Celebrating Birthdays with the Twins

 

Celebrating Birthdays with the Twins

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 21, 2024

Wednesday night brought us to the Kona Grill in Eden Prairie for a get together with our Twin Cities Clear Lake Club.  Jason and Jen joined us this month which added a little bit of extra spice to the evening.

Friday night was at the Rodeo at Canterbury Park.  I'm not quite sure what it was, but something about being there made me feel proud to be an American.

We were joined by Ron and Sue Korkowski.  We all thought we'd enjoy rooting for the Cowboys for the evening, but often times we found ourselves rooting for the cows instead.

It's a bit surprising that the calf roping event isn't considered to be more controversial.  They basically let this baby cow out of a gate, it runs for a bit until a man lassos him with a big rope around it's neck, chokes and yanks him to the ground, and then rushes to tie his feet together so he can't move.  The fastest one to do it is considered the winner.  I'm sure there's a purpose for doing this activity on a real ranch, but it seems a bit much just to entertain an audience.  Although I must admit, I did find it really cool!

Even though we had sympathy for the animals, it was the cowboys who were probably suffering the majority of the pain for the evening.  These guys are pretty crazy seeing who can stay on Bucking Broncos and Monster Bulls the longest.  

A lot of the night was spent waiting for guys to open a gate, while dudes figured out how to climb onto thousand pound animals who were pissed off and wanted to go back to their stalls for the evening.  They'd open it up and the snarling beasts bounced around for 15-30 seconds while the poor sucker on top held on for dear life.

The event ended with a guy getting stomped on by a bull and then being hauled off the field in an ambulance.  Not sure I understand the appeal of this sport for the participants, but it sure was interesting to watch.  Warning.  This video may be tough to watch for the squeamish:

@toddswank Bull Riding looks pretty tough! #bullriding #canterbury #rodeo ♬ Austin (Boots Stop Workin') - Dasha

@toddswank All for a pair of diamond earrings! #canterbury #rodeo #diamonds ♬ original sound - Todd Swank

Although battling the animals looked really tough to do, watching a large group of women all playing Scramble to retrieve a football in order to win a pair of Diamond Earrings was probably the most violent event of the evening!

Saturday was my 54th birthday.  Luke and Avery's 25th birthday was 6 days earlier so we all went to the Minnesota Twins game to celebrate together.

We had some rain hit before the game started so we had to endure a bit of a delay.  It was fun to watch the grounds crew put the tarp over the field which made it worth getting my butt wet for awhile.

The Milwaukee Brewers were in town.  Any time a Wisconsin team plays in the Twin Cities, it always seems to bring a whole bunch of their fans.  It caused this evening's game to be the largest regular season crowd in Target Field History!  And all 41,000 of us had wet butts!

I don't know what's harder for me to accept.  That I'm 54 or that my boys are 25.  Time is flying by way too fast in any case.

I feel lucky to have this lady in my life as time flies by.

None of us are huge baseball fans so when the game went to 10 innings and remained in a tie at 1 to 1, we pretty much all decided that we could listen in the car to hear the final score.  4 hours at a baseball game is plenty for me!

Of course by leaving early, naturally there would be additional excitement in the game.  The Brewers scored two runs in the 11th inning which was answered by Carlos Santana hitting a 2 run homer.  It sounded really exciting on the radio.  But the Brewers came back in the 12th and scored another 5 runs which ended up being way too much for the Twins to mount a comeback.  We were all pretty glad we made the choice to leave early, but it was a fun night overall!