So I have taken this Weekly Photo Challenge as an opportunity to let you all get to know me a bit more. Many of you might be surprised to know (especially if you are not from my home town) that I was pretty much a bonafide cowboy in High School. Want proof? Look below.

To the people reading this from my hometown who want to argue I’m not really a cowboy, you’re right. To us there are nuances, but for the general public, it’s just easiest to say I was a cowboy. It puts a much more accurate picture into someones mind of me and my upbringing than just saying I ride horses.

So on to the photo challenge, the photo above has a doozy of a story attached to it. If you didn’t know, a rodeo queen is basically like Miss America but on horseback. To become a queen you have to compete in a pageant which is a lot like a beauty pageant except you are also judged on your riding skills, public speaking and knowledge of the industry.

If you win the pageant, then you get to represent that rodeo for the next year at other rodeos, parades, on the radio, etc depending on how big the rodeo is. When I was a rodeo queen, I traveled about a 50 mile radius around my hometown and was on the road most of the summer of 2010.

So enough with the background, you’re probably wondering what’s going on in the photo cause things seem a bit tense. You would be correct. This photo was taken by a random photographer at the end of a parade route. My friend and I were done with the parade and headed back to the horse trailer to go home when we ran into the group at the end of the parade. In case you can’t really see in the photo, it was a giant group of mariachis headed by a clown leading a ginormous bull being ridden by a small child all covered in rainbow paint (hidden behind my horse in my photo).

It was an incredibly loud group and they scared both my horse, Dyna, and my friends horse, CB. Whereas my horse turned and ran, which you can see in this photo, my friends horse flipped over into a ditch between two cars and almost crushed my friend.

The best part of this story is that we had no cell phone service so we had no way of calling for help. (The mariachis unfortunately were all too happy to just point and laugh at our situation.) Finally my friend, who was standing next to her horse which was standing calm out of shock was able to call for help.

We were told that through the shitty cell service the only words that go through were, “CB flipped and Dyna’s on the run!” Can you imagine how freaked out our parents were. They had no idea where we were and if we were hurt, and no way to find out.

To make matters worse, my horse Dyna would not stop. I eventually got her back down to a walk but she would not turn back towards the trailer and would not stop. Because of all the flowers and chaps surrounding me, I couldn’t get off while she was being so crazy and my friend was way too far back with a potentially injured horse to chase after us.

To be honest, I don’t even really remember the rest of the story. Stress has wiped it from my memory. I think that eventually the Mariachis left and I got Dyna to turn around. We made it back to the horse trailer which our parents had gotten closer to us since getting the panicked call.

Both myself, my friend and our horses were completely fine after getting a little food and water in us to calm our nerves. My friend had to completely redo her parade flowers after her horse crushed them but that was the worst of the casualties. While it was definitely not funny at the time, it’s one of my most cherished memories of my reign as a rodeo queen and a great story to share.