I'm not gonna lie, y'all. This was the leg of the trip I was most looking forward to! Spending most of July in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico is pretty dang sweet. Cool weather, cool people.
As we crossed the border from North Dakota to Montana, we blasted the John Denver (Chuck's fave) & Emmylou Harris (my fave) version of Wild Montana Sky. We were really fired up even though there weren't any of the big mountains in sight for a few hundred miles! We stayed the night at Montana songwriter GT Hurley's gorgeous place in Big Timber, pickin' songs and drinking whiskey on his back porch overlooking a ridiculously picturesque mountain range.
Next it was on to Ovando, a small town (population 50) kinda near Missoula, where Chuck spent some time after one of his combat tours with the Marines in Iraq. Hell, I gotta tell you the Ovando origin story. When Chuck got back to the States after Iraq, he decided he wanted to "smoke the finest cigars, drink the finest scotch, and learn how to fly fish in Montana with my good buddy, Shawn T. Pabst." Turns out fly fishing wasn't Chuck's forte (he almost took his eye out with a fish hook), so Shawn decided they should go somewhere Chuck would be more in his element - the local saloon! They went to Trixi's Antler Saloon, a watering hole in Ovando that got its start in the late 1800's as "The Blood Bucket." Chuck and Shawn (an excellent songster in his own right) busted out their guitars and started playing for the crowd. One of the bar patrons, Jeff, taught his 6 year old daughter (it's a family establishment, y'all) to dance by lifting her up so she could stand on his cowboy boots. Chuck and Shawn decided they'd go to songwriter hell if they didn't write a song about the experience, and the song "Ovando" was born, which is on Chuck's excellent album, Silver Line.
So we decided it would be appropriate to head back to Ovando on this tour and debut the song on the 4th of July at Trixi's! The whole town turned out to the 4th festivities during the day, then most folks spent some time in the Little Black Foot River (I sure did) before heading to Trixi's for the show. By the time Chuck got to the final chorus, the entire crowd was singing along! I bet we sang that song 5 times that night, and it wasn't enough! Trixi's had Chuck sign a poster, which they hung above their jukebox, which has a copy of Silver Line in it, of course. Perhaps the coolest surprise was that our buddies Allen and Debbie from Austin showed up at Trixi's! They were vacationing at Yellowstone and decided to make the trek north to see us! Sometimes one of the best parts about traveling is seeing someone from home.
We spent the night of the 4th at a cool B&B in Ovando then headed west to Missoula to spend several days with the aforementioned Shawn T. Pabst, his incredible wife Kirsten, and fantastic son Finn, a whip smart kiddo who loves sharks, making flies to fish with, and who was the best playmate Bridget had on the whole trip. They ran around the Pabst place up on the Missoula mountainside for hours on end. The Pabst's hosted a barn concert for us on the last night of our stay, and there were over 75 people there enjoying the tunes in this beautiful setting! Bridget made it on stage too.
It was time in the trip to head south and make our way to Jackson Hole, where one of my best friends, Andy Robinson, offered up his place for us to take a mid-tour vacation for about a week. We mapped our route down to Wyoming and decided we'd like to drive through Yellowstone National Park. Initially we'd hoped to camp, but it turns out you have to plan that way in advance, oops! Instead, we totally lucked out on a hotel search and ended up in this really cool small town outside Bozeman called Livingston, where we stayed at a really cool vintage spot called the Murray Hotel. We'll definitely be back there, hopefully to play!
The next day we headed south through Yellowstone, which was awesome. It was my first time there, and it was really cool to take our time and drive south through some of the most truly majestic natural scenery that exists on this planet. The park was pretty crowded, and it started raining and turned cold about halfway through the park, so we didn't wait in line for Old Faithful, but we figured that's a good reason to come back!
We spent the next week or so in one of my favorite places ever, Jackson Hole. It was a great place to hole up for a few days and relax, which was much needed after several thousand miles on the road! Of course we spent a little time at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and the Silver Dollar too! We had tentatively scheduled a house concert there, which fell through, but it was cool to just chill out for a few days and vacation almost like normal people, ha.
The next leg of the trip was up in the air as well, because of another show that fell through in the Denver area. We'd been listening to lots of John Denver on our trip though, and decided that maybe since we had some wiggle room with our travels, we should head down to Aspen, where John spent much of his life. I contacted some friends from Houston who have a house there, and we were able to set up a house concert at their place too, so the route was set! We spent time at the John Denver Memorial Garden (because we had decided at that point that Johnny D was the patron saint of our tour) and at Hunter S. Thompson's favorite bar, the Woody Creek Tavern. The house show at the Houssiere house was most excellent, and we enjoyed getting to see some Houston friends and play songs with and for some very cool kiddos as well.
