This is the last diary entry of Bucky Covington to his fans. We hope you've enjoyed them ...

Here we are, after 11 weeks, coming to the end of this blog. I've had a great time doing it, and I want to thank all of my fans for checking it out and making it fun and successful.

I can't say enough about everybody in my band, everybody at Lyric Street Records, everybody at O-Seven Management and Mark Miller and Dale Oliver, my producers. The people I've got around me, they like each other and they like what they do. It's great to be surrounded by a team like that.

We just got a new bus driver. His name is John, and he drove the crew bus when I was on the GAC Country Christmas tour. He's an awesome guy, and we're very excited to have him with us.

This past week, I went out to Charleston, S.C., with my band. We played on a big boat at sunset, which took me back to when we used to camp out at Bluett Falls back near Rockingham. It really took me back, like we were sitting around a campfire, playing again. That was completely awesome. Then we went to Atlanta and played a show down there. I also went to Vegas and Utah and played some shows with Sawyer Brown.

Utah - oh, my goodness, Utah is completely gorgeous. It's like the whole place was built a year ago, everything's so clean and fresh and mind-blowingly beautiful. You know, I love to ride four-wheelers, and we've got mountains in North Carolina, but they're covered up with trees. You can't really ride, because the trees get in the way. But in Utah, it's just, like, dirt, so you could actually ride all the way up to the top of these mountains, and there's snow on top of them. I've got to go back there with a four-wheeler.

This week, on Friday night, my band and I are opening for Kenny Rogers in Roanoke, Va. Without a doubt, we are very much excited about that. My family, we were all huge Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton fans. They had that duet Christmas album, and every Christmas, we knew when we were putting up the tree because we'd wake up in the morning and hear, "I'll be home with bells on … " When I was on the Idol tour, I found that album, and I bought it again and gave it to my mom for Christmas.

Of course, the most exciting thing to happen last week was having my album debut at No. 1 on the country chart. They tell me it's the best debut for a new male country singer in 15 years. The last guy to have his first album debut at No. 1 was Billy Ray Cyrus, with Some Gave All. I was a huge fan of that album. Actually, I'm still a huge fan of Billy Ray. I used to cover Could've Been Me in my band.

I'll tell you something else I want to do. I'm looking around to see if I can take my album and put it on vinyl. I love the concept of having the song A Different World on vinyl in 2007. I might even make 500 or something, so if some of my fans want them, they could order them off the website. I really just wanted one for my personal use, but when I brought it up, they said they might run off a couple because some other people might want them. Vinyl's got that great sound on it. I would love to hear my album on vinyl. That would be the coolest thing in the world to me.

That about wraps things up, so thanks once again to all my fans for donating a little time to the blog and reading about what's been going on. To everyone who went out and bought my album – or is planning on going to get it – a huge thank you for that. Thanks for a successful first week. Now we've just got 30 years to go. Once again, I could not have done it without you.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. And thank you again.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.