Wednesday, February 18 - Leaving for Texas (again)

Tomorrow at 0600 I'm flying to San Antonio to hopefully shoot Trevor taking his first silver buckle of the season -- he's currently leading the standings at the rodeo. The last two weeks have been spent cutting the first round of material, and getting sponsors on the hook to support us for the rest of the year. We have had many positive conversations with some of the biggest advertisers in the country, and I am hopeful we are going to have a deal soon. This project has been very warmly received by everyone, and I have given three interviews in the past week about the show to various newspapers around the country.

Looking forward to seeing the boys again, and I'm sure a bottle of Pendleton Whiskey will be enjoyed by all -- if we can pry it out of Charlie's hands first.

More from the road.

January 30th - February 17th

Putting life back on the front burner -- spending my only and limited free time with my family -- working late nights on editing our trailer and preparing to go out on another round of production.

Thursday, January 29 - HOME

So happy to be home. Big hugs from Jack and Jules, then back to watching cartoons almost immediately. There was cake and a nice dinner -- and then off to bed. Tomorrow we return the RV -- and I will begin editing over the weekend. Looking for more sponsorship for round two -- hopefully getting back on the road in two weeks.

Wednesday, January 28 - Leaving Wyoming

Laramie to Boise -- just more driving.

Tuesday, January 27 -11:30pm - Laramie, Wyoming

Tonight was one of the most intense, and scariest nights of my life.

Northbound on 287, through northern Colorado a digital road-sign advised us that Highway 25 north of Cheyenne was closed as well as 80 East due to weather -- I turned on the CB radio and started to ask a few truckers ahead of me what the situation was -- things were certainly deteriorating, but I had no idea it was going to get to be a life or death situation. "What you see is about to get worse, all the way west through Rawilns" came the reply. The sun went down, and the winds went up -- and up and up -- and within an hour of sundown, it was taking quite a lot of effort to keep the RV on the road due to huge blasts of frigid air -- I had to wrap myself up in blankets because my left leg was beginnning to freeze, despte the heat being on full blast. The winds kept getting stronger -- and then came the most dangerous part of the trip -- the blowing snow. The lightest, freshest powder you can imagine was drifiting and blowing across the highway, reducing visibility to 10 feet or less at times...the road became caked with ice and then the fuel gauge began to demand my attention. We pulled into an area that we thought had a gas-station -- but with near zero-zero visibility, we ended up down a long snowy road with no place to turn around. Upon backing up, I had my first and only accident of my near 5000 mile trip -- and I brushed the top of a fencepost on my right side -- with the sound of a shotgun going off, the front passenger window exploded, the mirror torn off, and then -42 degree wind at 85mph (no exaggeration) blasted into the RV and nearly took my breath away. We tore the cardboard off of our box of silks and cut it to size, taping it to the hole in the window -- Barney using all his weight against the cardboard while I used two rolls of ductape to secure it -- we limped to the gas-station and managed to squeeze out $40 worth of diesel -- 10 cents at a time due to frozen nozzle -- poor Barney almost got frostbitten while I paid the grumpy dude at the cash-register -- it was a very cold, long night into Laramie where we found some cover beind a Walmart and set her down for the night.

Monday, January 26 -- 5:30pm - Fowler, Colorado

Mother nature has finally decided to take a role in our movie. Its 1 degree above zero here in Fowler and blowing hard...snow is beginning to fall-- our water tank is frozen, our propane ran out last night, and our diesel has turned to gel. The temperature in the motorhome this morning was 16 degrees at 6am-- took everything I had to get out from under my covers to pee -- then bumming that the toilet water looked like an ice-rink, tinged blue from the deodorant -- so I had to make like Wilson and go out in the corn-field...This is the kind of cold where your spit freezes before it hits the ground.

We've got a small space heater and I've piped in hot air onto our water tank area from the generator exhaust using some irrigation pipes I found in a corn field -- I'll probably end up burning the motorhome down, but hey, its a rental.

The boys went on to practice despite the weather -- the ground is frozen solid and the horses were cold -- but we went out to the arena and shot the guys working the steers -- Charlie, Trevor, and his girlfriend Lacy finally made their way through 60 hours of travel through the low-pressure system that is just beginning to make its way down upon Southern Colorado -- and within ten minutes of arrival, Trevor was on his horse, running down steers -- wearing a flannel shirt without gloves. Poor Lacy is from Louisianna and until today hadn't even seen snow before -- I'm not sure who was colder, she or I...

So I was talking some smack last night after a few beers about how I might enjoy throwing a steer or two myself -- and well the boys didn't seem to forget that -- and so when Trevor grabbed ahold of a 500lb steer and called my name -- I ran over and grabbed the left horn with my left hand and put the right horn inside the crook of my arm -- and when Trevor let go of the steer I was a mere passenger -- until I squared my feet and felt the resitstance of the animal in my upper torso -- then I stopped the beast and torqued with all my might and actually felt like I was impressing everyone with my natural skill as I roll in the dirt with a cow head in my arms -- then I start to hear the laughing...and notice Trevor has the steer by the tail -- I was pulling like hell, but couldn't get her to the ground. After what felt like an eternity, I had no more strength and had to let go -- winded, and completely spent -- but the best education on "bulldoging" this director could ever have.

