I’ve always been drawn to cowboys… Maybe I saw brokeback mountain too many times, or maybe I just loved the sense of unapologetic adventures that comes from being a cowboy. Maybe I just idolized Theodore Roosevelt too much… It was a life I couldn’t imagine as a northern Virginia suburbs kid.

So, when I saw that the rodeo was coming nearby, “Real Life Cowboys Near You,” I knew I had to go. Leveraging the knowledge from my days as a concert photographer, that a well worded email could take you far, I scored myself a press pass for the night. It was an environment unlike one I had been too in many years. The evening started with group prayer, sponsored by the US Border Patrol, and many Trump-isms were spoken. It was a crowd I definitely was not used to.

As I watched these men hop on to these massive angry bulls time and time again though, I found myself drawn to something more than the main attraction. It was those same people who I wasn’t inherently at ease with that caught my attention. I found myself asking "why had they come?” What brought them out here tonight, and if not here then where would they be?