August 28th and 29th, 2004 - The Panorama Resort, Invermere, BC:

We arrive at the Panorama Resort around 4:00 pm after a six hour drive from Lake Country last night… and are immediately struck by the beauty of this place… I guess it would be much like visiting Whistler for the first time… it's a very well laid out resort, with a central check-in for guests that we, of course, drive right on by, sure of our ability to find the Pine Inn, which is where we're staying… and we do… and are promptly sent back down to the central check-in to pick up our keys… ever have one of those days when you're just making all the wrong decisions? Well, Mike's having one of those today, and this is just the last one… but we do eventually find our rooms… hey, you could do worse than have a pre-tour of this place…

As soon as we're settled into our respective rooms, we go to check out the venue… we're playing outside tonight, at the foot of one of the ski hills, which is converted into a mountain biking tour de force during the summer months… there is a lot of entertainment before us, and as we drive up to the stage, there's a duo - a husband and wife team actually, playing old jazz and lounge standards and doing an excellent job… her voice and his guitar both sharing the same mellow tone… we're on at 8:00 pm, so again there's not a lot of time before the show… no soundcheck tonight though, as it's a festival type atmosphere, so we just make sure everything's working and then it's a go… there's a celtic band from Vancouver on before us… we don't get to hear much of them, but if the audience's reaction is any indication, they're very good… at 7:35 they're done and we start the stage changeover… it takes only a few minutes and we're ready shortly after 8:00… again, there's no real room for dancing here, but a few of the braver souls get up anyway… it's a small crowd, but enthusiastic… Doug censors his raps a little, as there are quite a few kids in the audience, but that's mostly in fun, so he can come up with alternate words to his usual slightly off-colour remarks… hey, it keeps him honest… in the middle of the set, we run the Twist contest and have three couples onstage competing… but Doug quickly kicks the teenage girls off, followed quickly by the guy who looks like one of the guys from 'Queer As Folk' and his girlfriend… that leaves the winners of the contest; these two are all of nine years old, and the boy entertains us with a little extra breakdancing while the girl is twisting like a pro… and by the end of the night almost everyone is up dancing… we're called back for an encore and Jeff Perry, who's an old friend of the band, and the Perry in Perryscope Productions, joins us onstage for the first tune of the encore - Satisfaction… Jeff's a drummer from way back, and whenever he's at one of our shows we make sure to get him up onstage… then it's Chris' turn again, and we finish the night off with 'Same Old Story'… so we're done by 10:00 pm… tomorrow night we're still in the Panorama Resort, but we'll be playing indoors at the T-Bar and Grill…

I'm up at 8:00 am… Mike suggested going hiking yesterday and I'm always in for something like that… Jay decides to come too, so the three of us leave around 10:00 and first of all take the gondola down the hill from where we are, to the Adventure Center, where we can pick up maps and information… then it's back up the gondola, grab some free chairlift tickets from the guest services counter and up we go… we take the chairlift first on the advice of some of the staff… it is possible to walk the entire way, but the best views are up higher and we figure we'd rather do that… I should backtrack a little here and explain that Mike was up partying pretty late last night in the TBar, and having more than just a few drinks… so… off the chairlift and start the hike… and wow, is it steep! We've only just hiked maybe 10 minutes and Mike has to stop and sit down… he's getting dizzy spells… can you say dehydration from drinking too much alcohol the night before? We wait… and he gets up, and we're off once more… but not even 5 minutes later and he's down again… you'd think with a healthy diet like his - yesterday I saw what he ate for lunch; a hot dog from 7-11, a large Slurpee, a bag of barbecue potato chips and a huge chocolate éclair! You know, all natural, energy food… anyway, this time he says he can't go on… we should go on without him… he's going to hike back down… remember, this is his idea in the first place… so Jay and I hike up further… a lot further… there's a lot of stopping even without Mike… maybe because we forego the usual trails and just hike up underneath the chairlift… maybe just because it's a real steep mountain we're hiking… anyway, an hour and a half later, we've reached 6000 feet… not bad for a couple of musicians huh? The view is spectacular - we can actually look down on a couple of the surrounding mountains - and we see eight deer on the way… one of them only a few feet away, watching us watch her, but not too concerned… no bears thankfully, but they're around apparently… coming down is the hardest for me, as I'm wearing court shoes - good for playing tennis, but not much in the traction department… but it's a great workout for the both of us… we hop on the same chairlift we took to where we started the hike, to get down the rest of the way… and about halfway down we see some familiar faces coming up the chair… there's Chris, two girls… and Mike! Well, at least he found something to do with his time… later we spend some time wandering around the village and then it's time for soundcheck at the TBar…

It's Sunday night and most of the people visiting have gone home… it's just the regulars left for this gig… and not too many of them really… it's a small bar and it's not even full… hey, sometimes it's like that… we start with Same Old Story tonight and we're only a few bars into it when the power blows… Mike and Ted (the house production guy) have it up and running again in seconds and for some reason it doesn't blow for the rest of the evening… it's a bit of a strange end to this trip really, with the audience dancing, but otherwise not really paying attention to Doug's raps etc… overall the trip was a huge success… and the Panorama Resort is such a beautiful place I'd come back anytime… I can imagine this place kicks serious ass in the wintertime… thanks to Steve and Julie and all the other people I've forgotten the names of who made our stay here a great experience! We're leaving at 9:00 am tomorrow for a fairly long drive back to Vancouver, so I'll talk to you later… Marc.