These Cowboys Have Hats, Horses & Cattle

We're here for the 21st annual Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering. These guys are the real deal; grizzled, weather-worn poets, musicians, and artists who grace local venues and art galleries. This makes the gathering such a special and meaningful event. The Strater Hotel attracts a large number of the performers and the visitors. Several of the locals showed up on horseback to check in and Pleep was there to greet them. He hopes to see real action with the gunfight tonight in the Diamond Belle Saloon.

We started the morning with a great breakfast at the hotel. The place was packed with cowboys in for the event. One of our favorite items, posole, was on the buffet. The very nice waitress gave us the recipe and we found all the green and red chiles we need at the local Albertsons. It was interesting to listen to all the old timers. There were clearly a number of them who meet up here every year for the gathering and discuss everything from ranching to hunting and, of course, their favorite poets.

One of the unknown 'rules' of this event is that all the poets, musicians and artists who are invited must come from a working ranch background. This means that they have either lived on a ranch, or currently run a ranch, so that they know of what they speak. Or, as my brother-in-law Perry might say - They can't be all hat and no cattle. Their poems, music and paintings are all drawn from true-life experience; these guys are not professional entertainers.

The one big star is renowned cowboy poet and former big animal veterinarian Baxter Black. He kicked things off Thursday night at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College. Black's act is a combination of cowboy stand-up with some from-the-heart poetry and music. You can catch him on public radio.

The poets come here from as far away as South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and other parts of Colorado. During Cowboy Poetry week, the word "venue" takes on its own unique definition. Poets perform aboard a special Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train, on a poetry and music trail ride at Rapp Corral, and in an old-time radio variety show at the Henry Strater Theatre hosted by Lindy Simmons, a recently retired Fort Lewis College professor. There were musicians performing at several of the local bars. Plus we went to a number of galleries that were featuring cowboy artists.

Cowboy poetry covers a broad range of topics, and it's not always the 'aw-shucks' kind of stuff. There are funny stories, stories about a rancher's love for his wife, sad stories about losing a good horse and even patriotic stories about our great nation. The Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering is trying to keep this art form alive and bring it to Durango to remind folks that Durango is still a real, Western town.

We spent the day wandering around downtown checking out the shops, galleries and of course the pubs. Delete was very excited to see The Purple Moose Gift Shop. The sign welcoming hunters gave him a good laugh too. He was not quite as pleased with the hunting store that had his relatives on display but he thought it made for good photo ops anyway. Delete claims he's been receiving text messages from readers who are demanding more coverage of his antics. He thinks Pleep is seeing too much air time.

During our walk about today, Pleep spotted a lot of pubs he wanted to spend time in but the one that really caught his attention was the Steamworks Brewery. They brew their own beers including a couple different IPAs, a Pilsner and a Kolsch. To top it off, their Friday Happy Hour runs from 3 to 6 and has all their beers for $1 (10 oz) or $2 (20 oz.). We agreed with Pleep and headed in to hang out with the locals and wait for the evening activities to commence.