In Ontario there are 2 distinguishable seasons: Winter and Road Construction.  In fact, without winter, road construction season would be drastically different.  March and April are the months that, if you are stupid enough to drive on a major highway, you will need to get a front end alignment AND, quite possibly, a front end for your vehicle.  The remainder of the Spring, Summer and Fall are spent shoring up our roads defenses for the coming onslaught.

I understand the need to slow the flow of traffic in order to safely (for all parties involved) complete the needed repairs.  My beef, however, is the frequency at which a given road is repaired.  In Bolton, where I grew up, the same stretch of road has been torn up for at least 5 summers in a  row.  In fact, the mandate is to, and let me see if I have this correct, tear..up..last..years..work..to complete this years?  Hmmmm...Hmmmm...  Does any one else see an issue here? 

Without getting into the 10 guys standing around watching 1 guy dig a hole rant, I have a story...

At a recent gig the stars aligned themselves correctly, allowing Garner’s members to potentially arrive home earlier than expected.  While 1:30am might not be early for any normal person this was a cause for celebration.  We quickly packed up and started towards our respective homes.  As I was bombing down the QEW, making staggeringly good time, I saw the traffic slowing up ahead.  I slowed and soon realized that the traffic had stopped.  No worries, it’ll move soon. 5 minutes...10 minutes...20 minutes...(starting to get a little angry).  WAIT. Ahhh we’re moving.  0.0001 of a km.  I turned on the traffic report to assess the situation and the reporter said that an overpass was being torn down and it was affecting the West bound traffic.  Phew, I was going East so I was in the clear.  10 minutes...20 minutes...(REALLY ANGRY).  After 1 hour of basically stationary development we started to move.  The highway was sectioned off with pylons, forcing everyone to merge into one lane.  The curious thing was that the cordoned-off section was not under construction at all, just blocked-off as if to say “We would like to erase your early evening.”  When I finally drove (crawled) by the cause of this forced parking lot it was as if the city of Burlington had every piece of equipment known to man on-site.  The overpass that was being torn down...yeah, but they had the eastbound highway reduced to one lane so that they could fit more equipment on-site.  There could have been an Aircraft Carrier complete with Apache attack choppers sitting in the middle of the QEW and it wouldn’t have looked out of place.  Between the construction equipment and all the automobiles it would have looked like a showroom if the scene was observed from space.  And again, multiple’s of people, tons of equipment but no work being done.  But... I am not going to rant about that.  I mean our tax dollars are spent with the best of interests in mind right?

Cheers,

McF

The McF endorsement: Stingray Bay at the Toronto Zoo.  These creatures are quite possibly the most affectionate sea-critters.  They are not the monsters they were made out to be when Steve Irwin was killed in a freak accident in 2006.  Looking for something to do on the long weekend? Check it out!

*This journal was written by McKenna, so any "me" reference is to me. McKenna.

*We drove a lot, so nearly every entry below happened while we were on the road.

August 1, 12:00pm - driving north through Muskoka. On the way to Sault Ste. Marie... We left our wives at 9:30am and made a beeline to Starbucks. Then hitting the road, we talked a bit about the last year, the new snare drum McFarland bought, and how cool it is that we're on the road again. Sort of cool. And sort of natural. McFarland said it's like the gig that never ends. Yeah. It feels like a two-week gig and we're driving there right now. And here we are, listening to AM640 just before it's out of range to find out if Mats Sundin has decided what to do with his next hockey season.

August 2, 8am - driving through Thunder Bay. Last night we played Loplops in the Soo. It went pretty well. The venue is beautiful! The owner is an architect and a painter so he's got a gorgeous looking place with a great vibe. A bunch of people came out too, which was so nice. It was a great way to start the tour. Then when people heard we were driving from the Soo to Winnipeg overnight, they responded by either laughing or sternly warning us. Apparently there's a - ope... James just smoked a seagull. THUD. James and I think it's hilarious. If you're gonna unintentionally kill an animal, seagulls would be the best. McFarland is mildly upset, calling James a "heinous criminal" and lecturing him on murder. Now James is defending himself. The way I figure it, we drove all the way from Hamilton to Thunder Bay where the seagull got run into the ground by our van. The seagull had plenty of time to get out of the way! Anyhow. Apparently there's a 300km range of densely populated moose habitat just outside of the Soo. And at night there's a particularly unfortunate mix of dense fog and moose going for a stroll. Our dear van, and our dear lives were in danger, according to locals. But Winnipeg needs us! So off we drove with a full carafe of coffee. James dozed a bit while McFarland and I had some heart to heart talking... and then, when James couldn't sleep, conversation moved to Disney. There were times when we were all singing as I white knuckled it through the foggy night. And when James and McFarland stopped singing, I realized why I can't remember phone numbers - ‘cause I remember way too many Disney lyrics for a grown man not being paid to sing them. Y'know what? I'm okay singing Disney if it keeps us awake and ready for moose dodging. Now we're through Thunder Bay at about 9am, and it's time to pee.

