...there are 461 teams vying to be the best of the best in barbecue! Babs and I attended the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo World Championship Barbecue Contest this weekend. Unless you've been to a major Texas barbecue, you can only imagine what we experienced. Held at arguably the biggest sports complex on earth, complete with a ferris wheel, full sized painted statues of horses, and a band in every tent, we went where few people seldom go. Well, actually, I guess that a few hundred thousand people went over the 3 days that the contest raged. Although the beer was nothing to brag about, there were plenty of potential pairings. Here are some photos that we took. Enjoy!
Reliant Stadium (Home of the Texans)...the Astrodome (former home of the Oilers)...and an F750 pickup truck (how many tons is that?)...things are definitely bigger in Texas!
How can you have a barbecue without a ferris wheel? You had to walk through a Texas sized carnival to get to the barbecue booths.
Here's a map of the area and a listing of the names of each of the 461 contestants. It pretty much covered the entire parking lot of the entire Relaint Stadium complex. The wait list to be no.462 is 7 years!
The first place we were a guest at was "Sharks R Us"; a collection of 13 lawyers and judges who love to cook. This their mobile, and their pit and entrance below.
One of many of the barbecue alleys we walked
This 18-wheeler is probably one of the biggest barbecue pits in the world. If you look close, you can see the large screen TV. How could you think of cooking without one!
If your band was good enough to get out of the tent, you could play here
This has got to be some good stuff!
Posey had a nicely designed facade 
As did my old friend Jack (notice Babs making a bee line...)
And then getting "bandana'd
1 comment:
Bubba! This is AWESOME! What a great excuse to drink bear and eat bbq with glamorous - and creative -surroundings!! Next year, let's all go -- I'm ready!!!
Thanks for the post - enjoyed it and now hungry for bbq :)
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