Would You Like A Side Of Chicken Gizzards With That Martini?

Livingston Montana is much more than saloons. It’s towering, snow-capped mountains surrounding quaint little shops and restaurants. It’s world-class fly-fishing and hiking and climbing and all sorts of soul-enriching outdoor activities. It’s the authentic, true blue we’re-not-talking-Ralph-Lauren-Chaps great American West. But despite all the loveliness in and around Livingston, what really cranked my motor about this wee little town were the bars.

They’re all stacked really close together in Livingston, making staggering from one locale to the next wonderfully easy – and men in cowboy hats frequent all of them and they drink beer called Moose Drool (which is much, much better than it sounds) and Johnny Cash is always being played – whether by heel-stomping bar bands or on glorious old jukeboxes – and every single one of them feature glitzy, fabulously throwback neon signs lighting the way straight into their noisy, chaotic, booze-soaked interiors. And in all six we visited (well…ok…it was FOUR, but we did two twice) we had, if not a memorable time – I have more than a few blank spots from that evening, some no doubt fortuitous – than some very special, heart-warming moments. They included:

• The dry erase board in the women’s room at Hiatt House, which read simply and eloquently: “Just fuck the guy. You know you want to.” We hit up the Hiatt twice, despite Amber confessing upon our first visit, “This place scares me a little.” A highlight of the Hiatt was dancing with a native American man from the Apache nation named Indy, although he nearly crippled Amber when he accidently stomped on her foot during a particularly rousing bar band rendition of I Love Rock-N-Roll.

• Our first glance into The Stockman, which featured not only Keno games enticingly lining the wall, but a sign reading “Now Serving Chicken Gizzards.”

• Meeting Katie, a border collie mix, in The Mint – and later re-meeting her in The Murray. We also met a man who kept talking A LOT about a guy named Merlin who apparently owns and/or manages The Mint and has barred him from ever entering the premises again…which doesn’t really address what he was doing in there when we met him.

• Last call at The Murray, which looked like this

There were many, many more festive moments had throughout the long, long evening – including stumbling upon what turned out to be a very nice man peeing in the street down the block from the Hiatt. I turned my ankle trying to snap a picture of him for this very website, but that is perhaps a tale for another time.

Coming soon…The Next Morning On The Road, or “Dear God, please don’t let me throw up before we get to Bozeman.”