August 3, 10 am - somewhere between Winnipeg and Saskatoon. We rolled into Winnipeg pretty early for our show at the Cavern, so we loaded in and had a chance to check the place out. With a name like the Cavern, we weren't sure what to expect. But it ended up being a really cool place in the basement of another bar. And people came out to see us, so that was cool. Before the show we had dinner at the cavern and then grabbed a Starbucks coffee and McFarland and I had a stogie. Winnipeg has a cool main strip and people were out just chilling in the street. Riding unicycles (Shawn) and rocking the acoustic in the square (Riley). We played after a funk rock group called Mass Headspace and we had a great time with the audience. They were really receptive and interactive. That makes our job so much easier! Then we headed back to sleep at some nice folks' house, Art and Oriole. After 5 hours of good sleep, Art serenaded us over some delicious oatmeal with his classical guitar. Of all the ways to wake up, this is a pretty good one. Then after little but glorious sleep, it was off to Saskatoon.

August 3, 3pm - in the prairies. Have you heard that the prairies are flat? It's true. Not stupidly flat though. More... wrinkly. There are little dips and rises but certainly compared to home it's fuh-lat. Weird thing about the signs on the prairie highways. They put up a sign showing you the kilometer distance to the next town... sure... what's so weird? They put the sign up for the town when it's one kilometer away! For every town. Miniota - 1. Grenfel - 1. Moosomin - 1. Other funny thing: for every bend in the road they have a "slight turn" sign. I thought it was ragingly dumb at first, but realized... with all this flat land, there must be some blowing snow. And maybe you can't see the road all the time. Then again, it could be that the bend is the most exciting thing for miles around. And that deserves a sign.

August 4, 11am - between Saskatoon and Edmonton. We got - oh, hang on. Borden - 1. Anyhow. We got into Lydia's Pub in Saskatoon pretty early yesterday afternoon, so we set up and got to meet Kevin the sound guy. Kevin is a really cool sound guy. The kind you always hope you'll get. Fully competent, easy-going, funny, helpful. So we got the business out of the way and then we went to our room. Wow. They had accommodations for us above the bar. I was fully expecting the room to be skeezy. It was actually really nice! A double bed each. Score! There was a fringe festival on so we got a bunch of people in the bar, and some stayed for the whole show - 3 hours. That was awesome. Let me introduce Trevor and Jane. 2 MDiv students from Vancouver. They now live in Saskatoon. As they were driving into Saskatchewan from Alberta, they heard about our concert on CBC radio, checked out our website and came to see us! I had a great time chatting it up with them. Very cool people. And I'm realizing that meeting people like that makes touring feel so much more worthwhile.

August 4 , 5pm - just east of Edmonton. Driving in Alberta, eating Jerky, watching an open field: McKenna - "Look at those cows... just... walkin' across the province." James - "Those are the real heroes." August 6, 3pm - in a hotel room in Grande Prairie We played last night in Grande Prairie and we will again tonight. Man, it feels north up here. I guess I can't explain it, but there's something... I guess... north-y about it. On the way here from Edmonton we wrote some lyrics together to a tune we'd been grooving on for a while. Fun tune, no lyrics. So we wrote lyrics as a band for the first time. There's a reason we've never done it. It's slow and really hard to do. So James or I would do lyrics, and bring them to the band. We'd tried to write together before, but after 30 minutes of going nowhere we'd relent. Well now instead of 30 minutes of going nowhere, we had 6 hours of driving to Grand Prairie. There was no escape. It was tough. It was fun. And if you ever hear a song called Catapult, now you know the story. It was said that there's not much in Grande Prairie. That is correct. There's lots of buildings, but not much to do. In terms of population, it's mostly oil rig workers up here. Manly men. And there we were, playing our set. Not a lot of people - it was a Tuesday night. But there were some appreciative folks. And some who probably didn't even know we were there. And that's Tuesday for you. One thing we learned is that there are good nights to play and bad ones. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday aren't great. But it's a challenge. Win people over. And we're getting better at it all the time. I think.

