Whoopie-Ti-Yi-Yo...Get Along Little Dogies!

On March 26, 2022, my younger sister and I attended the Immokalee Cattle Drive & Jamboree. It started out with a pancake breakfast. It had been a long while since we had eaten pancakes. They were delicious! The 4-H kids were running the breakfast and it cost us each $7 to start off the day. Our breakfast included two large pancakes, one link sausage, one patty sausage, a strawberry, coffee, orange juice (we opted out on the juice), a pat of butter and some pancake syrup.  Quite filling and delicious.

 

Once we ate our breakfast, we got the folding chairs out of the car and made our way to the sidewalk along Main Street to await the arrival of the cattle.

The sidewalk looks empty in the above photo. Not to worry, others began to fill the sidewalk later. Before the cattle came down the street, police cars cleared the way. 

Then the police men on horses followed.

Next were the flag bearers, The American, Seminole and Florida flags.

Two pioneer families of the Immokalee area were honored in the parade, the Roberts and Howard families.

Finally, the cattle arrived and were driven down Main Street. It was fun to see the cowboys and cowgirls herding the cows, with their dogs, down the street towards the corral awaiting them.

Once the drive was over, my sister and I took our chairs back to the car and made our way to the Jamboree grounds. There was food, drinks, music, cloggers and alligator wrestlers there to keep our interest peaked (there was supposed to be dancing horses too, but they did not arrive).

The cloggers were interesting to watch. The older girls were impressive and the little ones were cute.

Watching cloggers dance makes one hungry...who knew? We decided to grab some lunch before the alligator wrestling. We had the most delicious tacos and Mexican Street Corn!

When we finished our most excellent lunch, we grabbed a ringside seat, on a bale of straw and waited for the alligator wrestling to begin.

The man who wrestled the alligator was a Seminole Indian. He had some help getting the big alligator out of his SUV and into the ring. Once it was there, the show began. He would tap the alligator on the snout to aggravate it. He jumped the tail as it swished back and forth (it hit his leg one time...ouch). Once, he placed his hand inside the gaping maw of the alligator.

The Seminole Indian drug the alligator by the tail before "Bulldogging" it. Bulldogging is wrestling and then tying the alligator single-handedly. He showed us the alligator's teeth before he tied its snout.

The Seminole man had a young son who was learning the alligator wrestling trade. He (with his father's guidance) bulldogged his own, much smaller, alligator. 

 

I was able to hold an even smaller alligator (thank God its mouth was taped closed...no bulldogging for me). My sister opted out of the photo op.

I took a few photos of the cows in the corral, some cute babies and pretty horses before we called it a day for the Jamboree.

LOVE the belt buckle!

My sister and I had a very fun day among the dogies, horses and cowpokes.