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Saturday Sept 5, 2009. Victoria, BC.

Terri and Luke Ryalls at The Reef celebrating Victoria with coconuts.
Welp! We're home. I guess technically Jenny got home on Tuesday but had to leave again right away and Terri and I got home on Thursday but it didn't really feel like we were home until today. And Chris doesn't really have a home yet so maybe he's still on tour....
All in all we had a great tour despite it's length at the end there and all the sickness in the middle. The Goose made it with only the one raditator mishap and is now gently resting in the back yard. She's due for a good washing tomorrow and then can feel sastisfied about another tour under her belt. We've had her for just over two years and broke 50,000kms on this tour! It was in Northern Ontario on the way to Montreal. We celebrated with a pee stop.

We're gonna rest up ourselves for September and then hit the road again in October for our first USA adventure!
A fan in Kamloops sent us this picture:

The last three shows!

Cafe Deux Soleil, Vancouver
The show in Vancouver was so awesome we forgot to take pictures. We rolled into town super tired and ready for naps but had to make do with showers and dinner, which was delicious and made by Corbin Murdoch himself, before heading down to the venue for sound check. It was the first show of our three band bill mini-tour and we met up with Luke Ryalls again, (who went home to sleep in his own bed after the Edmonton show and flew to Vancouver, lucky duck) Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles, and Adam! We missed Adam and it was super fun to play with him again! We added him to our stage and played with the 40% boy Gruff 5 piece. Yay! It was so full that it was so hot there was sweat pouring off our faces.
Community Jamboree, Galiano Is

After a few hours of sleep we rounded up the kids in three seperate vans and headed out to the ferry for Galiano. We got to stay with the Tweedales and all had some good refreshing rest, jamming, and hanging out before the show at the hall. The show was really fun. We set up our own bar and ran the door. Adam was the stage manager and the sound in there was amazing. Everyone sounded really good and had a great time but all the musicians almost outnumbered the amount of people who came to see us. It didnt' matter though and we all had a great time finishing off the night with Mad Libs at Tim's place after cleaning up the hall.

Chris and Lucas playing while waiting for the ferry.
Lucky Bar, Victoria
Man oh man was it great to play in Victoria again! We had the early show at Lucky which is kinda lame because we had to clear the stage so early but it was still so much fun. Tons of our favourite fans came out to check out the show as well as some new ones. We finished up the tour with beer and nachos at Swans and then headed off to sleep in... our own beds!
Tuesday Sept 1, 2009. The Coquihalla!!

Looking through the hops at the red sun through the smoke of the forest fire near Sorrento.
I can't believe it's September. I can't believe we're almost home!! We're getting so close but wont actually get there until Thursday. It feels like we've been on the road for ever and ever. Yesterday Terri and are were trying to think back to Twin Butte and couldn't even fathom that was the same tour we're on right now. Things are going really well and are gonna finish up with a bang but we're all really tired and it's taking everything we've got to push through to the end. Driving all night doesn't help....
Riverside Bandshell, Kamloops

After we got all packed up in Edmonton we got some gas and large coffees for Luke and Chris who took the role of shotgun. (our night driving rule is that shotgun is required to not doze off. Not even for a little while. There are too many night dangers to watch for.) It was about two o'clock in the morning when we set out. The sun started to come up around Canmore/Banff which is where Chris and I switched so he could sleep a bit. We rolled into Golden at about eight o'clock and quickly fell asleep until about 12:30 when we piled back into the van and continued the slog to Kamloops. It's only supposed to take about four hours from Golden but for whatever reason that portion of highway always seems to take an extra hour. I think it's the traffic vs the two lane highway. The highway always seems to win.

The biggest bug yet! We call him Haley's Comet.
At first we couldn't figure out why it seemed kind of hazy and then clued in to the fact that when the entire province is on fire it means there's lots of smoke. We could actually taste it starting at about Revelstoke and it only got worse from there. We pulled into Kamloops just in time for sound check.

