National Gas Rodeo Competition 2014

Thursday September 11th
We got up at 7 am to finish packing the week leading up to this vacation was crazy! Just so much to do and so much going on but then we took off to the airport around 9 am we met up with OJ, Hatch and Tyler. We finally made it to the airport parked and went through security, checked bags and then we were boarding super fast and we took off at 11am! Denver here we come!!
I have to be honest I hated that we were flying on September 11th, there is something about going to the airport that day, getting on a plane, being in a terminal, checking baggage that just seems a lot more depressing and sad. It made me think about how many people were lost that day and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was a little stressed about flying that day.
Obviously I didn't know how flying was going to be at 30 weeks pregnant let alone it being September 11th. But the flight was very smooth we had very little turbulence and by the time you are up in the clouds you are coming back down to land. Denver was a really short flight.

A little flashback to when Kelly won 1st place at Questar Gas Rodeo

The Denver airport is really cool! Its huge & super nice. Sadly Salt Lake isn't that nice. But, once we got our bags I had to get a jacket out of my bag. It was SOOO... cold getting off the airport and into the terminal. I had no idea that in September it would be only 50 degrees at the hottest point of the day.

We got our rental cars and started to head to the city. Its crazy how you are in the middle of nowhere when you land in Denver. It doesn't look like Colorado.
We found a spot for lunch it was called Burgerfi it was definitely not the cheapest burger joint but it was delicious and well when the company is paying for it can you really complain? Hatch, OJ and Tyler shared a bucket of fries.. it really was a massive pile of fries.
Hatch and OJ are foreman from Questar. Kelly had OJ as a boss last year and this year he has Hatch. These to guys are the absolute funniest people. The company had some people who decided not to go & so Hatch and OJ got tickets to come along with us. Tyler is Kelly's teammate and is super friendly and goofy.

We drove by the Rockies stadium it looked really nice. I kind of wished we could of gone to a game. Every time we went on a family trip when I was a kid my dad would always take us to some baseball game didn't matter if it was professional or not. That is a great memory I have from going to Oregon & North Carolina with my family.

This is the first year they are holding the National Gas Rodeo in Colorado Springs. They moved it from Louisiana this year and brought it back to Colorado Springs it started here. Every year they would go to the Budweiser plant and do the tour there.  I guess its really cool and a great experience. So the Coors beer plant is in Golden, Colorado. We decided to go do the tour after lunch, it was super chilly waiting for the tour bus to come pick us up. We went on the tour it was a self-guided tour which was kind of boring you didn't really see much of the plant, the coolest part was seeing the packaging and the cans coming in to be packaged. Kelly loved watching the machines working in that part of the plant. I personally didn't love the smell of the factory but it was my first time being in a beer plant. Once we were done they had free drinks and taste testing well we taste tested.. Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. hahahaha, okay all 12 of us drank pop. We got some funny looks from those who were drinking alcohol.

We then made the trek of this giant mountain to see Buffalo Bills grave. It was very foggy and muggy you couldn't really see the view from the mountain down to Golden. Which I don't know if that was a good thing or not because we were pretty stinking high and I think I would of got car sick if I could of seen the view. The shop that is by his grave was open but not the museum. It was pretty funny when we walked into the little gift shop there was a small pony for kids to ride on and of course Hatch who is 6 foot hops on and acts like he's riding it, we started laughing at him and the sales guy came around the corner and started yelling at Hatch. Hatch quickly jumped off and that kid quickly didn't feel like he had very much authority after seeing the size of Hatch.

Buffalo Bills Grave

Hatch riding the pony in the Gift Shop

We started heading to Colorado Springs. We had the choice of flying straight there or to Denver but everyone thought it would be fun to play in Denver. It definitely was worth it. Colorado Springs is only a little over an hour away from Denver. But what we didn't know is we would hit construction, a rain storm and rush hour. It took us forever to get there. I fell asleep in the back which was probably best considering my back was killing me from having to sit up so straight and the little Chevy Equinox we were driving really wasn't that nice of a car for it being a 2015.
By the time we got to the hotel I was relived but I was also very done with the day. I was kind of moody and extremely tired. I didn't want to do much else but luckily there was a Chili's across from the hotel. All of us from Questar Ogden ate there it was definitely delicious who doesn't love Chili's?

The hotel we were staying at is a Hilton it is very nice and huge! I couldn't get over how big it was. Everyone who was competing in the Rodeo was staying there. They of course already started drinking that night when we got into the hotel. I was kind of disgusted how bad it smelt by the banquet rooms.

