This is the time of year when we’re on our summer run. Because I live in the Southwest, it’s about a four-month leave from home for me. I take off for Reno and the BFI in June, which is a really big week, and away we go. It’s nice to win when you first leave for the summer. I’ve done it both ways. I’ve not won anything, and that’s not a good start. Then I’ve done good in Reno, at the roping and the rodeo, and it just seems like your summer gets going good. You can either be on a roll and doing good or you can be struggling to win. But everybody’s aiming to draw good and rope good. There are a bunch of good rodeos over the Fourth of July run, and it’s a chance to really climb up in the standings. Jake and I try to go to five or six of the best ones. When we come home from the spring run out in California, we get to stay around home in May and early June a little to prepare for the summer swing. We get to practice and make sure our horses are right, and try to be sharp and ready when Reno, the Fourth of July, Salinas and Cheyenne start to click off right down the line.

Most of the rodeos this time of year are outdoors, so there are longer scores and harder running cattle. It’s totally different than the winter rodeos, where everything is indoors and we’re roping in smaller, more confined arenas. Most summer rodeos are in bigger arenas with longer scores, which is a whole different atmosphere.

I enjoy getting out of the Texas heat and getting up to the northern states, where it’s cool in the mornings and evenings. The atmosphere of the rodeos is so different with the big, outdoor, stadium-type arenas and big grandstands. There’s just a whole different feel to it. I like the summer rodeos the best, except for the fact that you have to travel from one to the next for three or four months at a time. There aren’t any home-cooked meals out there on the road.

If you’re winning in the summertime, it’s fun. If you’re not, it can be a grind. This is such a test. You have to want to be out here and know the game. A lot of teams go all winter and a little in the spring, then some quit. In the summer, most teams go to Reno, but if they haven’t won much after the Fourth they’ll go home and stick around rodeos close to where they live. If you don’t have $20,000 won by after the Fourth, you’re kind of behind all summer long. The old diehards, like us, go right on. But like I say, it’s a test.

This will be the first time for me in a couple years that I go to the Northwest. In 2005, I didn’t go in the summertime. In 2006, Speed and I stayed home the last part of the summer, in August and September. So I’m kind of looking forward to going back up there to that part of the country. And this year, the tour finales are up in the Northwest. I’ve missed going to Ellensburg (Wash.), Caldwell (Idaho) and Puyallup (Wash.) the last couple years.

The last part of the summer and into the fall is going to be the tour finales, so it’s set up differently than in past years. We’ll head to the Northwest after Dodge City (Kan.) the first of August. So that’s going to be a different twist on the summer, with Dodge as the tour cutoff. Then it’s finales from there on out. So it’ll be interesting to see how it all goes this year. A dollar is a point to get to the tour finales this year, and everybody’s in the race. We’re trying to do two things: Position ourselves for the NFR and make money at the same time.

It seems like a long way to the end of summer, but when you get to going, with your head down, plowing on, it goes pretty quickly. It seems like the years just go faster and faster, and before you know it, it’s here and gone and time to start over again. So goes the life of a rodeo cowboy.