National Finals Rodeo

Wolcome to Arizona 🌵
The Land of Scorpions, Tumbleweeds, and
Gun-toting Cowboys -If you don't like it, go back to California! Californians not welcome here.

Vintage Arizona state of mind. 🌵☀️

The unofficial "Welcome to Arizona" sign

Arizona doesn’t come with instructions or apologies.
​It doesn’t try to soften its glare, temper its heat, or make itself more comfortable for the uninitiated. What you see is a landscape stripped down to its bones—and that’s by design. This land wasn’t built to be hospitable. It was built to be timeless.
​Life here will test you. The sun is relentless. The canyons are deep. The dust storms roll in with the weight of the sky, and the silence of the high desert can be deafening. Water is a miracle, and shade is a mercy. But the people who plant their roots in this soil—they understand something deeper. Arizona doesn’t promise comfort. It promises perspective.
​It gives you horizons that break your ego and sunsets that heal your spirit. It gives you monsoons that wash the world clean and stars that make the earth feel small. It gives you a culture forged in fire and grit, where history isn’t just in books—it’s etched into the red rock and whispered through the saguaros.
​There is a harshness here—but never without beauty. There is an emptiness—but never without soul. Arizona doesn’t pretend to be easy, and it never asks for permission to be exactly what it is. It trusts that if you can handle the heat, you’ll eventually find the magic.
​This isn’t a place that begs for your approval. It doesn’t perform. It simply exists—vast, ancient, and unapologetic—offering mesas, painted deserts, hidden creeks, and a light that changes you forever.
​If you come looking for something lush and forgiving, you may miss the point.
​But if you meet Arizona on its own terms, you will understand why the people who love it… love it fiercely.
​Welcome to Arizona.
No filters.
No edits.
For those who know—the heat is worth the light. 🌵🏜️

The second it hits 72° in Arizona, society completely collapses. Parkas gone. Shorts on. Dudes firing up the grill like it’s the Fourth of July. Someone’s actually washing their car in the driveway without getting a third-degree burn from the hose. You see a guy at the store in a tank top saying, “honestly, it’s refreshing.” REFRESHING. 🌵
​Bro, it was 115° for four months straight last summer; we were legally rotisserie chickens. Now it’s a tropical resort. The AC finally stops humming for five minutes and everybody’s outside like groundhogs who just realized they aren't being cooked alive. Kids riding bikes without melting their tires, neighbors digging out the patio furniture, old heads walking around with hot coffee because they can finally hold the mug without sweating. ☕️☀️
​You can physically hear the hiking trail parking lots screaming because every person in the Valley decided to climb Camelback at the exact same time. Windows open. Music blasting. Vitamin D hitting hard. It’s not "Dry Heat" anymore, it’s Arizona Fake Winter™. Give it 48 hours and someone’s gonna say, “might stay under 80 this weekend, we should go to Sedona.” 🚗💨
​

Tom blassingame, JA Ranch cowboy. At age 91, he got off his horse out on the range, laid down by his horse, put his hat over his face and died.

Deer don’t read the signs.
Snakes? Yeah, basically roommates.
“Fixinto” is a full sentence.
Lunch is just dinner that showed up early.
Distance is measured in hours, not miles — and that’s normal.
One day it’s heat, the next it’s A/C… sometimes in the same afternoon.
Football on Friday night? That’s not a game, that’s a commitment. 🏈
Sweet tea belongs at every meal. No debate.
Catfish counts as comfort food.
And if Mama says you can drive… congratulations, you’re licensed.
This ain’t just a state — it’s a lifestyle.
If you know, you know.
If you don’t… welcome to Texas. 🇨🇱🤠

One has to go! Which do you pict..

It ain't exactly Odessa, but I've seen a bunch on people mention Penwell. We worked there. We played there. No telling what some people did there! Should Odessa claim it? Or Monahans? Oh well... here's an old pic of the truckstop.

Holy smokes! This photo of 4-H boys with their cattle at the Gonzales County Fair in Gonzales, Texas back in 1939 is dead solid perfect. The water trough, the boots, the hats, the glasses on the boy in back --- he kind of looks like a young Clark Kent. Maybe I'm wrong, but the kid in the white hat looks like perhaps he comes from a bit wealthier family than the kid on the left.

Taken by Russell Lee.

First School you Went as a Kid in Texas

On February 3, William B. Travis arrived in San Antonio with just 18 regular soldiers to reinforce the Alamo, a post already crowded with determined but loosely organized volunteers. Travis and James Bowie agreed to an uneasy shared command, Bowie directing the volunteers and Travis overseeing the regulars, in hopes of keeping unity inside the walls as tensions with Mexican forces mounted. That compromise soon faded when Bowie fell seriously ill, leaving Travis as the sole commander of the Alamo garrison, a role that placed the young officer at the center of events that would soon echo across Texas history.