Smoky Sorrento
The Riverside Bandshell is in Riverside Park and has music every evening of the summer put on by the city of Kamloops and BCLC. It was really fun. Lots of people came with lawn chairs and set up all over the field to listen. We had lots of little dancers and sold a few CDs. It was good fun. After the show we stopped at our favourite planting strip restaurant figuring it was best to eat since we missed dinner even though we were all so tired it was hard to tell if we were hungry, and headed to Vernon to spend the night with our Vernon host Kate who called us all punkin and put us to bed to rest after our rock star night.

Farm Show, Sorrento

A group of organic farmers who come to see us in Falkland when we play there organised a show for us at their farm near Sorrento last night. The farm is beautiful even when it's bathed in smoke from the fire on the hill. Some people in Sorrento have been evacuated from their homes since Monday and the fire is still blazing. It's under control but is just over the ridge on the mountain behind the farm we played at. As the night went on you could see the flames creep over the hill and go back again. It was the closest they've seen the fire yet but they still haven't been evacuated so everything is stil. under control. There was ash falling from the sky all night and my eyes are still burning even though we're out of the smoke now. The show was really fun.

They made us a big dinner and plied us with Crannog Ale which is brewed right there on the farm. They even built a stage and got a sound system in so we could rock the night away. A bunch of people from neighbouring farms came and danced and had a great time. We slept in our tents which were covered in ash by morning and left this morning to head to Vancouver, out of the smoke and next to the ocean. We're excited to be getting so close to home and because we get to see so many friends tonight at Cafe Deux Soleil.


Saturday Aug 29, 2009. Edmonton, AB

Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club, Winnipeg
After a late night sauna in Falcon Lake and a sleep we piled in the van, drove past the longitudinal center of Canada and into Winnipeg where we went to our friend Nathan Roger's house for a home cooked roast chicken dinner with his family before heading down to the Times for our show. The Times is a wicked venue right downtown near Portage and Main across from the train station. We played first and it was super fun. Someone in the audience has been watching our youtube page and found our Bad Touch video and requested it not once (in Falcon Lake) but twice (in Winnipeg) and even made a cardboard sign that said "Bad Touch!" So we felt compelled to try it. It was pretty good considering we haven't played in since Covers for a Cause. That was it though. Never again. The Crooked Brothers played after us and rocked out as per usual. We were hoping for a good game of rubber chicken toss after the show but I guess they haven't done it in a while and we were out of luck.

Amigo's, Saskatoon
We rolled into Saskatoon in time to have a little chill out time at our good friend Lucas Goetz's house before heading down to Amigo's for Mexican food and The Heartstring's CD Release party. The food was pretty darn tasty. Probably largely due to the fact that it took 45 minutes to come so we were good and starved by the time it got there. The show went pretty well. Our Saskatoon fans came out and danced and yelled right up front which was super cool. Jenny and Terri who stayed up latest (besides Chris who stays up late every night) in Winnipeg and called it early in Saskatoon. We're learning that sixteen shows in a row is incredibly hard. Especially when you do a lot of driving. The hardest drive of this particular sixteen day run is still to come...
The New City Likwid Lounge, Edmonton

The New City Likiwid Lounge is pretty cool. It's right downtown on Jasper above The New City Compound which seems to be some kind of goth bar. The Likwid Lounge is pretty cool. It used to be the Starlight Lounge and has this cool starry sky thing on the ceiling. It's not a huge bar which was good because not very many people came. We met up with Luke Ryalls again which was super fun and another band opened the night. They were very good but not a very good match for us and Luke. We're playing tomorrow in Kamloops which is a nine or ten hour drive from here so we're going to do something crazy and leave right after the show, drive to Golden, sleep there for a little while and then finish the drive in the afernoon. Lucky for us, we kidnapped Lucas Goetz and he had volunteered to drive while the rest of us try to get a bit of sleep on the way.

