Gavin is a pretty regular guy in town.
He is twenty three-year-old and lives with his parents in Fruita, Colorado. His work is five minutes, one direction from his house, the rodeo arena five minutes the other way.
For ten hours a day he cleans fracking pipes for $18 an hour and every Tuesday night rushes to the rodeo to ride bulls. At weekends he travels, normally with his Dad and sister as support, to rodeos across the southwest of America.
Many cowboys I have spoken to have manual jobs, either in the oil industry or as mechanics. Like riding bulls, these work skills are passed down through the generation.
Gavins’ Dad used to ride bulls and works as on oil rigs and fixes up cars and trucks. His Dad used to turn up at the school gates and take Gavin and his friends out for the afternoon, “you’ll learn more from me than you’ll ever learn in school.”
Gavin idolizes his Dad, as does Colby, a friend of Gavin's’. They all have identical clover tattoos on their right hand.
Between work and rodeo, there’s not much spare time if there is it’s filled with video games. Colby says Gavin’s nearly as good at “Fortnight” as riding bulls.
I asked Gavin what he thought of Trump. He didn’t really have any strong political views, other than he thought John Wayne would make a good president.
Gavin’s dream is to win big on the rodeo circuit. If this doesn’t happen he’s looking for promotion to supervisor at the fracking pipe facility.