Back to a (somewhat) normal life

Top of Beaver Creek ski resort

Damn,

This blogging stuff can be a pain in the ass to keep up with but I am motivated to keep this going. Now that my travels are over (for the time being) I'm going to shift the content of the blog over to the music side of things, most likely interspersed with some beautiful nature pics of snowboarding and hiking in Colorado. After all, there's not much better than a beautiful summer day in the Colorado mountains, except perhaps a beautiful winter day!

"Asssspen: Where the beer flows like wine and the beautiful women flock instinctively like the salmon of Capistrano"

Victor and I made our way up to Beaver Creek ski resort last Monday for some awesome late season snowboarding. We were fortunate to have a "bluebird" day following a weekend of snowstorms that dumped close to 40" of snow. After a abnormally dry January, February, and early March in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, we got hammered with storm after storm in mid-to-late March, making for epic late season pow-pow, brah! Too bad the Texas gapers on spring break were crowding my corduroy and poaching my tree lines. (Tongue firmly implanted in cheek)

By the way, I have a run named after me at Beaver Creek. "Damon's Trees" are not for the faint of heart or those afraid of deep pow turns and tight tree lines. I'll provide you with a guided tour in exchange for some pulled pork and a tall P.B.R. at Moe's BBQ in Vail.

On the way back to Denver, Victor got a request from our mutual friend Tim Beichley to find a particular t-shirt. Tim, who is a Denver native but now lives in Anchorage, Alaska, had a faint memory of going to a liquor store in Beaver Creek and finding some pretty funny shirts that were cleverly named after the liquor store that contained them. "Beaverliquor" is every Texas fratboys dream t-shirt shop, combining the "coolness factor" of a t-shirt that came from a Colorado ski town and the bathroom humor that a sixth grader appreciates. Vic and I searched around Beaver Creek for the liquor store for 15 minutes or so until we called Tim to find us directions on the interweb. We found the shop, looked around for the t-shirt Tim wanted until I saw the huge sign hanging on the wall that said "find our shirts on line at www.beaverliquors.com" Sweet. Thanks, Tim.

Today, I am spending time working on the "business" end of the Radiohead tribute show that I am organizing for May 29th at The Oriental Theater. I hope to keep the blog updated to provide a glimpse as to the inner workings of putting together a show of this magnitude. I hope it will serve me well as a journal of sorts for posterity.

I'll be heading to The Fox Theater in Boulder tomorrow for a special engagement with MASTODON! They will be performing "Crack The Skye" in it's entirety. Maybe I'll try my hand at a review of the show. For those who don't know, now you do:

(Sorry about the lame intro in the beginning)

Day 8: El Paso ---> Austin

Sunday (2/15/08) I helped Victor in Tucson for half a day before heading East. My original plan was to camp outside of Carlsbad Caverns and checkout the caverns the following day. I chose to bypass that and a trip further south to Big Bend National Park for a night in a bed, at a hotel, with a TV and shower. It was a great decision. I don't have the cash to be throwing around for hotels every night but this was a special occasion (a week of hard work... do you feel the pain?)
I drove the short 4.5 hours on I-10 east out of Tucson toward El Paso, TX. I arrived, showered, and hit the sack early.

Monday, I headed out of town toward Austin, TX, a little over 570 miles or about 8 hours. I was a little concerned about this portion of the trip because I haven't really tested the Honda for a prolonged period at high speeds/rpm's, and, if you've ever driven through Texas, you understand that it might be 100 miles between "towns" that have "repair shops".

I made it to Austin unscathed after a rather uneventful trip. I was starving and I knew the right man to call, my low-end brethren and cohort in The Adam Stern Trio (henceforth known as AS3), Mike "Spanky" McClure. Spanky is a born and bread Texan... I try not to hold that against him. He's proud of his state, his Cowboys football, his college football, and his BBQ. Before I headed out of town, Spanky hooked me up with a little cash and a request, "Get you some BBQ, boy!" I pulled into Austin on hwy 290 and hit the first place I saw, Donn's Texas BBQ. Donn's happened to have a featured spot in a great BBQ documentary I saw a few weeks ago called, "Barbeque: A Texas Love Story" I pulled into the parking lot and found it to be completely empty, always a bad sign in my book. I was wondering if the place was even open. I went inside to find a pretty modest, clean place that was, for the most part, unimpressive... so was the service. I ordered some brisket, which, I've been told is the thing to order in Texas. I got some mac 'n cheese and baked beans as a side. They asked me if I wanted sauce (a strange question, I thought) and I accepted. Sides... boring. Sauce... boring. Brisket... wow! tons of flavor, moist, perfect coloring, good enough to eat without sauce, a concept that is completely foreign to this mountain dude. I love my sauce! Not the best overall BBQ I've ever had, that award goes to Moe's BBQ in Vail, CO but it could have been the best brisket I've had.

This restaurant was featured in a great BBQ documentary called Barbeque: A Texas Love Story

The sides were unimpressive, the sauce was bland, the brisket kicked ASS!

After I ate entirely too fast, I met up with my friend Lanny Boyer and his fiancee, Christina. They treated me to a few $1 Lone Star beers at the BS Cantina, a cool little watering hole in downtown Austin with a great patio that was dog friendly.

Speaking of dogs, the photo at the top is of Lanny and Christina's dog, Maya. I got really lucky with this picture as I have a digital camera with the slowish delay between when I hit the picture button and when the camera takes the picture (how do you like that technical explanation?)