that, the participants did not ride their horses into the arena, they walked in and lined up instead.
The first event is Bareback riding. One of the cowboys actually had a broken ankle. He had it taped to support it. Claude and I had flashbacks to his fall in Rome, Italy and how painful it was to walk on that ankle. Cowboys are tough. This winner for this evening has 89 points.
In between events, there is entertainment of some type. This family of charros are the same ones that performed at the rodeo we went to in Louisville.
We saw Steer Wrestling next. This is the event Claude would do if he were to be a rodeo cowboy. I can see my big guy doing this. The winning score for this event was 3.4 seconds.
Then we watched Team Roping. This one amazes us. The cow comes out of the shoot. The two cowboys ride after it. The first ropes the neck and, while the cow is stretched out, the second cowboy ropes both back legs. If he only gets one leg roped, they add 5 seconds to their time. The winner of this event was 3.7 seconds.
Saddle Bronc Riding was next. This is the best known of the rodeo events, or so I read. There was an 18 year old participating and he got a score of 89.5 points. The winner had 90 points.
Now it was time for my favorite event, Barrel Racing. The winner of this event had a time of 13.43 seconds. She must run thru that shoot, around one barrel on the side, ride across the arena and around the barrel on the other side, then ride to the end of the arena and around that third barrel. Then she makes as fast a run as she can back up the shoot. There is an electric motion sensitive time at the shoot.
The final event is Bull Riding. My least favorite event. Now, there is a bus shuttle from South Point Casino to the event and it also returns you to the casino when the rodeo is over. with 17,500 guests seated in the arena, that line for the return ride to the casino can get really long. Kris and Cordell have learned to watch maybe 5 or 6 of the bull riders. Then leave to catch the bus before the rush. This is what we did each evening. I do not know the winning score for the Bull Riding.
The thing Claude learned by attending the rodeo was that most of the cowboys his age are not wearing boots anymore. Our feet do wear out a bit after walking us around for 76 years.
Tuesday, December 9th, Kris has a friend, Rita, who helps them get tickets for the rodeo. Rita joined Kris and I to visit Cowboy Christmas at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Rita drove in her baby truck. I sat in the back seat. We pulled up to a stop light and I happened to look right. I saw what I found very amusing. Superman was helping Spiderman zip up the back of his suit and get his headgear on properly. By the time I got my cellphone out to take this picture, they were talking. It get amused by so many things.
Cowboy Christmas is a HUGE deal. This enormous convention center floor is filled with booths selling all kinds of cowboy oriented things from clothing to saddles to furniture. The picture is Kris and I in front of the tree. We decided we would each browse the areas we were interested in and meet back up at 11am. I made it about halfway through the convention center floor. I had nothing I was really wanting to purchase and my feet and hips were in an agony. I made my way back to the lobby and found one remaining chair behind the Christmas tree. I sat there and visited with a nice man from Texas till 11am. You really could spend all day there. This mans wife does all their Christmas shopping at this one venue. Kris was shopping for her grandsons.
When finished, we went back to our rooms and Rita picked up her hubby. We all went to BJ's for lunch. Claude had been several times when KLC's president and always wanted me to try it. Now was the time. We had a good lunch. I enjoyed mahi mahi tacos. Yum!
In the evening, Claude and I set off on our first Uber ride by ourselves. I downloaded the app in Kentucky to be ready. It worked out great. We had the driver take us to The Horseshoe where we would see Potted Potter later in the evening. We wanted to find the theater and then roam the Las Vegas Strip for a while before the show. I mentioned to our driver that we would be calling for a pickup at the end of our evening and asked if we would meet the driver at the location he was dropping us off at. He said no. Then he drove us past the door where they drop patrons off and then around the corner to where we would come to pick up the Uber driver at the end of our evening. He let us off at that door. How nice was that?!
We found the venue for Potted Potter. The we walked through The Paris to get outside. We realized we could see the Bellagio water and light show. We found a bridge that is the crosswalk over The Strip. There was a spot on it to watch the water and lights. Alas, my video is too large for this Blog.
As we walked back across the bridge, I took a picture on either side of the bridge looking up and down The Strip.
We stroll up The Strip and found a section that branched off called "Off The Strip" and decided to walk it. The first thing that came to us were three girls in fish next stockings an not a lot else. Next to them were the Chippendale men trying to get you to take a picture with them. Once we were past that riff-raff, we had lots of shops and things to walk past. At the end was an In-and-Out Burger place. We went in and had sodas and some fries. Claude had a small burger. We sat and visited with others who came and sat beside us. A nice couple from Canada most of the time. Then we decided to make our way back to the Horseshoe. As we went over the road, we found a pink store front that was named "Smelly Cat". Once again, I as amused. This is the song that Phoebe sang on the Friends television show.