We then decided to skip the Denver side of the state and head south to Durango to ride the Durango-Silverton train, which was the inspiration for the title track to Chuck's record, Silver Line! My friend of a friend, Andy Ratcliffe, who is from Houston but lives in Durango, hooked us up with a very cool show at local pizza joint and bar, Home Slice. It was a great time! The next day we awoke early to ride the historic steam engine narrow gauge train. We bussed out to Silverton and road the train back to Durango for a half day trip. It was amazing! I highly recommend it if you're in the area. Special thanks to Gary Penington and Karren Little (organizer of the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which Chuck played in October) for hosting us at their home!
It was time to start heading back towards Texas, but one of the coolest parts of the tour was the next leg, where we met up with country music legend Michael Martin Murphey in Red River, New Mexico. Chuck got to know Murph at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in January, and since then Murph has invited Chuck to play shows with him at the Saxon Pub in Austin, the Franklin Theater outside of Nashville, and Main Street Crossing in Tomball, among others. Each summer, Murph plays shows on Thursday and Saturday nights at the Rocking 3M Amphitheater at the Bitter Creek Guest Ranch. The outdoor setting is the perfect place to catch some live music in the summertime, and a full chuckwagon dinner is served before the show. Murph played all the hits that night, from Wildfire to What's Forever For to Cowboy Logic and everything in between. He brought Chuck to the stage mid-show, and Chuck played a few songs with the band. To say it was a cool experience is quite the understatement. As if that wasn't enough, Walt and Tina Wilkins were playing in town that night too, so they came to the Chuck & Murph show then we headed to the Lost Love Saloon to check out Walt and Tina's show! New Mexico legend Bill Hearne and Ryan Murphey graced the stage that night too. It was fantastic.
The next day we made our way back to Texas via Santa Fe. If you're still reading, I'm impressed!
For a recap of the southeast leg of the tour, click HERE, and the midwest leg, click HERE! If you'd like to see all these pretty pictures bigger with captions, visit my Photos page! Next up: Back to Texas!
As we crossed the border from North Dakota to Montana, we blasted the John Denver (Chuck's fave) & Emmylou Harris (my fave) version of Wild Montana Sky. We were really fired up even though there weren't any of the big mountains in sight for a few hundred miles! We stayed the night at Montana songwriter GT Hurley's gorgeous place in Big Timber, pickin' songs and drinking whiskey on his back porch overlooking a ridiculously picturesque mountain range.
Next it was on to Ovando, a small town (population 50) kinda near Missoula, where Chuck spent some time after one of his combat tours with the Marines in Iraq. Hell, I gotta tell you the Ovando origin story. When Chuck got back to the States after Iraq, he decided he wanted to "smoke the finest cigars, drink the finest scotch, and learn how to fly fish in Montana with my good buddy, Shawn T. Pabst." Turns out fly fishing wasn't Chuck's forte (he almost took his eye out with a fish hook), so Shawn decided they should go somewhere Chuck would be more in his element - the local saloon! They went to Trixi's Antler Saloon, a watering hole in Ovando that got its start in the late 1800's as "The Blood Bucket." Chuck and Shawn (an excellent songster in his own right) busted out their guitars and started playing for the crowd. One of the bar patrons, Jeff, taught his 6 year old daughter (it's a family establishment, y'all) to dance by lifting her up so she could stand on his cowboy boots. Chuck and Shawn decided they'd go to songwriter hell if they didn't write a song about the experience, and the song "Ovando" was born, which is on Chuck's excellent album, Silver Line.
So we decided it would be appropriate to head back to Ovando on this tour and debut the song on the 4th of July at Trixi's! The whole town turned out to the 4th festivities during the day, then most folks spent some time in the Little Black Foot River (I sure did) before heading to Trixi's for the show. By the time Chuck got to the final chorus, the entire crowd was singing along! I bet we sang that song 5 times that night, and it wasn't enough! Trixi's had Chuck sign a poster, which they hung above their jukebox, which has a copy of Silver Line in it, of course. Perhaps the coolest surprise was that our buddies Allen and Debbie from Austin showed up at Trixi's! They were vacationing at Yellowstone and decided to make the trek north to see us! Sometimes one of the best parts about traveling is seeing someone from home.
