I say this every year when this comes up, but...I grew up there, and that week is absolutely batshit. For a town that spends the rest of the year very quietly indeed, it's like Mardi Gras on the high plains.

I saw my very first examples of drinking, fucking and fighting in the streets. Also, my first dead body. The Sunday when it's all over and all those people leave, the streets knee-deep in trash of all sorts, everyone looks embarrassedly at each other. Then it goes back to being a small quiet town again.