On The Road Again -- July tour DAY 2

Ah the elusive Crested Butte.

Every time I told a local that we got our directions from a navigation system they laughed.

We drove down from Aspen on Castle Creek road, which was amazingly lovely--lots of wildflowers, creeks, mountains, eye candy galore. Unfortunately, the Independence pass was closed to vehicles, and was over an hour from Snowmass Village, which we then had to backtrack past in order to come around the back way to Crested Butte. We ended up taking a small dirt road over 2 mountains, something like 40 miles of nailbiting every time we have to pass a car. It got to a point where we were wondering if we'd ever get there. It was at that point that we rolled up on a couple cows grazing on the side of the road. Our bassist Manny, a Cuban-American, told me to slow up so he could ask them for directions. He rolls down his window and hollers "OYE!" which gets the closest cow's attention. Manny and the cow are looking directly in each other's eyes, and Manny asks him "Donde esta Crested Butte?" The cow licks his chops and without breaking eye contact drops the biggest runniest dump out his rump. We took a good long laugh break and headed on our way, knowing that the cow had affirmed we were going the right direction.

Finally we arrive at a hotel. We don't have reservations at the hotel. The promoter meets us at the hotel, takes us to a house that they have rented. Someone else is already there and paid up. So he gets on the horn and books some rooms. Finally, we head up the mountain a couple miles to one of the resort hotels for a brief ciesta. The Eldo was where we played, which was a smallish brewery that served up some mean pub grub. Our show was packed, the dance floor was moving all night long. The crew at Eldo's hospitality was second to none. I was so exhausted after the show I fell asleep in my jacket with my glasses on, laptop still on the bed in front of me. I was listening to the tracks we recorded from the show in Snowmass, I'll post some of them on myspace ASAP.