Thursday Aug 27, 2009. Falcon Lake, ON

Playing shows in Falcon Lake with the Crooked Brothers is a highlight of any tour. It's so beautiful here. Right now we're all sitting on the porch as Chris does his morning practice. Darwin is cooking us up a big Mexican breakfast and all is well. The house was packed for the show last night and it was super fun. The kids all went for a sauna late last night and then jumped in the lake in true Falcon Lake style. The Christie's who own Falcon Trails Resort where we play (and are super nice and wonderful) just got a little puppy who we've all become quite enamoured with. We met the puppy at the Trout Lake Festival and she didn't have a name. Now she does and it's Islay after scotch and is so much bigger! We're doing some much need laundry of the essential kind to get us to the end of tour and then are heading into Winnipeg where we're playing at The Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club which according to us is one of the best venues in Canada.

Wednesday Aug 26, 2009. Highway #17 outside of Dryden

Today marks the halfway point of our sixteen day run. Tonight is our eighth show and we have eight left starting tomorrow. We're all pretty happy to be making some ground and getting closer to home. 52 days is a long time to be on the road and we're all starting to feel the burn. I'm still feeling sick and now Terri and Chris are feeling a little under the weather as well. Chris just ate a few cloves of raw garlic and is now sleeping in the back seat. He's on a garlic diet so he'll be better by tomorrow for the Winnipeg show. Jenny's the only healthy one. Let's all hope she stays that way! We've had three shows since my last update and here they are:
Loplops, Sault Ste Marie
We all have an interesting opinion of Sault Ste Marie. Shows there are either really great or really not so great. This one was pretty good though so I think our good shows are now outnumbering the bad ones. Lots of people were there and they have a new sound system so it was a lot easier to hear everything. We rolled into town and ordered Chinese food for dinner and it was just about the worst food we've ever seen. I say seen because we didn't really eat much of it.... It was from some place called The Peking Palace but we changed it to The Puking Palace. Jenny's fortune cookie was so stale she could bend it. My fortune cookie was the best part of the meal. One great thing was that we managed to get a late check out of 3:00 in the afternoon!
Rock Island Lodge, Wawa

We love Wawa and Wawa loves us. No matter how many times we go there we're always still amazed by how much the lake reminds us of home. We played for a packed room, our biggest Wawa audience yet. The staff said it might have even been the biggest audience they've ever had.

We always look forward to the nice meals at Wawa too. Home cooked food is just about the best thing when you're on the road. They told us that next time we come through we should leave enough time to do some kayaking. We agreed, and in typical Gruff fashion left super early to get to our next show.

The Art's Center, Atikokan
We got a speeding ticket on the way to Atikokan. Terri's first speeding ticket ever. She wasn't even going That much over the speed limit. We've seen a few other people pulled over getting tickets in Northern Ontario and it seems to us like they always have license plates from other provinces. We think the O.P.P. has it out for people who can appear in court to contest their tickets cause they dont live here.
The population of Atikokan is about 2500 these days. It used to be a lot more when the iron mines were operating. Aparently they were the biggest iron mines in North America. Or maybe the world...? I was pretty high on cold medicine when I heard about it. There are also a whole bunch of bears there. I think the paper said there are 40 bears active in the town right now. They've shot four of them so far this year and moved 10 out of the area. No one came to our show.

Well... one person came to our show. She came all the way from Thunder Bay. We gave her a CD. Her friend (who was busy at some work thing) said we could all go over to her house for a sauna instead of playing to no one but her map wasn't very accurate so we never found it. Instead we went back to the Arts Center where we were staying to go to sleep. After spending the night there we're all pretty sure the Arts Center is haunted. We're pretty sure the lack of attendance was probably more because they forgot to do any promotion and not because the people of Atikokan dont like us. And I should also mention that we were all secretly hoping that another tornado would blow in or no one would come to the show so that we could have a night off. This was the day that Terri and Chris came down with their bug, my sicky got worse and Jenny was really, really tired. So I guess you can say it was a good thing that no one came.
Pappy's Cafe, Wabigoon

