Today once again found us attending the Banning Stagecoach Days event in the town of Banning, California. Held every year on the second weekend in September, this community event features a rodeo, carnival rides, and a Wild West Show  sponsored by the Border Renegades. The Wild West Show portrays a slice of the Old West, consisting of a Wild West encampment where gunfighter shows are performed along with other living history activities to include a costume contest…which is where we come in. 🙂

So, once again two urban sophisticates found themselves checking out the local scenery and observing the latest in frontier fashions. 🙂

The obligatory “selfie”… 

Although temperatures was in the low 90s, we spent a pleasant afternoon judging the contest from the shade of a large fly, fanned by a nice steady breeze. We were also treated by displays of daring-do by several gunfighter groups who made a special effort to put on their shows in spite of the heat and an overly-loud country western band that threatened to drown out their dialog.

Unfortunately, there was no stagecoach this year but we did manage to get a couple pictures of ourselves… 🙂

This year, Karin’s dress of choice is the very picture of sheer elegance, sporting an early 1880s day dress of striped silk combined with silk brocade lapels and panels running down the front of the bodice. To further add to the effect is an underskirt composed of several over-layers of ruffled pale blue chiffon on top of a base of blue and taupe silk knife pleating.

As for myself, I opted for the usual summer linen suit- a must in the hot American Southwest. 🙂 I suppose I could have opted for the boater rather than the Homburg hat but I was in a hurry to get on the road so there it is. 🙂

After the event, we retired to a local restaurant, Gramma’s Country Kitchen, for a relaxing late lunch to include fresh pie and ice cream (of course, I had Apple Pie, my favorite). Finally, we wish to thank our hosts/event organizers Bill and Ann Lamb and Rebecca Dougherty who invited us out to the event and went above and beyond to make it a pleasant experience. All in all, it was a nice outing and we look forward to coming back to Banning in the future.