That’s the slogan of the Pendleton RoundUp, our local rodeo: “Let ‘er Buck!” (Which has led to some clever community spin-offs… Public transportation around here carries the motto, “Let ‘er Bus!”)

Our RoundUp in September is the world’s sixth-largest rodeo, so I’m told—-continuously annual since 1910 (minus just two years during WWII, and one year shut down for COVID). For this one week of the year, our little town of sixteen thousand becomes SIXTY thousand.

It’s an utter madhouse.

Jon & I moved to Pendleton the week before RoundUp, eight years ago, and we quickly learned (among other things) that we should have done our week’s shopping on Sunday, before the horde of rodeo-goers descended and evaporated the inventory of our local grocery. By mid-week the shelves here are literally bare.

That was a hell of an introduction to our new hometown, that’s for sure—not the grocery shelves, I mean, but the overwhelming influx of people, the cowboy hats & cowboy boots by the thousands, the nonchalant horses trotting along in town traffic, the street fair of western artists who take over Main Street, the saloon (built into our Convention Center!) that opens for this single slammin’ week per year, the nightly history pageant (a script that hasn’t changed for a century), detailing tribal life and the arrival of Lewis & Clark, before degenerating into a slapstick comedy of shoot-outs and horse chases…

We’ve got the cowboys, and we’ve got the Indians too. For 115 years the local tribes have gathered on the flat behind the rodeo grounds and erected tipis for the duration of the rodeo. It’s an extensive family gathering, culminating in an American Indian Beauty Contest and a Pow Wow Dance Competition.

The tipi village is understandably off-limits without an invitation, but in the adjacent city-park you can wander their booths to buy crafts and beadwork and silver jewelry and Fry Bread. At the entrance to the tipi village there’s posted an enlightening list of rules pertaining to traditional-dress time. (Let’s just say these aren’t rules that make an appearance at my German-Irish-Norwegian family reunions… Keep your horse under control—and no strollers, only cradleboards...)

My favorite event of the actual rodeo is the Indian Relay. Each team has four horses, entirely bare of tack, and a single rider. The “relay” in this case doesn’t involve handing a baton to a different rider at the end of each lap; instead, it’s the same rider springing off one horse and jumping onto the next one. (Come to think of it, it kind of is like passing a baton—but the horses are doing the passing, and the baton is the human!) No saddles, no bridles, no stirrups, no reins—try to picture the amount of skill it takes to corral an excited horse at all, let alone leaping onto its back and racing it around the track.

The best event of the week, in my estimation, is the final parade, in which no motorized vehicles are permitted. It’s covered wagons and stagecoaches and people on horseback… And the cool thing about those covered wagons is that they’re almost two centuries old, and most of them probably arrived via the Oregon trail—and most of them are probably being driven now by descendants of the people who arrived that way. I grew up on “Little House on the Prairie,” and I’m a sucker for pioneer history.

But the VERY best part of RoundUp week, for those of us whose town is turned upside-down, is when it’s OVER. That’s when we breathe a sigh of relief, wave goodbye to the guests at the RV park—some of whom have become friends we see every year, and some of whom had me prowling in my reflective vest at 11pm, playing “den mother” and shushing the loud drunken parties… It’s been a crazy week in the park office—getting everyone’s reservations sorted out and rearranged, getting everyone on the books for next year (I don’t start taking reservations for the following year until the beginning of RoundUp week, and then it’s like the Oklahoma land rush!)…

Most RV Parks consider Labor Day the end of their summer season, but for us it’s RoundUp week. NOW we can take a deep breath and say we’ve made it through another summer. And Jon & I, who haven’t managed a getaway this year, have driven ourselves to the Oregon Coast. It’s time to plug my toes into the Pacific, like putting a phone on its charger. Whew, we made it through another summer.