February 11th, 2003 - Leaving for the Prairies:

Well, it's been awhile since we've gone out on a fairly long swing like this one... I'm travelling with Mike Dinger (soundman on this trip), Doug, and his oldest daughter, Della, who's along for this trip as well... the other van is heading out with Elio, Chris and Steve Bosley... Steve is replacing Jay for this swing because Jay has some personal matters to attend to... and this will shock everyone who knows anything about the way we travel... the van is three and a half hours late to pick me up... Wow... can you believe that? I'm so surprised... NOT! Anyway, the van pulls into my driveway, and Mike, Della and Doug get out; Mike to help with loading my stuff into the van, Della to supervise... and Doug has to use my bathroom, (he's already been on the road for almost half an hour now, so no surprises there)... anyway, I don't think anything of it and just tell Doug to go ahead and let himself in... but I kind of forget about my dog being inside the house... I have a Chow named Shakespeare and he's very protective about 'his' things, like 'his' house and 'his' car etc... so Doug lets himself inside and Shakespeare bites him twice on the hand - not too hard - Doug's still got most of his fingers, probably because Shakespeare's met Doug before, but hard enough to let him know that he shouldn't be taking those liberties with Shakespeare's things I guess... Doug was very gracious about the incident, incidentally... saying more than once that Shakespeare was just doing his job... oops... and by the time this is over Della has the pack completely figured out... Mike and I are lost as to how to fit the keyboards in the van while leaving enough room for seats to recline etc... of course it doesn't hurt our male egos at all, being instructed by an eighteen year old girl, (and correctly!), how to ultimately pack the van... so we finally get away, and you know when you leave on a long trip and those nagging doubts worm their way into your head? like 'did I leave the iron on?' or the oven? or 'did I lock the door?'... that kind of stuff? Well that doesn't happen to me this time... at least until we're somewhere around Revelstoke... I have to preface this a little... I've been using the same keyboard stand for almost ten years now, and it's no longer wearing the years gracefully... so I thought this would be a great time for a new one... I bought the same stand that I'd used in the Maritimes on the last swing - I was quite impressed with that stand... anyway, somewhere around Revelstoke I realize that it probably looks great in the entranceway of my house... still... and I'm only reasonably sure it's there actually - it could be in my driveway, leaning against my car, waiting to be loaded into the van... one thing is certain... it didn't make the trip... Della, how could you forget that? So for the rest of the way I'm having visions of my keyboards being set up on top of road cases, or amplifiers, or suspended from ceilings etc. Luckily, Mike saves the day, but that's part of tomorrow's story... tonight we're travelling to Golden and Mike drives the entire way there... we stop at our favourite hotel there for the night, before travelling on to Rocky Mountain House tomorrow for the first gig... Cya there! Marc.