We went from an empty house to another jam packed one in Wabigoon! Pappy's Cafe and Green Achers of Wabigoon, which are in the same building and run by the same guy are totally awesome! We've driven by it so many times in all of our Ontario tours and have never stopped in. Little did we know what a great place it was. John, the owner, made us walleye for dinner which he caught himself about a week ago with a vegetable stir fry and potatoes. He set us up with rooms at a motel which was so great because we all got some rest in the afternoon before the show and our own beds. The only thing it was lacking was tv so we could get our Family Guy fix. He said we doubled his average audience size and it was a very respectable audience at that. People came from Dryden, Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay (yes even Thunder Bay!! This guy had to take a whole week off work..) There were three doctors, a couple of lawyers and the mayor of Dryden in the audience. It was so much fun.

We chatted a bit with John after the show and then he sent us off to bed with a carafe of hot water for tea and neocitran. It was a nice restful sleep all around and now we're headed for Falcon Lake Manitoba where we're playing at the Welcome Center and get to see our good friends The Crooked Brothers again.

Saturday Aug 22, 2009. Highway #17 between North Bay and Sudbury

We're on day four of our sixteen day run home. It feels good to be pointed West again and a little surreal that we're on day 40 of a 52 day tour. Computer time has been a little scarce what with all the driving and playing and other excitement you will soon read about but I've got some time before the next pee stop here and am going to tell you about the last few days starting with our show at:
Irene's Pub, Ottawa.

This was our second time playing at Irene's Pub and it was by far the better of the two. Our friend Andrea Simms-Karp opened and we love her. It was great to be able to listen to her sing her songs live instead of on our CD player in the van. About 50 people came to see the show including a lot of our old Ottawa friends and some new ones as well. I think there were even a few people we didn't know. And, my brother finally got to hear us play our Metallica cover live which was actually his idea in the first place.
The Dakota Tavern, Toronto.

Our time in Toronto is a bit hazy due to the bionic sinus cold I managed to catch about a week ago but some things were definitely exciting enough to blast through the mucusy haze. The first of which was the tornado. It's true. There was a real tornado. Maybe even more than one... it didn't hit the Toronto center but West and North of the city people lost their barns, their roofs and I think even their lives in a couple of cases. We were at Oh Susanna's house having a rehearsal for the show where we were going to be her back up band when all of it a sudden it started pouring sideways and blowing like a hurricane. The sky turned yellow and there was lightning everywhere. The thunder was huge and the power went out. We stood at the window in awe for a while and then got back to rehearsing in the dark once it calmed down a bit.

The show was really fun. It was our first time playing at the Dakota and it was just as fun as we thought it would be. There was about 80 people there which is apparently slow for the Dakota on a Thursday night but since there was a tornado I think we did pretty well. We played with Oh Susanna in the first set which was really fun and then did our own set after that. The audience was really into it and set yet another bar show CD sales record.

The show ended pretty late and then we had a hard time extracting ourselves from the bar so we didn't get back to our host's house until about 3:00 in the morning. Our lovely host really out did himself as a Gruff host. Not only did he serve us mineral water and yummy pasta at lunch when we arrived but he made us a cheese platter complete with grapes and cheese from places in France we've never heard of, proscuitto, and a spinach and peach salad at 3:00 in the morning after we woke him up on our way home to let us in.

Piebird, Nipissing Village.
After a sleep in and fancy coffees in Toronto we set off for Nipissing and Piebird Bed and Breakfast. The highway was disgustingly busy and full of crappy places to eat. Before we started the sixteen day homeward stretch Chris said he was going to eat 2800 grams of potato chips in that time. So far he's only had five hundred and we're already on day four.... I think he's reconsidering his goal. I hope he's reconsidering his goal. Our time at Piebird is always wonderful. Sherry makes such wonderful food right from the garden and the tin house feels like home. We hung out with the goats a litle bit and then got ready for the show. It was a full house and a great show. The audience sang along and had a really good time. Dessert was delicious. We had a early night, a good sleep, and tea and breakfast (and bionic garden tea to help combat my bionic cold) and are all feeling rejuvinated and ready for the drive and night in Sault Ste Marie which can sometimes be a little draining.

