Well,
the water pump came in from BC, and since the mechanic in town couldn't work on it that day we had our friend Devin Alexander from the Wild Turkeys help us install it. We picked it up at about 10:30 AM, and at about 5 PM we finally left the Soo with a working vehicle. Along the drive we found out that one of our headlights was out, and in Thunder Bay, many hours later, a fuse in the van shorted out and a bunch of our internal electronic stuff lost power. Ryan changed the fuse at a gas stop and we kept driving. Again, many hours and many miles of trees and rocks and road later, we found that our other headlight was fading. In pulling over to check on it, We blew our front right tire, about 70 km east of Dryden, ON, in the snow in nautical dawn. Ryan and I got out to change the tire and found that the jack that came with the van actually didn't work. We had no cell service so we had to flag down about 5 vehicles before we found somebody on a network with service, and called CAA. After waiting an hour or two on the side of the road feeling depressed that we would almost certainly have to cancel our Saskatoon show, we got a tow into Dryden. We decided instead of having the one tire patched, we would replace all the tires because the van was overdue for it. The tire place opened at 8 and at 8:25 we were driving away on four new tires. By that time it was fully light out, Adam got his second (or maybe fourth?) wind and decided we would drive to Winnipeg after all and make a go of making it to Saskatoon. In Winnipeg - after spending about 45 minutes getting a load of veggie oil - we hooked up with our friend Marika (somebody correct my spelling!) who happened to need to get to Regina that night, so she took a shift of driving, and poor Adam, the only licensed driver in the band finally got to have a little bit of half-sleep in the back of the van for a while. He took the last shift of driving from Regina to Saskatoon, and at 10 PM we got to Lydia's.
Somehow after basically no sleep for anybody in the entire band for about 35 hours, we were able to load in to the venue, sound check, and then play an actually pretty solid set to a bunch of awesome saskatonians. We love Saskatoon! Ian, the sound tech at Lydia's, made everything sound so great, and Rich at Vive got a bunch of folks out and made our epic journey totally worthwhile.
Anyways, now we've all had some sleep, we're eating french toast at our friend Hilary's house, and best of all, the remainder of the tour need not be canceled. Wow! By the grace of Zeus.
We have survived a lot y'all!
Cheers! Taylor
5/5/10
Stuck in the Soo
Well folks,
we've been stuck in Sault Ste Marie for the past couple of days. We pulled over here with our van making a funny sound and were lucky enough that it started happening near the home town of our pals the Wild Turkeys. We determined that we have a worn out water pump and have been waiting on a new one for a couple days, while Devin and Vaughn have been graciously putting us up. Today we are eagerly watching its progress on Purolator's neat package tracking system. It is somewhere between the local purolator depot and us, and as soon as we get it in our clutches we're gonna try to stick it in the van and hit the road post haste! Luckily Devin's got some idea about what is going on in the engine and he's going to help us reassemble everything.
Unfortunately the hold up has meant we've had to cancel our Regina appearance at Bushwakkers tonight, but if all goes well today we are still planning to be in Saskatoon tomorrow night, and hope to be on schedule from there on out. Sorry Reginians...! But hey, it's only 3 hours drive to Saskatoon. Do it!
Until then, we've got a van to fix and about a billion hours to spend in the van. Oh the glory!
we've been stuck in Sault Ste Marie for the past couple of days. We pulled over here with our van making a funny sound and were lucky enough that it started happening near the home town of our pals the Wild Turkeys. We determined that we have a worn out water pump and have been waiting on a new one for a couple days, while Devin and Vaughn have been graciously putting us up. Today we are eagerly watching its progress on Purolator's neat package tracking system. It is somewhere between the local purolator depot and us, and as soon as we get it in our clutches we're gonna try to stick it in the van and hit the road post haste! Luckily Devin's got some idea about what is going on in the engine and he's going to help us reassemble everything.
Unfortunately the hold up has meant we've had to cancel our Regina appearance at Bushwakkers tonight, but if all goes well today we are still planning to be in Saskatoon tomorrow night, and hope to be on schedule from there on out. Sorry Reginians...! But hey, it's only 3 hours drive to Saskatoon. Do it!
Until then, we've got a van to fix and about a billion hours to spend in the van. Oh the glory!
5/1/10
Well, Ontario...
...ya sure are big! I celebrated my birthday here tonight with a show at Little Montreal in Sudbury, our last Ontario show on this tour. Coming up we have a stacked load of enormous drives. Tonight we hope to be in Thunder Bay, the next night Winnipeg, next night Regina.
Maybe in the van I will try to index all the photos I have taken thus far so I can upload 'em somewhere next time we get internet.
We are about to have a beautiful breakfast and cup o' coffee with our glorious host Cris. She put on the show last night and is so awesome.
I love you all!
Maybe in the van I will try to index all the photos I have taken thus far so I can upload 'em somewhere next time we get internet.
We are about to have a beautiful breakfast and cup o' coffee with our glorious host Cris. She put on the show last night and is so awesome.
I love you all!
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