One hour west of San Antonio sits the Cowboy Capitol of the World, Bandera Texas where we enjoyed an afternoon of Texas style family fun at the Wild Hog Explosion. Bandera is in the Hill Country of Texas and it is definitely a cowboy town. The Western Cattle Trail started here and headed north into Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
The Wild Hog Explosion is a weekend festival like no other we have been to. The main event is the wild hog competion complete with light, medium & heavy weight catagories along with children, couples, mixed teams, mens and womens catagories.
Two or Three against one wild hog!
The festival also has several other contests where we got to sample all their bests for just our entrance fee of $7.00 each. The whole day costs us $21 dollars, thats food, drink and lots of entertainment. There were lots of BBQ’s and smokers set up like a tailgate party where they were handing out large samples of each. We sampled each catagory of:
BEST BLOODY MARY*BEST BEANS *BEST CHICKEN*BEST PORK RIBS *BEST PORK BUTT*BEST BRISKET*
*BEST MARGARITAS*BEST PIT and some of the best Armadillo eggs!
The mascot of one of the BBQ teams!
The Wild Hog Competition was the hi-lite of the afternoon. Teams jump into the arena and try to catch a hog, hang onto him and put him into a sack.
Here little piggy!
3 against 1 seems a little unfair! But the pigs are pretty fast
Hang on tight while the other guy gets the sack
Now, just try to stuff the hog into the sack!
The first group I felt sad for the little pig cause he was a little one and you could here him squeeling so loudly as they stuffed him into the sack but as Paul says “they let him out and set him back into the pen where he peacefully ruts around for a morsel of food!” I guess that is like catch and release?
Bandera is definitely still very much about Cowboys even with downtown lined with little shops and lots of places to get some southwestern eats. They have a gun fight twice a day in the town plaza each weekend and you can take a wagon ride through town or just walk the two blocks and enjoy thinking about the 1800’s a simplier times.
The Western Cattle Trail
Center of town, The Courthouse
Want to try out being on the wagon trail?
Marshall! That’s how you know you are in cowboy country!
I am starting to really appreciate Texas! Hill country could easily be one of my favorites.