Monday Aug 17, 2009. Ottawa, ON
The drive from North Bay to Montreal seemed to take forever but we actually made pretty good time. It's official, the #17 highway across Ontario is just about the slowest highway ever. We arrived in Montreal just in time for rush hour and thought we just might sweat to death in traffic on the way into down town.

Some of our new friends from Winnipeg from Oh My Darling are living in Montreal right now and offered up their living room for us to crash in. They're staying in a loft apartment up on the fourth floor in an old building right on Saint Laurent Boulevard. It was really neat but really hot. Apparently summer just started in Quebec but it didn't take long to hit full force. Our show was only a block away from our temporary home at le divan orange. We've played there once before and it was just as good if not better this time. We played with Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few who just got home from a five week tour so the place was packed. It sure was hot though.

On Friday morning Terri, Chris and I played parking games first thing in the morning after waking up bathed in sweat in the morning sun in the fourth floor loft. After breakfast Chris went off to jam and Terri and I walked around checking out the shops. Luckily Montreal has this great meter system with which you can pay your parking meter from any pay station in your parking area as long as you know the number and subsection of your spot. Anyway, we walked around all day and then decided to head out to Gore a night early to get out of the city and find some rest. I woke up with a sinus cold and we thought resting would do well for my sinuses what with our 16 day haul coming up. Jenny and Chris opted to stay in the city and check out the night life.

It was 30 degrees when Terri and I left Montreal at 7:30PM on Friday night and we were sure glad to be heading to the country. We've never taken the #15 north in Quebec and got a little lost just outside on Montreal because we got hungry and tried to find some food and a lot of exit ramps were under construction. We were pretty relaxed about it though, enjoyed our drive through various towns, listened to Luke Ryalls, and I taught Terri some French swear words so she's know what to say when she got stuck in traffic in and out of Montreal to pick up Jenny and Chris the next day.

Our concert in Gore was put on by our friend Marc Morin from the MG3 and we were put up at his friends Luc and Genvieve's place. It is so quiet and peaceful out in the country and we were super happy to be there. Luc made us some beer crepes on Saturday morning and then we went swimming in the lake before Terri went back into Montreal to pick up Jenny and Chris while I had a nice long neo-citran inspired nap. The concert was at the church in Gore where we found this street sign. Apparently they're all over Quebec.... we found it to be a little disturbing... but I guess that is the point.

The church was nice and full and the audience was really nice and appreciative. They even rung the church bells to announce the concert was starting and we couldn't help walking down the aisle like we were getting married.

After the show we went back to Luc and Genevieve's house with Marc and Uncle Jack who lives next door where we stayed up talking and laughing on the porch over beer and scotch into the wee hours of the morning. On Sunday morning we woke up for coffee and breakfast, bid farewell to Luc, Genevieve and Uncle Jack, went for a swim at the lake by Marc's house and then bid farewell to him as well. We took Jenny and Chris back to Montreal where they are still and Terri and I headed to Ottawa where we're spending our few days off before we embark on the 16 day trip home.

Uncle Jack, Luc and Marc on the porch in Gore

Wednesday Aug 12, 2009. North Bay, ON
Since my last entry we've been doing what we've heard a lot of bands do and don't usually do ourselves... that is staying up til the sun is high in the sky, not showering, eating fast food and sleeping whenever and wherever we can.This doesn't leave a lot of time for tour journalling but today we arrived at what feels like a tour sanctuary in North Bay and I've got some time.