This Imagination Theater was a tiny affair. There were probably 30 of us to see the show. Potted Potter takes all seven Harry Potter books and tells them in 70 minutes. It moves quickly. There are only two performers and lots of energy. We played a game of quidditch with beach balls and life preservers attached to the opposite walls on the sides of the theater. It was fun. No pictures and no video allowed.
After the show, I called for our Uber. He got us back to The Grandview in great shape. A good evening out on our own.
Wednesday, December 10th, we tried the buffet at Garden Buffett in South Point. We managed to hit it at the end of breakfast and as they were putting out lunch. Great assortment of foods. I enjoyed hash brown, kielbasa and bacon. Yum!!
In the evening, we were back at the rodeo. This time it was Kris, Claude and me. Cordell brought over three of his cowboy hats so Claude could try them on. Claude found one that fit his head really well. Cordell lent it to him to wear to the rodeo. This is a $1000 hot. I got this great picture of my cowboy looking good for the rodeo.
And, after a nice bus ride, we were back at Thomas & Mack Center. Chris took this picture of Claude and me inside the arena.
This night the military was honored. Particularly the Army. One the stage are soldiers in their Army uniforms. The Country artist would sing. A video over them showed things the Army does. When it got to the part where they were parachuting out of a plane, soldiers in uniform came down ropes from the ceiling of the arean. Cool.
The National Anthem.
The participants.
I only took pictures of the winners as the made their run around the arena. First, Bare Back Riding.
Next came Steer Wrestling. The winner was Rowdy Parrott with a win of 4 seconds.
Team Roping has two winners because it is 'team' roping. They were Dawson Graham and Dillon Graham with a 3.5 second score.
Saddle Bronc Riding had one of the Wright brothers win. This family has three brothers all riding in the 2025 NFR. Statler won this round with a score of 89.75.
The Tie Down Roping winner was Joel Harris with a 7.5 second score.
And, my favorite, Barrel Racing had Hayle Gibson-Stillwell win with a score of 13.45 seconds.
The final event is Bull Riding and we don't stay for the end. However, TJ Gray won with a score of 90.5.
We met Cordell at South Point Casino for dinner after. This time we tried Baja Miguel's.
Thursday, December 11th, we spent a quiet morning together. In the evening we caught the bus for the rodeo. This night they honored Canada. The Canada flag on the left, Old Glory on the right. Each anthem was sung. Very moving. I opted to take fewer pictures and watch with my own eyes instead of through the lens of a camera.
Line up of the participants.
The entertainment this time was a very well-trained horse.
One final viewing of Barrel Racing.
It was great fun to watch the NFR each of these three evenings. I learned a lot more about how each event works. I could feel the passion these people have for the rodeo and the participants. I didn't grow up with going to the rodeo. Claude did. My experience has been with he and I going to one evening of a rodeo. Going to these three nights gave me a much broader view of the love of rodeo. Happy Kris and Cordell provided us this opportunity.
We met Cordell at South Point Casino again. This night we would try Zenshin, a restaurant that serves oriental foods. I had simple fried rice. Growing up in the south, we ate rice more than potatoes. I love rice. I totally enjoyed my plate of friend rice. I didn't add any meat or fish. Just a plate full of fried rice. Yum!!
Friday, December 12th, it was time to come home. When Claude got up, he realized he didn't have his credit card. He left it at Zenshin. Actually, he doesn't remember the server returning it. Claude got dressed for the day and walked back across the street to the restaurant. They were not open and would not open until noon. We would be at the airport at that time.
We got all our stuff together and by 10am, Kris and Cordell were taking us to the airport. We checked in and found a Jimmy John's to get something to eat. We weren't sure how well flights would run for the rest of the day and thought one good meal would get us through.
I called the restaurant and talked to a nice man who confirmed they had the credit card. He also said to get it back we needed to fill out a form on-line. Since we were not there to provide proof of ID, they needed this on-line form completed to determine how best to get the card to us. We went through filling out the form. The responded to Claude and he verified a form of payment and they will mail the credit card to us. Hallelujah. This means we don't have to change cards. We'll just use mine until Claude's card arrives in the mail.
We made it to Salt Lake City and I took this picture of mountains with snow form inside the airport for our kids.
Our flight to Cincinnati was on time. The flight was almost 30 minutes shorter than expected putting us in the Cincinnati airport about 10:30pm. Yeah!. The weather had been into the 70's in Vegas. It was not at 30 in Kentucky and going lower through the night. They had snow Thursday night into Friday morning. It left time for the roads to be clear all the way home. The most snow on the ground was in Georgetown.
It was good to be home. To be in our cozy little home and to sleep in our flannel sheets. We really enjoyed our trip. Cordell had taken a turn for the worse with is Parkinson's and could not attend any of the rodeo with us. But we had good visits with him and that was the important part. So grateful to Kris and Cordell for helping us have such a good experience.
After the show, I called for our Uber. He got us back to The Grandview in great shape. A good evening out on our own. 
