MY JOURNEY TO WOODY CREEK TAVERN

Being a huge fan of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, making a trip to his old drinking hole was #1 on my......things to do before I die list (I almost wrote "bucket list" a term I fucking hate and the movie sucked on top of it). So even though I moved to Denver in January I waited until June for the snow to clear to go up into the mountains and visit WCT.

The drive from Denver is absolutely beautiful and we actually saw a herd of mountain goats - I had never seen a mountain goat other than in a zoo so that was quite a treat. The drive took about three hours from Denver & the GPS blew us right by the turnoff we needed to take and we wound up in Aspen where within seconds we discovered that everything is more expensive than anywhere else in the civilized world. The airport was right alongside the main highway and I've never seen more private jets in my life.

Finally we got the GPS on one of our two phones to work and we pulled into Woody Creek, which seems to consist of a post office, a few houses & trailers, and the Tavern.

The place was virtually empty inside but the outdoor patio was packed with mountain bikers. The booth we sat in I suspect may have been the booth where HST use to sit in because the walls were covered with photos of people sitting in that booth, grinning like idiots & pointing to the a black sign that said "Hunter Thompson." When I asked the waitress if that was his booth, she smirked and said "I don't know, I didn't work here then." There went a portion of her tip right down the shitter.

Our charming waitress - who by the way was wearing real short shorts - then asked if we would like chips & salsa, which we did. Be careful of that - they charge 5 bucks for a small portion of chips and they don't let you know that. We didn't find out until the bill came. We ordered the Huevos Rancheros which were delicious and while we waited for our food, I wandered around the bar and took in the sights. I wanted to buy a t-shirt to commemorate my visit but the quality was absolute shit! One wash and an small boy would be wearing that 25 dollar shirt that was picked up at Goodwill for a buck by one of his parents.

Another thing you want to make sure you have on you is cash! There are no signs that I could see that they took cash only but you'll find that out when they bring the bill (along with the fact they charged you 5 bucks for some bad chips and salsa). And if you drink, bring a ton of cash because the prices are insane for booze. I wonder if the good doctor drank for free? I couldn't imagine that he'd put up with paying 6 bucks for a beer.

Overall, it was a beautiful drive, the tavern was real cool, the food was tasty, the prices are way to high, and the waitresses are rude as hell. But if you're a fan of HST don't let that stop you. It felt cool just sitting in that booth even though it may not of been his.

Do you think Hunter took a leak in this urinal? I sure hope so!

AMERICAN SONS

The Falcon and The Snowman

By

Christopher Boyce

Cait Boyce

Vince Font

AMERICAN SONS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN is the gritty, heartbreaking true story of three people who overcame insurmountable odds. It offers a deeply personal, intimate look at the struggle for survival, the pain of regret, and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. In 1977, Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee were convicted of selling U.S. intelligence information to the Soviet Union. Boyce was sentenced to 40 years. Lee received a life sentence. The story of their crime, as told in the book and movie THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN, was only the beginning. Locked away for decades in some of the most brutal prisons in the federal justice system, Boyce and Lee survived numerous murder attempts and spent years of their lives in solitary confinement until a young, idealistic paralegal named Cait Mills put them on the path to becoming free men. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, Mills’ stoic determination to conquer her illness and continue her work was the catalyst that would ultimately transform all three of their lives. AMERICAN SONS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN takes the reader on a twenty-five-year odyssey through the trials and tribulations of three people whose refusal to give up helped them survive the impossible. NOTE: This title was previously published as THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN: AMERICAN SONS. The second edition includes a new cover design and updated title. - Amazon review

I've always been a big fan of the film - The Falcon and The Snowman - and recently when I discovered it was on demand on cable I insisted to my girlfriend that we had to watch it since she had never seen it. It's a timeless film sort of like Cool Hand Luke - it could have been made just yesterday. Anyway, seeing it again stirred my interest in this case so of course I Googled for more information and I discovered the book on Amazon.

I knew that Boyce and Lee had been released from prison but I definitely didn't know the circumstances behind their releases. This book will answer the majority of any questions you have about their incarceration and the brave woman who fought the system to secure their releases. It's a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.

The most fascinating fact that I picked up in the book is that one of Daulton Lee's fingerprints was found in the Black Vault where Boyce worked and where the classified information was stolen from. If you know anything about this case you know that there is no way in hell that Daulton Lee would have ever been allowed access to this security vault, which brings forth the question - who planted that fingerprint. CIA? FBI? Obviously someone in law enforcement had to have done it in an attempt to secure their case against these two.

At one time I was a Security Counselor (which is a fancy name for a guard) at the Minnesota Security Hospital. On our unit we had an inmate named Earl Steven Karr who was convicted of a series of pipe bombs throughout the Midwest:

MAN GETS 10 YEARS FOR PLANTING FIVE PIPE BOMBS

AP, Associated Press

Jun. 23, 1987 11:36 AM ET

CHICAGO (AP) _ A man accused of planting 23 pipe bombs in four Midwestern states has pleaded guilty to planting five pipe bombs in Chicago and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Earl Steven Karr, 26, of Minneapolis, was sentenced Monday by Cook County Circuit Judge James M. Bailey after pleading guilty to five counts of possession of an explosive device.

Karr is already serving a 16-year sentence in Minnesota, and the Illinois term will run concurrently.

The former mental patient had been charged with planting 23 bombs in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin between May 3 and June 8, 1984, said Assistant State's Attorney Jeff Warnick. Six people were hurt by explosions.

Karr was injured June 8, 1984, when a pipe bomb in his rented car exploded in Mason City, Iowa. The incident led to his arrest.

Earl was as crazy as the proverbial shit-house rat and was a world class pain in the ass while he was on my unit. A tiny, thin, little dude, with skin so white and transparent that I swear you could see his organs through his skin. He hardly ever ate anything but sweets and was constantly being locked into solitary for infractions. It turns out that Earl had been housed in Oak Park Heights prison after being sentenced and while there had attacked Christopher Boyce who had been transferred there by the Feds. Karr had rigged up some homemade stun gun and along with some mace he had manufactured had tried to kill Boyce. He claimed that Boyce was trying to steal his Id:

(Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction our mental life is described.)

Finally, when a judge determined that little Earl was "sane" and could go back to prison I was the one who escorted him from the unit to the waiting cops who would transport him back to the Oak Park Heights which is Minnesota's super max prison. 

As I took the cuffs off of him I said "Earl, be careful when you get back to Oak Park because Boyce might be waiting for some payback."

Earl looked at me with his crazy eyes and said "Thank you for that bit of human kindness."

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.