August 7, 9am - on the way to Quesnel, BC. We meet cool people. That's one of the best things about this job. Mind you, we meet some people who are on the other side of cool too. Definite cool guys: Nathaniel and Evan.

Nathaniel -Yep. Goes by the whole name. He was the sound guy for us at Better Than Fred's in Grande Prairie. A big strong guy - mind you, there are lots of those in oil country. Nathaniel threw down as a sound guy for us. Great job. Then he invited us to come check out his studio at his home. He lives on a huge lot with horses, kittens and his lovely talented wife Melissa. We had a great time with them.

Evan -McFarland and I were going to smoke a cigar, so accompanied by James, we went to a nearby 3 story parking garage ‘cause it would be a cool place for a stogie. A security guard came up to us, about 22 years old, and before he said anything we were joking with him. I think in a long graveyard shift, a couple of well-meaning clowns are exciting and not to be turned away. He told us about the area and we talked about life. He's an artist. He draws. So we said we wanted to see his work. He pulled out a small portfolio and let me tell you... we were stunned. Evan was awesome! We hung out and joked until his boss came and shunned us for "safety reasons."

August 7, 11am - on the way to Quesnel, BC. You know you've been with 2 guys for too long when you can distinguish between their farts.

August 10, 1pm - leaving Kelowna, BC Now we head home. We played Vernon and Kelowna since I last wrote. I should probably do an entry for them! We got to see Mikey in Vernon. He's great. And very hospitable. Nikki, and old friend from college also came all the way from Kamloops to see us! The Talkin' Donkey is a coffee shop run by the Salvation Army. It's got an awesome vibe and we loved it. A bunch of people came too. And they loved us. Friends of ours, Cory and Rigel, ended up appearing with their dad, and we had some good talks. They stayed for most of the night. Then after the show we went to Mikey's youth room where he and the youth hang out. We played Wii and ping-pong and had a good chat. Late the next morning, we were off on our way. One more to go. Kelowna is beautiful! Okanagan Valley. So gorgeous. Bright blue water surrounded by small mountains. So beautiful. We got to stay with Sam and Milena, a young couple with a great backyard view. When we played the church, we had a captive audience. How could they leave? They were really attentive. We led them in a few church songs and then played our own. Just three - It's About Time, Coming Home, and Great Adventure. The cool thing was that they wanted to hear where the songs came from. So we could go way deeper with that crowd. Nice people, cool church, great gig. Now it's time to head home. Rocky Mountains, here we come! McFarland's never seen them. It should be fun to see him see them.

August 11, 8am - just east of Calgary Yeah, McFarland loved it. They were without whitecaps, I guess because of July, but man! those Rocky Mountains are awesome. There was lots of pointing and "wow" and "omigosh" and the like. Then we drove through to Calgary and met some cool people who had us at their house. Kathy and Darren. Kathy knows James' dad from work, and they were really hospitable. Darren had some cool stories about Led Zeppelin and BTO. Now it's 8am, we've been on the road for an hour, and the Rockies are disappearing behind us. All in all we had some really good gigs. We never played to an empty room. People gave us some great feedback. The two people that can't get sick (our singers) didn't. And as of yet, the only wildlife that we've removed from this mortal coil are 3 million bugs and an arguably suicidal seagull. Not bad!

August 13, 9pm - Brampton. 10 minutes away from seeing our wives! James is filling up the tank with gas. Now we're heading into the carwash to remove the layers of bugs from the hood. We're descending into madness. McFarland is rocking back and forth and giggling. Tour related inside jokes are flying around like... flies. Forgive me for not being too creative. 36 hours of driving will do that to a guy. I need a shower. We all need showers.

August 13th, 11pm - in our respective homes. In my own bed at last. It's great to be home. And I'm gonna sleep until I can't sleep no more.