Cowboys, Indians, Lake Swimming and Copious Amounts of Beer

This weekend, I headed to Eastern Washington with some friends to go to the Omak Stampede!  Ashley has been begging us for years to go, and for one reason or another, it never worked out for me to go.  This year, thankfully I was able to figure out a way to get the hell out of Seattle for the weekend and enjoy some new sights.  

After working ten hours on Friday, I was obviously completely ready to go, and we started on our voyage to Chelan (where Ashley's grandma lives) to camp out for the night.  We set up our tents in the dark, and began drinking some enjoyable "nature" beers.  I stayed up until the sun began to come up - the first time I've done that in years.  The best part about it was that nothing bad happened after 2 AM. ;)

I didn't grasp the amazing view from Ashley's grandmother's house until the next morning, when we woke up to this (props to Meryl for getting such a good picture!) : 

Then after swimming in Lake Chelan for the afternoon, we headed to Omak to get to the Stampede!  At this point, it was about a million degrees outside which made me feel like death warmed over after the lack of sleep from the night before.  It was a pretty nutty experience from the first moment I drove up to the Stampede.  There were all different types of people walking around, and most of them had some kick ass cowboy boots (every single pair, I wanted to steal). 

The rodeo was a hoot, and was really impressive.  Basically, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen to see a guy wrestle a baby bull (thought that was the best way to specify the gender of a calf) after jumping off of a horse.  Wow.  The thing that the Omak Stampede is most famous for, however is a tradition called the Suicide Race.  Basically, some jockeys get on their horses some with saddle, some without and they ride their horse down a hill that has a grade of 62 percent into the Okanogan River.  Wow.  Below is a video from youtube which shows the race:

We had such a good time!

The last thing that I want to put on here today is a link to an editorial by Warren Buffett about the taxation of rich people.  I love Warren Buffett, not only do we share a birthday (which is coming up!), he plays ukulele, drives a town car and has a personality to boot! He also happens to be one of the richest men in America, and the CEO of the very successful Berkshire Hathaway.  Here's the link: Stop Coddling the Rich by Warren Buffett