We spent the night of the 4th at a cool B&B in Ovando then headed west to Missoula to spend several days with the aforementioned Shawn T. Pabst, his incredible wife Kirsten, and fantastic son Finn, a whip smart kiddo who loves sharks, making flies to fish with, and who was the best playmate Bridget had on the whole trip. They ran around the Pabst place up on the Missoula mountainside for hours on end. The Pabst's hosted a barn concert for us on the last night of our stay, and there were over 75 people there enjoying the tunes in this beautiful setting! Bridget made it on stage too.
It was time in the trip to head south and make our way to Jackson Hole, where one of my best friends, Andy Robinson, offered up his place for us to take a mid-tour vacation for about a week. We mapped our route down to Wyoming and decided we'd like to drive through Yellowstone National Park. Initially we'd hoped to camp, but it turns out you have to plan that way in advance, oops! Instead, we totally lucked out on a hotel search and ended up in this really cool small town outside Bozeman called Livingston, where we stayed at a really cool vintage spot called the Murray Hotel. We'll definitely be back there, hopefully to play!
The next day we headed south through Yellowstone, which was awesome. It was my first time there, and it was really cool to take our time and drive south through some of the most truly majestic natural scenery that exists on this planet. The park was pretty crowded, and it started raining and turned cold about halfway through the park, so we didn't wait in line for Old Faithful, but we figured that's a good reason to come back!
We spent the next week or so in one of my favorite places ever, Jackson Hole. It was a great place to hole up for a few days and relax, which was much needed after several thousand miles on the road! Of course we spent a little time at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar and the Silver Dollar too! We had tentatively scheduled a house concert there, which fell through, but it was cool to just chill out for a few days and vacation almost like normal people, ha.
The next leg of the trip was up in the air as well, because of another show that fell through in the Denver area. We'd been listening to lots of John Denver on our trip though, and decided that maybe since we had some wiggle room with our travels, we should head down to Aspen, where John spent much of his life. I contacted some friends from Houston who have a house there, and we were able to set up a house concert at their place too, so the route was set! We spent time at the John Denver Memorial Garden (because we had decided at that point that Johnny D was the patron saint of our tour) and at Hunter S. Thompson's favorite bar, the Woody Creek Tavern. The house show at the Houssiere house was most excellent, and we enjoyed getting to see some Houston friends and play songs with and for some very cool kiddos as well.
We then decided to skip the Denver side of the state and head south to Durango to ride the Durango-Silverton train, which was the inspiration for the title track to Chuck's record, Silver Line! My friend of a friend, Andy Ratcliffe, who is from Houston but lives in Durango, hooked us up with a very cool show at local pizza joint and bar, Home Slice. It was a great time! The next day we awoke early to ride the historic steam engine narrow gauge train. We bussed out to Silverton and road the train back to Durango for a half day trip. It was amazing! I highly recommend it if you're in the area. Special thanks to Gary Penington and Karren Little (organizer of the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which Chuck played in October) for hosting us at their home!
It was time to start heading back towards Texas, but one of the coolest parts of the tour was the next leg, where we met up with country music legend Michael Martin Murphey in Red River, New Mexico. Chuck got to know Murph at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in January, and since then Murph has invited Chuck to play shows with him at the Saxon Pub in Austin, the Franklin Theater outside of Nashville, and Main Street Crossing in Tomball, among others. Each summer, Murph plays shows on Thursday and Saturday nights at the Rocking 3M Amphitheater at the Bitter Creek Guest Ranch. The outdoor setting is the perfect place to catch some live music in the summertime, and a full chuckwagon dinner is served before the show. Murph played all the hits that night, from Wildfire to What's Forever For to Cowboy Logic and everything in between. He brought Chuck to the stage mid-show, and Chuck played a few songs with the band. To say it was a cool experience is quite the understatement. As if that wasn't enough, Walt and Tina Wilkins were playing in town that night too, so they came to the Chuck & Murph show then we headed to the Lost Love Saloon to check out Walt and Tina's show! New Mexico legend Bill Hearne and Ryan Murphey graced the stage that night too. It was fantastic.
The next day we made our way back to Texas via Santa Fe. If you're still reading, I'm impressed!
For a recap of the southeast leg of the tour, click HERE, and the midwest leg, click HERE! If you'd like to see all these pretty pictures bigger with captions, visit my Photos page! Next up: Back to Texas!