Something Unfortunate Happened On the Way to Bret Michaels But THIS Made it Worth It

"Man, am I happy to see you." 

"It's so good to see you too!" Bret Michaels replied as he hugged me before our photo together. At this point I'm half fan-girling, half telling myself "you have no idea, buddy."

Less than 30 minutes prior to the moment, I'm sitting on the side of the Chinden exit ramp waiting for an enthusiastic rookie member of the Boise Police Department to finish writing up his first accident report. Landmarks like that are cool for anyone getting started in a new career field, so I was excited for him too...I just wish the accident report wasn't for the accident that smushed my car. ::sigh::

Traffic was already slow getting out of Downtown Boise so I'd called ahead to let Logan, one of superstar promotions staffers know that I may be a couple minutes late because I had to go pick up meet and greet passes for some of our winners before meeting everyone else for our amazing H&M Meats dinner.  Little did I know, that would be the least of my problems. Getting off the connector, the car in front of me slammed on his breaks  to avoid hitting a car that stopped suddenly in front of him.  I did the same.  The car behind me? Not so much. ::BOOM::

All of the empty water bottles, Bret Michaels box seat tickets and miscellaneous junk in my backseat lurched forward with the car. My car got sent straight into the car in front of me. The good news? None of the people involved in the crash were injured and the two gentlemen in the other cars were super nice through the whole ordeal.  In fact, both of them had wives hoping to make the Bret concert so there's a chance I would've met them under different circumstances later that evening.

So here I am, freaking out because I've never really been in an accident with another person.  I had one with a tree in high school. I had another one with a curb in my apartment parking lot a few years ago. That's why I had no idea how long this was going to take.  By the time I drove my injured little car down to Expo Idaho, I missed seeing all of our LITE VIPs that earned a spot on our guest list...and I'm incredibly bummed that I missed all of you.

I did make it to the fair in time to see Bret do something incredibly special that I wanted to share with you in case you missed it! At every one of his shows, he invites a group of local veterans on stage to join him for a song to as a thank you for their service to our country.  Bret's family is made up of veterans, including his cousin Bobby (a two time Purple Heart recipient who was working the merch tent here in Boise last night) so supporting our brave men and women in uniform is near and dear to his heart.

Through his Life Rocks Foundation, Bret raises money to support members of the military past, present and future.  After the show, he auctioned off a chance to take home clothes he wore on stage during his fair performance.  All of the money raised, he's giving back to veterans here in the Treasure Valley.  I didn't catch the total amount raised last night but I know one of his hats went for over $250 and his t-shirt got claimed for over $400! The winners got to go back meet Bret after the show as a thank you for supporting our military. It was a pretty cool thing to see!

During the show, he shouted out not just Boise, but Garden City, Nampa and Eagle as well.  It makes us all wonder, can he just buy a house in Idaho and perform for us all the time? From year one of Boise Music Festival to last night at the fair, there's no doubt that the Treasure Valley will continue to rock with the Poison front man anytime he comes to town!