Wayback Wednesday

My father died nine years ago today.

Anniversaries are always hard, but especially the first ones. In an effort to make the day less depressing, on August 6, 2017, Seth and I drove up to Leadville...

for the Boom Days celebration...

and Burro Races.

The town was cute...

and the costumes were fabulous,

but obviously, I was there for the donkeys.

Luckily for me, there were so many donkeys.

I took pictures of nearly all of them.

I also took a lot of pictures of their tack.

I did that a lot back then.

Of course, I also took pictures of the races themselves.

We watched the start of one race...

and the finish of another.

Not going to lie, the speed with which this donkey just barely crossed the finish line was pretty comical.

We also observed the post-race weigh in and celebration.

Everyone hugged the winning donkey.

Even me.

I spent the entire day taking notes and taking pictures.

I planned to come home and write a performance spotlight post about burro racing.

That didn't happen.

At the time, I was still finishing up BreyerFest coverage - I attended for the first time that year - plus I was working a new job and oh yeah, I was still grieving my dad. I shared one photo in a catch all post, and that was it.

Well, until now.

It took eight years, but here - finally! - are a few of my pictures from the 2017 Leadville Boom Days and Burro Races.

It's not a performance spotlight, but if nothing else, this is proof that if I have the pictures, I will write the post... eventually.