Today was Rawhide. For those not in the know, Rawhide is a small wild west recreation town in Chandler AZ, which is about 10 minutes south of Phoenix....OF course our timeshare is 20 minutes NORTH of Phoenix, but hey, we need to break our record of 500 miles on a rental car in a week sometime, don't we?
HHBG let me sleep in

since Rawhide doesn't even open until Noon. I got up, showered, dressed the still-pajama-clad kids, got in the car, and drove the 60 minutes to Rawhide.
We showed up, parked, and caught the tail end of the rope drop, which was cute. The marshall of the town has a showdown with someone and then deems the street safe. The one 500 yard street makes up the WHOLE town, BTW.
The kids immediately wanted to ride a burro, so we bought wristbands for unlimited rides and attractions (no admission, but everything costs to do). They rode the little poop-machines, then rode a camel, then rode the little train. Then we ALL went intothe petting zoo and chased mini goats (ok, they all ran up to us wanting to be petted), and pet a shetland pony. The bull and bison ignored everyone. There was also a 1 month old baby kid goat that wanted DD to pet him, though the mama goat wasn't happy about this.
We then caught the gun-fight show, which was neat, an went on to the restaurant.
After we were seated, I was shocked to see two very interesting looking things on the appetizer menu....
Rattlesnake and Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Of course, HHBG and I had to order both of these. We also got sanwiches for our "regualr" food.
Well, the rattle snake was AWESOME! really tasty and perfect. The Rocky Mountain oysters were OK. They tasted OK and were a little more chewy that I usually like my food. They kind of reminded me of a gristly sweetbreads, if there were such a thing.
Of course, I had to immediately call my father (who loves to brag about waht he eats) and tell him about it. I won. He was grossed out at the thought of Rocky Mountain oysters.
During lunch, the "balloon guy" came to our table. We had been watching him all during lunch. He was AWESOME. I have never seen anyone make better balloon creations. We watched him make elmo, Ariel, and a bunch of other amazing htings. B got a horse and S got a monkey. I have pics on my phone, so I will post them when I get home.
So, we finished up lunch, and headed back to another gunfight. The good guys won again.
We hit the merchantile on the way out of town and got a stuffed horse for B and a small quacking stuffed duck for S
We swung by the grocery store for breakfast foods, beer, and soda, and came back to the room.
Right now we are still full, so we're debating whether to just make the kids scrambeled eggs for dinner or to head out to the bar and grille down the road.
TOMORROW: The Ren Fest. HUZZAH!!