Thursday, October 2, 2008

Downtown Becomes Cow Town - For 10 minutes


I’m in Kansas City at our Missouri Governor’s Conference on Tourism. We’re downtown at the Kansas City Marriott and just a short walk from the new Power and Light District.

This new entertainment district is an amazing collection of restaurants, nightlife venues and the Sprint Arena that plays host to concerts and will host sports events. Tina Turner kicked off her tour there last night and people were everywhere.

Then today the American Royal publicized its annual barbecue with a cattle drive down Grand Boulevard. A couple of us walked over to check it out. I wanted to see it because I couldn’t really picture it. Was it going to be Kansas City’s version of running with the bulls? Not exactly.

Instead cowboys and girls actually drove a herd of cattle down the street just like they did back in the day when they were bringing a herd to the stockyards. I went expecting full-grown cows, but they seemed small to me. I decided they were probably the cow equivalent of teen-agers. (Hey - I’m a city girl; don’t know much about cows). I'll tell you this though, if you’ve never seen cattle in an environment that includes concrete and skyscrapers, you don’t know what you’re missing.

So what’s it like to drive cattle down a city street? A four-wheeler leads the way,with a photographer or videographer on the back. The cowpokes and the cows followed at a brisk pace. It’s over in about 10 minutes. But I’m glad to have seen it.

Here's a link to the online story that includes video.

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