<\/p>\n
The End of the Road Tavern isn\u2019t actually where the road ends, but it\u2019s close. A few Forest Service roads branch into the mountains and there are a few cabins up Rainbow Creek, but otherwise most traffic stops at the tavern. Donny Butler owns it, bartends, cooks and breaks up fights. He closes Monday and on Christmas, but otherwise Donny is always open. No one around UpCreek recalls him taking a vacation and if he\u2019s ever been sick, it was on a Monday. His cabin is in the woods behind the bar, but none of us regulars have ever set foot inside. Most of us can\u2019t imagine him in such a domestic setting and the others think the house is just his storage area.<\/p>\n
You want to know what\u2019s happening around UpCreek, the End of the Road is where you can find out. Who\u2019s poaching what and where, who\u2019s catching cutthroat and what size, whose wife is cheating with who and whose kid is going to prison for what crime. Two years ago Donny got a license to sell hard stuff, figuring to double his profits like a lot of the taverns downriver. Which he did. A lot of profit in a bottle of Jack, not so much in a keg of beer. Donny noticed even the women started coming around, ordered cocktails he had to learn how to make and these were very profitable, plus the ladies brought a fresh clientele and a new atmosphere. He put some checkered tablecloths on the stained tables, tidied up a bit and added salads to the menu. The End of the Road seemed like the Start of Something.<\/p>\n
This hunting season a couple of Seattleites celebrated two buck kills a little too exuberantly. \u201cDouble Shots!!\u201d they shouted deep into the night until Trapper Jim, also deep into his cups, took umbrage at the out-of-towners\u2019 good luck and his own lack thereof. Later Donny admitted at the trial, he should have quit serving all three. Hindsight doesn\u2019t need a high magnification scope. Jim was untying a 6 point from the hunters\u2019 Range Rover roof when they stumbled into the parking lot. Words were exchanged, push came to shove and Jim pulled his 30-30 Winchester off his Chevy pickup\u2019s rack and shot one of the men.<\/p>\n
Who lived \u2026 fortunately. But that\u2019s why the End of the Road no longer serves booze and why women drink downstream. Or quietly at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The End of the Road Tavern isn\u2019t actually where the road ends, but it\u2019s close. A few Forest Service roads branch into the mountains and there are a few cabins up Rainbow Creek, but otherwise most traffic stops at the tavern. Donny Butler owns it, bartends, cooks and breaks up fights. He closes Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7527,7526,7528],"class_list":["post-19607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-hunting-and-drinking-dont-mix","tag-tavern-lore-of-upcreek","tag-upscale-tavern-at-upcreek"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19607"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19611,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions\/19611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}