Sunday, January 25th, 4:15pm - Denver, Colorado

Well the boys didn't do to well today at the finals. Beau broke the barrier, and Dane's steer fell the wrong way and took considerable time to pull around. Needless to say, the guys are having a bit of a bummer moment in the arena barn area, letting the horses cool down, and themselves, I would bet. I'm not going to push cameras into their faces -- for at least another ten minutes. Then I'm everyone's favorite guy -- the one asking them on camera to relive their most recent, painful moments. It feels a little bit like those "Jim Gray" interviews outside the losing team's lockerroom -- talking to the coach after the big loss -- but I have a lot more hair -- and I get to drink whiskey with the team in a couple of hours in Fowler, Colorado. We plan to shoot the guys hanging out, practicing, having a good time -- Charlie and Trevor were unable to make Denver due to a blizzard in Southern Wyoming -- so they are pushing on through now and hope to make Fowler by nightfall. Barney, Wilson and I will head north tomorrow, weather permitting.

I miss my wife and kids.

Saturday, January 24th, 11:15am - Denver, Colorado

IHOP Restaurant was a gastronomic disaster for me -- I am not sure what's going on with my digestive tract -- but my omelet came and I pushed it around on my plate and couldn't wait for the waitress to take it away. I'm nursing an upset stomach again, and noticing some significant weight-loss -- down to the final hole on my belt and my wedding ring is slipping off -- not much of an appetite for me or Barney -- truthfully, I think we're getting a little road-weary -- We're going to run into the Walmart and pick up some more drinking water and Gatorade -- then back to the Denver Coliseum to await the arrival of the boys from Ft. Worth. Trevor flew home to Oregon to pick up his horses and is driving to Denver with Charlie as we speak. Trevor didn't make the finals, but will be there to support the rest of the guys -- then we're talking about going to Fowler, Co. for a couple of days of rest and practice for the athletes.

Friday, January 23rd:

Two shots of Patron and two bites of my dinner -- I check my voicemail and we finally get the words we've been waiting so long to hear -- "Good to go for shooting" from the main-guys at the PRCA -- our credentials are in and rodeo committees around the country are now aware that we are coming and are opening for us -- I really couldn't be happier about this -- and honestly, I think if I had to do it all over again, I would have done it the same way. The fact that we're on the road making content and posting it for them to see, shaking the right hands and making the right calls -- I' m not sure we could have secured these shooting rights sitting in a heated office in Portland somewhere -- I think we really needed to show up as the hard-core filmmakers we are -- always pushing against that giant rock until something gives --

This was a time for celebration -- couple more shots of Patron and off to a local bar for a nightcap where we watched Torah Bright win the XGames -- kind of surreal to be watching the subject of an interview I shot last year in Niseko, Japan -- now here we are again in the same state, eleven months later -- both doing our thing -- the professional athlete and the filmmaker -- two very uncertain, unconventional ways of making a living. Cab ride back to Walmart, the RV, and Wilson the dog and favored bed-warmer -- we ran out of propane days ago and its below twenty degrees outside...

Thursday, January 22nd:

A good chunk of the day dedicated to driving back to Amarillo.

Wednesday, January 21st:

Moved to RV park across from the Ft. Worth Stock Show -- still awaiting credentials -- endless people to talk to and convince we only have the rodeo's best interests at heart. We'd been sitting here for 10 hours, making small talk, reading, napping, doing laundry -- then out of the blue Trevor calls to tell me that all the boys are about an hour away from bedding down in Stephenville, TX -- so we spring into action and load up a rental car for a mad dash to a ranch in the middle of nowhere. We find the boys loading hay and putting the horses away for the night -- Dane and Lee decide to go to the gym, and Beau, Trevor, Charlie, myself and Barney hit a Texas roadhouse for the best steak of the trip -- some whiskey and beer later, we're shooting interviews back in the barn at the ranch.

It is here where I get my first true sense of who Lee Graves is -- the veteran athlete, mentor, coach -- with an amazing presence and tremendous on-camera skill -- As I am interviewing him, I'm breaking into a smile on the inside -- a guy like this can really be helpful in building bridges in the narrative -- this is the kind of interviewee where you can say something like "can you take us from here to there -- ending with this..." and he's all over it -- taking a moment to compose his thoughts, then addressing camera and giving me gold --
very happy with Dane, Beau, and Trevor as well -- and Charlie? Well, he's just great to have around -- his jokes and spirit and good nature have us all feeling like we wish we were hard-core republicans.