Dead Van! New Van! Wow!

Intense times again my friends! A few months ago we busted our poor van's water pump, ended up stuck in Sault Ste Marie for 3 days, missed our show in Regina, drove for about a million hours, popped a flat at 4 in the morning, and somehow made it to our Saskatoon show minutes before sound check. We lucked out incredibly because the van decided to die in the town where our very vehicle-savvy friends live, who were able to provide us with invaluable help in getting ourselves rolling again.

Well, we've done it again! A few days ago the trusty ol' Delica started making horrible noises minutes outside of Dauphin, Manitoba and died. We couldn't figure out what the blazes was going on, and we got a tow back to Dauphin, where we figured nobody would know what to do with our weird Japanese import van. As it happened, we found the one guy for probably 1000 km who knows what the inside of a Mitsubishi Delica looks like. His name is Jason, and he is amazing. He was driving around town, saw our van up on the hitch, and flagged the tow truck down to find out if we were in trouble. He told the tow guy to bring our van to his mother in law's house, where he started looking at the engine.
We had already realized that there was no chance of making it to our Saskatoon gig that night so Ben and I went on a mission in downtown Dauphin to see if any of the bars wanted to hire a band for the night. No luck.
In the meantime, Jason mostly figured out what was going on with our van, and offered to not only fix it - which will take a few days - but also sell us a replacement vehicle to finish our tour with, so that we could make the remainder of our gigs.

SO! here's the crazy part! Until further notice, your favourite right hand drive veggie oil fueled band are now rolling in a burgundy 1990 Plymouth Voyager, fueled by everyone's favourite fossil fuel, gasoline. Yesterday early in the morning we made the insurance all official and handed over the very reasonable sum of money, and burned rubber out of Dauphin in order to make it to our Edmonton show that night.

Turns out we burned rubber a little too hard. Maybe 20 minutes farther down the road than where our Delica had died less than a day previous, we blew a flat in our new old van. As you may remember if any of us have told you the awful saga of our last flat tire, the Delica came with a jack that does not work with the van. Not so in the case of the Voyager! We jacked that puppy up and put the spare on, using the very appropriately sized jack that we found under the hood. After forgetting to not use the parking brake and then having to dismantle it, we went to Grand View, MB, got two brand new back tires. By this point, we were many hours behind schedule to make it to our Edmonton gig but decided to try. We figured if we went and didn't stop we would make it at least in time to play, if not for doors or soundcheck.

So, we drove for about ten hours through worsening forest fire smoke (all the way from BC - sheesh), and all feeling a bit delirious, managed to set up and play a show at the Artery, here in Edmonton. Pretty good one too, I thought. We made it to Robson Valley Music Festival the next day in Dunster, BC. Many many dollars poorer, in a different van, spending a lot more money on fuel, but still ready to rock. The last couple days did cost us a bit financially but all things considered we are very, very lucky with the way it worked out. The chances of breaking down near probably the only mechanic for hundreds of kilometres who was able to work on our van is boggling my mind.

So yeah! Life goes on. We just had a great weekend at Robson Valley. We're lounging around on the monday while the festival is being torn down. Next weekend is Music on the Mountain in Fort St James, then the Cultch in Vancouver on Sept 1st, Sunshine Music Fest. We've had a great time at the Vancouver Folk Fest, Artswells, Mountain View Music Festival in Carstairs AB, and Trout Forest Music Fest in Ear Falls, ON, and It's gonna continue to be a great summer.

Love y'all
Taylor