Friday September 12th

Tyler & Kelly
at the practice grounds with the National Gas Rodeo Logo

We got to sleep in, but come to find out we should of been up a little earlier since they had some pre rodeo things going on. We went down and ate breakfast with everyone and then headed off to the Rodeo grounds so the boys could practice and see the equipment they would be using the next day.
It was very cold. I had looked at the weather but thought it was going to eventually get warmer. I didn't take any closed toe shoes since well none of them will fit very comfortably on my swollen piggys. I sat in the car with some of the wives getting warm as the guys tested the mini-x, backing up the dump truck and trailer and doing whatever else they were doing. I was really confused about what was going on since I didn't get to go to the Questar rodeo in the spring. Kelly was nice to try and explain things to me as he was looking at them. We later went and got me a pair of shoes at Target so my feet wouldn't freeze at the rodeo the next day.

Practicing the Relay part

We were getting hungry and well with 3 full grown men and a company card they wanted to eat something delicious. I am not use to how men eat I definitely learned that this trip. We ate at Rudy's BBQ it was really yummy. I had wanted to go there since several years ago my dad went to one in Texas and brought me home a t-shirt. We had pulled pork sandwiches, banana cream pudding, potato salad. It was delicious. Tyler and OJ shared a pile of meat. Yes, a huge pile of meat. They made Tyler finish all of it the poor kid looked like he was going to barf after he was done. We also got my dad the same t-shirt that he got me years ago. I figured he wouldn't remember that he got me one. On the back it says "I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain... to eat vegetables."

Banana Cream Pudding (YUM)

Tyler had brought the belt buckle they won at Questar Gas rodeo in the spring but he didn't have a belt for it so we spent the next 4 hours driving around to leather shops to try and find a belt for him. We finally ended up at the Boot Barn and got him one.

I caught him studying the rules... 

We made it back a little late to the hotel so Kelly and Tyler hurried to get the shirts, hats and other things they brought to trade with other competitors. I hurried and ironed their dinner shirts since they were wrinkly from getting embroidered. I went down later and met up with Kelly for the dinner. It was a really good dinner and they showed the new trophies and talked about what would go on the next day. They also picked the best t-shirt during the dinner.
One of the big parts of the Rodeo is designing your logo for your team and then making cool gear and bringing it to trade with other companies. Kelly spent a lot of time looking at different books and coming up with where to put logos etc. They really turned out cool, they got a lot of compliments on the stuff they had brought to the rodeo. Which was nice since they had some issues with the guy not printing them correctly and doing a horrible job with some of the stuff. Lets just say they won't be going back to him for stuff next year.

Its a tradition when you are at the rodeo to go get ice cream every night. Although it was 39 degrees at 10:30pm we still went to Baskin-Robbins and ate ice cream with everyone. It was nice to talk and get to know everyone a little better and I think it relived the guys from thinking about the competition tomorrow.

Saturday September 13th

Kelly had to get up and be to the grounds early since he is a team captain. Since all of the boys had to be there so early us women decided we would go over later. Which meant that Hatch got to escort us women to the grounds. We ate breakfast and headed over just in time to see it all begin.

Kelly and Tyler had the pipe cut first. They were kind of happy that was their first thing they had since its the hardest and stressed them out. They did it in 29.90 seconds and really did a great job with it. Everyone from Questar had congratulated them.

Next was the service installment. They did really well with this one as well. They took their time they didn't have a problem with the wires getting tangled up like other teams were having issues with. Their time was 158.28 seconds which was pretty average from everyone else who was competing.

Mr. Kelly Captain Nelson

Then it was on to the Meter Set. This is where things were a little rocky, they had a great plan going into it and were pumped. Kelly was going to pick up the box that had everything inside and run it down to Tyler who was at the end of the relay. Well Kelly took off running and as he picked up the box his hard hat flew off and parts flew out of the box. He gathered it up nicely and quickly. His hard hat never touched the ground but he still got a ten second penalty for it which made it for a bum deal. Kelly was very mad at himself for it but they put everything together right on the Meter Set the night before they made some changes to the way it had to be done since some of the parts were hard to use at the practice. Their time for the Meter Set was 101.63 seconds without the 10 second penalty it was  91.63 seconds.

