Grand Champeen
August 2006
Part One
8/8/06
1am, Austin
Leave in usual Champeen fashion at some ungodly hour. The batting order is 1.Chan 2.Ned 3.Me 4.Crow. That rotation took us to a town in the northwestern corner of the Texas panhandle called Dalhart. There are two highways that pass through Dalhart. On this day we traveled north on 87. On our journey over a week later from Tuscon to Lawrence, we would find ourselves passing through Dalhart on the other road, but that comes later. So we start the rotation again in Dalhart, TX at 11:15 am. Were still in Texas after driving for 10 hours. Suck.
It wouldnt have taken very long to get to CO except that there were work zones all over the highway and because we got the ticket, we had to go 45, you know? Paranoia. We were getting passed by everyone and that was embarrassing. A couple of the travelers nearly blew gaskets yet were harnessed by the posted speed threshold.!
A shitty 2 ½ hours ensued. We finally got to I-25 and stopped at a _______/gas station. The _______ idiot employees (redundancy, I know) got our orders wrong. Then, the on-ramp to 25 was closed down so we had to follow a detour through some bullshit residential area and into downtown Trinidad, CO. Gaskets blown.
We finally arrived at the Larimer Lounge in Denver at 5:45pm. Cool place. Cold PBR never tasted so good.
8/9/06
Denver, CO
The opening band was quite dirgy. Pretty cool stuff. We went on before 10pm and things were good for 5 or 6 songs. Right when we went into Gonna Be the Death of Me for the first time live, some gear crapped out and we had to bail on the song. Though there were a few annoying long time, first time minutes, we ended things with Broken>Sister>Fakin.
Richmond Fontaine was awesomeas usual. They drew a great crowd. Daves sister and friends flew out from Michigan for the show! We stayed the night in the comfy basement of some couples house that someone else knows.
Left Denver around 10am and ate at a Waffle House in Longmont, CO. Tasty grub. Scattered, covered, peppered and shroomed. Boring drive on I-25 through northeastern Colorado and I-80 through Wyoming. Retards working at the __________ in Rock Springs, WY. Surprise! Salt Lake City tonight. Not psyched.
So we got to the club and found that it is an Irish pub. In most cases this would be the kiss of death but this gig turned out to be fun. The stage was too small to fit all of our gear so my bass amp sat in the room behind the drum kit. I was skeptical but it was fine. RF played yet another great set and drew a great crowd, again. Three cheers for RF. Our plan was to get a room somewhere on the out skirts of SLC on I-15 N or I-84 W towards Boise. Too bad for us because there was an outdoor merchandisers convention that weekend and there wasnt one vacancy. Around four in the morning, we decided to just sleep in the van behind the twentieth motel that rejected us. That sucked. I was in the passenger seat and had an experience much like that of a 62 man trying to sleep in an airplane seat. Suck. I said fuck this when I came to at 6:45am and we promptly left for Boise.
8/10/06
Boise, ID
We roll up on Boise around noon and deliver Channing to his loved ones. It then takes me, Ned, and Michael at least an hour to find a motel room. After an unsuccessful attempt at the beautiful University Inn, we are directed to the Safari Inn. We are then psyched. They let us check in at 1pm and they have a pool! After a minute of television, I headed down to the pool for a dip and some sun. It was an arid, sunny 95 degrees and I was in for whatever heaven Boise could offer.
After going back to the room, the three of us sussed out some grub downtown. Though we ate some good Mexican food on a nice curbside patio, we were subjected to some of the most stereotypical Neanderthal behavior I have ever witnessed. Eight guys on the restaurants patio yelling at women and making the dumbest comments to each other after they passed by. They even yelled at the Budweiser delivery guy as he rolled a few kegs across the streetHey, my cars right over here. Man, that shit never gets old.
Crow and I sussed out some new coffee grounds and it turns out the chick at the shop already had a ticket for our show tonight. She was going to see the headliner, but whatever. After picking up some rum and whiskey, Ned and I hit the pool with some cocktails and realized that we were, in fact, living the dream. When we left for the club, we found that our motel was only a block away from our destination. Score another for the Safari!
The show was fun. Songs, RF, awesome. The show sold out (minor thanks to us) and everyone had a good night. Somehow (oops), Bananers and Hamelstein found out we had some liquor and they stalked us back to our room. I crashed on the bed with explicit directions for them to not bother me. They wisely took it under advisement and I had sweet, drunk slumber.