This must be the place: ‘Mornin’ finds you on the shore, quiet coastline never ask for more’

A&E Columns

This must be the place: ‘Mornin’ finds you on the shore, quiet coastline never ask for more’

Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Garret K. Woodward photo

Hello from Room 216 at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites on the southern edge of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It’s 9:30 a.m. Gazing out the window of the hotel, I can see the ancient ridges of the snowy Park Range Mountains surrounding the community in this high desert corner of the West.

It’s 1,601 miles door-to-door from my humble abode in Waynesville to this Holiday Inn. That journey yesterday included driving to the Asheville airport, a direct flight to Denver (including an hour-delay leaving), a two-hour delay in Denver in catching the next flight to Steamboat, only to then wait for the long shuttle from the airport to the hotel. In total, the trek took around 14 hours. And upon check-in, I wasn’t on the guest check-in list.

Not a good spot to be in nearing midnight, especially in a ski town where everything is closed by 9 p.m. and everyone is fast asleep in hopes of scoring first chair on the ski slopes in the morning. No matter though; Rosa at the front desk was incredibly compassionate. It appeared my name was on the list, but starting tomorrow. And yet, she was able to give me the last room available, hand me a key and told me, “We’ll figure everything out in the morning.”

Moseying downstairs for breakfast, I entered a lobby full of skiers and snowmobilers covered in or carrying gear and ready for the impending day. City transit services and resort shuttles pick up the skiers, while the snowmobilers head into the parking lot, inspect their trailers and hop into large diesel trucks: all disappearing into the peaks and valleys.

Me? I sat in the lobby, consuming oatmeal, yogurt and scrambled eggs at my own pace and leisure. Although I’m a lifelong skier, I’m, sadly, not here to hit the picturesque slopes. I am, however, here to do one of my other favorite activities in life, which is to see and write about live music. Cue Winter WonderGrass.

Celebrating its 13th installment, WWG is the seasonal mecca for all things bluegrass and Americana music. And I’ve been wanting to check it out for years. Beyond squirreling away numerous interviews with an array of artists for future articles and such, I’m mainly here to run around the Steamboat Ski Resort and film onsite conversations with marquee musicians for Montucky.

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What’s Montucky, you ask? Well, it’s a popular beer brand in the Rocky Mountains and West Coast markets (it has also recently found its way in Southern Appalachia). Founded in 2012 in Bozeman, Montana, by two young friends, it has, in all honesty, become a favorable symbol of the Wild West with its iconic horse logo and genuine passion to donate to local organizations throughout the Rockies and beyond. Simply put? They’re good folk.

I first crossed paths with the Montucky crew last summer while covering the Under the Big Sky music festival in Whitefish, Montana. I was on assignment for Rolling Stone, and they were the main beer sponsor for the massive event. And we all ended up hanging out that weekend, kindred spirits from around America exploring this small western outpost town together. Good times, truly.

And now here we are, in Steamboat. End of February. The year is quickly fleeting as it always does when you get older and when you’re having fun. Sheesh, feels like we just celebrated New Year’s Eve. Blink of an eye and now it’s almost spring. Currently, I’m sitting at a desk in my hotel room. I’ve moved the piece of furniture to face out the window. I want to look at the mountains, trees, snowpack and western blue skies when I’m typing away wildly.

What’s dancing around in my mind right now? Thoughts of being back out West, this seemingly never-ending landscape that (happily) haunts my dreams, either consciously or subconsciously. It’s always such a weird, surreal and splendid feeling to wake up, pull open the drapes and see the Rocky Mountains. It’s the same way I feel each day I leave the front door of my one-bedroom apartment and look up at the Blue Ridge peaks in gratitude.

But, the West is an entirely different animal: in spirit, in method and how it affects my heart and soul. You see, I’ve been lucky enough to wander and ponder the Rockies ever since I was a little kid, whether it was Montana, Wyoming or Idaho, onward to adulthood throughout said states in my own travels, as well as Colorado, North/South Dakota, Utah and so forth.

As stated in previous columns, a large chunk of my heart was carefully placed in the Rockies when I left the West after a stint as a rookie reporter in Driggs, Idaho. It was September 2008. I exited the Grand Teton Mountains bound for my native Upstate New York the same exact day Wall Street collapsed due to the toxic housing market. Regardless, I remember standing in the Jackson Lake Lodge that afternoon and saying goodbye to the Tetons and the West.

To that, I only get to hold that large chunk of my heart whenever I find myself back in the West, like today and in the here- and-now, in Steamboat, some 19 years since I left Idaho, some 34 years since I first entered this region (I’m 41 now). And I think of what I wrote when I left the West in September 2008:

“I swept the last of the dust from the floor. Placed the broom and dustpan in the corner and locked the door. Standing on the steps, I didn’t know where to go. Backing out of the driveway, I stopped and took one more look at my old apartment. I thought of all the lonely nights staring up at the stars outside the window. I thought of all I was leaving behind and all I was soon to reclaim back east. The pickup truck was packed precisely like it was those many months ago in Upstate New York. Numerous concert posters I had ripped occasionally from the walls of the Knotty Pine Supper Club now filled the last of the space in the truck bed. Drifting down the Teton Pass, I crossed into Wyoming. Though my eyes were focused on the road, thoughts were stuck looking behind me, peeking over the seat like a little kid leaving summer camp, at the present life I knew which would soon become dusty memories.”

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.

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