Not Alice's Restaurant - Special

Monday 22^nd April

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Ridgway SP is close to Ridgway, which is the epitomy of a ‘One Stop Light Town’. Built in a wide valley, with lots of cattle country around it. On the road into town is The True Grit Saloon, which is the Hotel used in the film of the same name, so Ridgway has a small claim to fame. The houses spread out, but there were a lot of places to eat and a small railroad museum, which we did not go into. We drove along Main Street, out of town, up a hill, took some panoramas then drove back down. Across the Stop Light was another small complex of about four buildings, disguising themselves  as ancient wooden shacks. It advertised itself as The Trail Town Still. But the rangers at the SP had told us it was a rib place that smoked its own ribs, so we decided to try it out.

Trail Town Still, Smoke House and Shop

Surprisingly there are several reasons for going to a restaurant, only one of them because of the food. One reason can be because they are social centres, to meet people, or perhaps as a rendezvous point with someone you know. Or maybe you go there because they have something special, like the True Grit Saloon, because it was made famous (we once visited the Whistle Stop Café, simply because it was the Whistle Stop Café from the film).

Trail Town Still’s niched seemed to be its being close to the line. The line between legal and illegal. Firstly it was indeed a distillery, which brewed and distilled its own drinks, I think mostly ‘fruit cocktails’ from vodka or tequila type alcohol, I suppose because you don’t need to age it like whisky, but I know very little of that. These they served in the jars made famous by moonshiners. This place though was completely legal.

Second it was its own smoke house, where they smoked their own meat, sausage, chicken, beef and pork ribs, which they served with their own sauces, very tempting.

They served both the drinks and food in a ‘dive’ sort of saloon/converted shop, with bare walls, few tables, but plenty of places to stand, or lean against the bar. Interesting décor. For reasons we found out later, there was a steady stream of people. Its overriding positive feature was, as is often the case, the people, including the staff. Lots of local people, friendly, chatty people, it was a very pleasant atmosphere, almost like a front parlour where friends meet for a drink and chat.

Second it had a Smoke Shop, just a short step from Smoke House? No! No! and No!, however they do tread the same sort of line as the distillery. A Smoke Shop is, in almost any state in the Union a place to buy tobacco products. The growing exceptions being Washington State, Mendocino County and Colorado. In these places laws have recently been changed to legalise cannabis products! So now across those states a whole new industry has erupted, closely regulated, but able to sell cannabis products. This ‘Smoke Shop’ was there to sell cannabis, cannabis products and paraphernalia! Sally and I have never (poor sad people that we are) knowingly taken ‘social’ drugs and know very little about them, aside from what you read in the magazines or is served up in fiction books, none of which you would call ‘reliable’ sources. So here was our chance, we went into the shop and basically said “Hi, nice shop, although we are children of the sixties, we actually know nothing about social drug use, tell us more”. So they did. We learned quite a bit, some of which I will remember. They were very pleasant a helpful. They demonstrated several techniques and showed us several products. Their disappointment came when we said that we would only be in the State for about another two weeks. When we said we were traveling to Wyoming, their faces clouded. They made certain we knew that you did not want to get stopped in Wyoming with any hint of drugs. Still we spent a fascinating half hour or so doing ‘Social Drugs 101’.

From there we went to the BBQ shop/eatery, where we were also given a tour of the distillery. Strangely enough for a Monday, in the little space between the shacks there was a band setting up. Spoiler alert!!! By the way, at this point we are very close to one of those weird coincidences that appear very routinely on our travels.

Very nice, live entertainment, interesting sound, sort of acid rock, strange for a ‘One stop light town’, but what the heck. As we sat in the Trail Town Distillery, we noticed that the stream of people coming in, while not all the same, had sort of similar attributes. Some were old, some young, some close cropped hair, some long. Most seemed to wear loose or colourful clothing.

We chatted idly with the waitress, who enquired “Are you here for the party?” “Oh” we replied “ Is it someone’s birthday?” (interestingly , or coincidently, it was a very famous someone’s birthday, but that was somewhat macabre, and you can check out who if you are interested).

“Today is 4/20 day! And we are having a party to celebrate, and you guys are invited”. “Yippee” we cried – “What does that mean”

“4/20 is the police radio call code for a drug bust” She said. “April 20^th has been taken as the day to celebrate  the law legalising cannabis in this state”  Now the subtlety of this is that Americans have the habit of putting the month before the day, so 20^th April becomes 4/20. So at this point we knew why this place was buzzing, why there was a band. So we had great fun and joined in the celebrations. It was at this point that I felt that I was now in the song Alice’s Restaurant and everyone was here, except Alice and there was nothing about littering at the Still.  Hippies and ex-hippies all laughing and joking and sitting round drinking and smoking and eating playing music and stuff.
If you have 18 minutes listen and enjoy, cause it took me right back to 1969ish.

The only thing was that it was all now completely legal, we would not have to live the major part of the song. Only In America.