Waiting to do the Pipe Cut

The last thing is the Sand Dig. Kelly made sure his little hard hat was on so tight for this event. They did the 2 man teams two at a time they were up against the guys who won the National Rodeo last year. They would have beat them but Kelly's poor little hard hat fell off again and so there was a 10 second penalty once again. They still kicked some serious trash at it. They had a time of 19.68 seconds which by the time everyone competed would put them in 3rd place for the best sand dig. But with the penalty it dropped them down to 29.68 seconds.

They then total all the scores up and the top 10 make it into the relay. Then the others who don't make it to the relay have the option to get back in to do the relay with a mystery event. Well after totaling it up Burnin' Rod was one second behind making it into the relay... Yes they were ONE SECOND from qualifying. Their subtotal was 319.49 seconds without the two penalties it was 299.49 seconds. They would of easily been in 6th place going into the the Relay. Instead they had to compete in the mystery event which was way confusing and super hard.. it was ridiculous for a mystery event. But they ended up not winning that event so they didn't get to compete in the relay!

I have to say by the end of the day I was very proud of Tyler & Kelly. For their first time ever doing the Gas Rodeo for Questar's Competition and then winning that and being able to come to Nationals that was already such a cool thing for them. But they did really well for the first year at Nationals. I know Kelly will never live down the fact that he has a small head and his hard hat wouldn't stay on but, he really did his best and to me they will always be number one.

Look at those studs!

It finally heated up towards the middle of the day. Hatch & OJ were my bodyguards as they called themselves. They were so funny with getting me snow cones and bringing me drinks. They really watched out for me and it was very nice of them. While we were at the airport they wouldn't let me wheel around any bags or do much of anything. They kept saying I am fragrant and pregnant with child. They were very nice in doing all that they did for me. I really love those guys a lot!

So this year Questar only took 4 teams to Nationals. They only took the 1st place 2-Man Team from their rodeo (Kelly's team) and they took the top three in the 4-Man Team from their rodeo in the spring. The divisions that represented were; Ogden, Vernal, Bluffdale.

Questar did really well at the National Gas Rodeo these are the team names and their final ranking:
Burnin' Rod: Ogden- Kelly's Team (2 Man) 12th
Big Dogs: Ogden Team (4 Man) 13th Final time: 252.88 seconds (no qualification for relay)
Country Strong: Vernal Team (4 Man) 7th Final time: 401.92 seconds
Hound Dogs: Bluffdale Team (4 Man) 6th Final time: 398.27 seconds

Kelly caught me napping.. 

After the rodeo we made it back to the Hotel, I could tell I had a little too much sun but didn't know how bad it was until I woke up after my nap. I was pretty stinking bright pink on one arm and my neck. It only got up to about 75 degrees but the altitude definitely didn't help me.

Everybody from Questar went out for dinner at a steakhouse. It reminded me a lot of Texas Roadhouse. I got chicken fried chicken and Kelly got prime rib and shrimp. I couldn't eat a lot mine because I filled up on rolls and onion straws. But it was a very delicious meals. The Vernal team definitely got a little tipsy at the restaurant and were pretty darn funny. After we got back from dinner we went and watched people sing Karaoke at the Hotel. It was really funny to watch but the lady who ran the Karaoke looked really bad like a human version of a mouse.

We took a break and got some ice cream again at Baskin-Robbins and then watched some more karaoke before going to bed.
It was a long day both physically and emotionally. Considering I started crying at the rodeo because I was mad at what one of the judges was saying to Kelly because it came off completely different to me  and then Kelly was mad at me ... lets just say my little pregnancy emotions kicked in for a little bit.

Sunday September 14th
It was sadly already time to come home! I couldn't believe how fast this trip went! The men wanted to stop at the Bass Pro Shop before we left. It's a really cool store, obviously its not a women store but when your on a man's trip thats what you get right?!

A little love from Hatch with Bean

You can tell how tall Hatch is and how men will stare at a tank of fish forever!!

We finally got to the airport and I was super hungry since we hadn't stopped for lunch. But we didn't have anytime to get anything since our plane was started to board. So I ate my small bag of airplane pretzels and my half a cup of Coke. It was a easy plane ride back home and it was cool to watch as we flew over parts of Utah and it's always fun to look out the window as you land and take off.

I am so glad I got to go on this trip with Kelly! I can't wait for the National Gas Rodeo next year! Burnin' Rod is definitely going to keep their hard hats on!

This picture is one that Kelly sent me after the Rodeo. Obviously this is just a normal day at work.. welding on a completely live gas main. Yup, so glad that is my husband next to that pipe. You can see his little gloves say Bean on them. I like getting pictures of stuff he does at work although this one kind of scares me.