Windshield Time

Summer is a quintessential season for rodeo athletes. It’s the time of year when every weekend is occupied by slacks and perfs and all-night drives to the next one. It’s the season of money won, money lost, and fair food for dinner. It’s a time when the flowers blooming are Lupine and construction cones, and the oasis of a hot asphalt highway leads the way to paradise, or another dusty fairgrounds. For me, it’s windshield time. It always has been, from the days of sitting in the back of the motorhome, playing with my Barbie dolls, to my transition into the driver’s seat of a Ford 350 with a full trailer in tow. 

In the early days, windshield time was a formality, a regularity. As we grew older, it was more appreciated. The conversations had behind the windshield of the rodeo rig were unlike any other. Whether it was traveling to high school rodeos with my mom at the wheel, or chasing college titles with my best friends, we could have solved the world’s problems, or created a few more to keep things interesting. I remember growing into the conversations. My mom has always been a philosopher of her own nature, and as a kid, I’d sit in the backseat with my headphones on as my big sister shared in the talks with my mom. But as time matured me, I joined in, and I credit my own development as a philosopher to those miles spent diving into a plethora of topics. From politics to faith, to whose-got-a-crush-on-who, windshield time held more cultural and educational significance than any classroom ever could. 

Some of my favorite memories are not the wins we found once we got to the rodeo, but rather the journey there, with sore throats and sore stomachs, from the laughing and yapping and singing to the radio with my traveling partners. It was the headaches as we recounted the night before, or the pitstops to restock on Redbull. 

There’s something both therapeutic and constructive about allowing yourself to think deeply, without urgency or purpose, but simply because you’ve been given the chance to do so without escape. Inside a pickup going 80 down I-90 is a pretty good place to start. The concoction of tires, cracked highways, and cowboy hats on the dashboard stimulates the mind and evokes such a level of thought, Aristotle himself might have asked to come along to those rodeos. But I don’t believe it is the destination that nurtures the philosophy that swirls inside the cab. Instead it is the familiarity with the process of getting there. The road becomes home, and home has a special way of allowing the mind to be open. 

Summer is never forever. Windshield time isn’t either. As I’ve grown, I’ve embarked on adventures away from rodeo, and as much longing as I sometimes have for rodeoing full time again, it has proven itself a gift. As someone who spent her entire life immersed in rodeo and the lifestyle that is so unique, stepping away has only increased its value. I never would understand what I’ve been raised with had I not left it for a time. And now, when I get the opportunity to load the horses into the trailer, hop in the truck, and head to a rodeo again, I’m reminded of the gift that is windshield time. Whenever I’m given the chance to place a container of fresh watermelon on the center console, turn down the radio, and dive into the world’s problems as we head to another summer rodeo, I don’t dare take it for granted as I may have in the past when it was simply routine.