So I had originally planned to go to Helena, which I have never seen. Had a cozy little AirBnB and no idea what I would do there other than ride some great roads in and out. I am sure it would have been fine.

But.

As I often do, when planning any trip, business or pleasure, I see what there may be to see. This has landed me Sara Silverman at the University of London Theater (on my Gawd!), Chelsea/Liverpool, 44 major league ballparks, Reckless Kelly in Charlotte…, even Dodger games when they played whoever I was rooting for that day. But I digress.

So I rooted around to see if any of my favorite acts in Challis at the BBR were going to be in Montana somewhere. I did that on the Wednesday before Thursday, Day 1.

And sure enough, Jeff Crosby (he of the co-write on Day 3’s Lonesome on My Own) and Darci Carlson were going to be in Bigfork, MT. It was only going to cost me about 80 miles on Day 8, so that’s nothin’ and off to change the reservations we went!

First, of course, I finally had to stop by Polebridge on my way down the North Fork. I mean, come ON!

There I discovered that I no longer had a low-beam headlight and had to ride with the high-beam on. No one seemed to notice. Gonna have to fix that in North Dakota.

On to Bigfork for laundry at the laundromat, a quick shower and dinner with Jeff and Darci before the show. I could not agree less with Paul Theroux:

“You think of travelers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time. Travel is not merely the business of being bone-idle, but also an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy—being actively offensive as fugitive freeloaders. The traveler is the greediest kind of romantic voyeur, and in some well-hidden part of the traveler’s personality is an unpickable knot of vanity, presumption, and mythomania bordering on the pathological. This is why a traveler’s worst nightmare is not the secret police or the witch doctors or malaria, but rather the prospect of meeting another traveler.”

Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Sorry Paul, love your books, see where you were going there (because I read it already) and I like your nephew, particularly in your Mosquito Coast. But I am not lazy, I am no freeloader and I enjoy other travelers. Wait till you hear about Samuel on Day 9, but for now, you’ll have to settle for the vanity implied by these scribbles and my presumption that anyone will care.

Onward.

Arriving in Bigfork, here is the first thing I see: “The Flathead V8 Ford Collection” at Lyle’s Man Cave. Cousin Lyle, are you HERE, too? I thought it was North Dakota…. I mean, look no further that the picture below with Michael to see one gargantuan flat head, but really, a whole exhibit?

The BIG news was that not only were Jeff and Darci playing, he had much of his band with him! I did not know. As I parked the bike and Michael Mitchell (HeySeuss or Garden Gnome, you decide), Ben Waligoske and Matt Fabbi had stayed with us in Sonoma, hung out in Nevada previously and were there, too! Old home week! (Missed you Andy!)

So we have a great dinner, a few drinks and head on over to the tiniest venue EVER to host artists of this stature. That’s what I’m going with, Refugees, so be proud.

I mean these guys can play with ANYbody. Write with ANYbody. And we’re in this lakeside, lakefront restaurant and bar. They play here because they discovered it and loved it a couple years ago and just come back for fun when they’re on the way by. There’s no money in it – just joy and good rooms in a favorite place. And THIS is where I decide to see them. Remember Willy’s lines, unless this is another Jeff co-write, which is possible. I was having dinner and drinks with people who love the same ethic. But unlike me, talented artists….

It’s bound to take its toll,
Out runnin’ wild and livin’ free
I’ve done some growing up,
But I never lost the child in me
We’re tossin’ dice at things
That might not ever be
All just to see what I can see….

Still more Desolation Angels

Here’s Jeff playing one of my favorites:

Several times now I have spoken with Jeff about the Brauns, their songs and thoughts. It’s a little like Sean McConnell writing for Randy Rogers and how stunned I was to learn that Sean had written much of 4 of my 5 favorite RR songs. Some of my favorite lines in Reckless and Micky songs, Jeff wrote. And I didn’t know until I mentioned them to him. It’s not like he said, “hey I wrote this.” I tell him things I really enjoyed in his music and theirs, and occasionally, more that a few times, he was cornered and had to say, “well, I wrote that.”

Pretty, pretty cool.

There’s the heart of the hook in my Mother’s God:

“Throw your heart in the river, hope it sees the ocean one day.”

There’s the whole discussion we covered about North American Jackpot in Day 3. Jeff brought the Grateful Dead notion to a new place:

“Feelin’ broke down on the golden road to unlimited devotion…”
[Watching satellites and airplane lights weave through these western stars….]

Hangin’ with Jeff & Darci, with Michael and Ben and Matt both before and after a show was a privilege and a time we all seek. Maybe you’re not a country or folk or rock music person. It doesn’t matter. What matters is finding and spending some time with artists and art you respect. It’s even better when you learn that they’re wonderful, edgy, thoughtful, dedicated people. Because we really only know about that last adjective.

Here’s Darci:

Two More Bottles of somethin, anyway….

I think Lynn ran away with it, but my gold medal count is climbing. Stay tuned for the road going on forever tomorrow in pouring rain. But I’ll leave you with this….

Jeff reached out the next day to see that I’d made North Dakota. I shared both agreement on the fine time we had and the deets of my trial. He sent me this photo of the gang with Jeff behind the camera, (like THAT ever happens,) and told me to get a beer, stat.