Omak and the Omak Stampede

While we did not schedule our visit based on the Stampede, we did decide this would be an excellent opportunity to see a local rodeo. It was certainly popular enough to pack our RV Park! The rodeo starts on Thursday and runs until Sunday afternoon with a carnival attached as well as lots of food booths. Our waiter at the Pizza Inn had suggested that we might park downtown and walk the 2 blocks to the stampede grounds, so that’s what we did. We also decided to be healthy and we ate dinner at home before we left. The rodeo started at 7 pm and we left the campground at 6 giving us lots of time for lemonade, ice cream, and wandering around.

The rodeo turned out to be much smaller than I had anticipated. There seemed to be more Rodeo Queens than participants. But the Rodeo Queens were lovely, the participants gave a good show, the rodeo clown was hilarious, and the livestock gave everyone a run for their money.

Notice all the pink? There is a special fund raising going on in rodeos to raise money for cancer research as well as local assistance to those who need. For every ticket sold, one dollar must be used locally to help cancer patients or pay for mammograms. So far rodeos across the country have raised 9.75 million!

The rodeo ends each night with the ‘Suicide Race’. This race begins at the top of a very, very steep hill (see below) and goes down and through the river and then into the arena. It was too dark to take any pictures, but you can see the hill below and if you do a google on Suicide Race in Omak, there are several u-tube videos. It is really scary to watch and is aptly named.

It was a fun introduction into local rodeos and now I want to go to the world championship rodeo in Vegas…bet its something to see!!!