It seems we have a lot of interesting experiences in Tim Horton's parking lots. We woke up in Dryden on Monday, drove over to the laundromat to wash our dirty festival clothes and dry out our camping gear, and then stopped at the Timmy's on the way out of town. We noticed a very cool looking van with its lights on and as we entered the drive thru lane we saw a cool looking gentleman who we figured must be the owner of the van. He was, and we told him his lights were on. In return he gave us his band's CD. This wasn't surprising because just about every cool van has a band in it. We gave him our CD in return and hit the road listening to The O' Darlin from Toronto. Now, I'll admit, The Gruff isn't very forgiving of Thunder Bay. In fact, we're down right mean to it. We call it the armpit of Canada. In my first tour journal entry from Thunder Bay I'm pretty sure I said something like it was devoid of all things remotely nice and if anyone could convince me otherwise, please do. No one did. And now I'm going to say that no one had to. Thunder Bay redeemed itself. We arrived in Thunder Bay at about seven o'clock and the Black Pirates Pub was closed (til 8) and looked, as we expected, like a heavy metal bar. I guess most of the time it is but it's also the new cool place to play in Thunder Bay. The show was with our good friends The Wild Turkeys who live in Sault Ste Marie and we never get to see. We had some dinner and then went back to the pub and met up with the Turkeys to resounding choruses of 'yoo hoo's!' and big hugs. The show turned out to be awesome. Lots and lots of people came. And it was a Monday night. The bar was so happy they cleared our meagre tab (we didn't even get staff prices to start) and bought us a pitcher. The Turkeys wanted to take us to a Live From the Rock Festival after party at their friend's house and this is where the epic-ness begins.

The show went pretty late and by the time we were at the party house it was about three in the morning. I was feeling pretty tired and not too keen on a big party so I went to sleep in the van on a street in Thunder Bay. This was fine until about 9:30 in the morning when I finally woke up from my sun induced sweat bath, peeled myself out of my sleeping bag and faced the day. Little did I know, as I quietly looked around and decided to go for a walk to find tea while the band slept, that I only just missed them and they had gone to bed about half an hour before I woke up...... I guess there were Gruffians, Turkeys, Cosmic Granolas and another band from the Red Rock festival called The Hudsons at the party and there was merry making and heart stopping jams all night long. ALL NIGHT LONG! So no one had a shower that day. We had 'breakfast' at 2:00 and finally hit the road at 3:00. Luckily I had a few more hours of sleep than everyone else and did the driving.

Gruff, Hudsons, Turkeys and the vans after breakfast
The drive from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie not only started pretty late in the day but seemed to take an abnormally long amount of time. The typical rock, tree, swamp, lake, rock, tree, swamp, lake, river scenery of Northern Ontario was masked in fog for most of the drive making Northern Ontario look an awful lot like the coast. Especially with the giant lake that looks so much like the ocean. We convoyed with the Turkeys all the way to Sault Ste Marie and stopped for all sorts of things including: gas (twice), pee breaks (a few times), swimming (but the lake was too cold so only Chris went swimming and Sheldon and Marshall Turkey pushed each other in while the rest of us picked wild blueberries and played frisbee), dropping off a tent that the Turkeys borrowed from the guy who owns Pizza Hut in Marathon who bought us pizza for dinner, candy, Tim Hortons in Wawa, and finally to drop Sheldon off a little ways out of town. The whole trip took just about tweleve hours.

We managed to squeeze four quick showers in before leaving the Turkeys this morning and heading for North Bay. The drive seemed long... not too out of character for Nothern Ontario I guess. The fog was gone and today the scenery reminded me a lot of Jamaica and Cuba but with different trees. If that makes any sense at all.... We stopped at the Laughing Buddha in Sudbury for an early dinner. We'll do anything to squeeze as many meal stops there as we can. We're not even playing in Sudbury this trip but plan to stop there again on the way home for some Laughing Buddha. We arrived in North Bay tired and road weary. And smelly again even after a shower this morning. And now we're in paradise. The house is right on Trout Lake in North Bay and is nice and big and clean and cool and lovely. We played outside on a little patio right on the lake and the audience sat on the hill in front of us leading up to the house. The water lapped gently, the sun set and all was well. Then the bugs came out and we got pretty twitchy and winced a lot during songs. After the concert we watched some shooting stars on the patio with our hosts and Jenny, Terri and Chris had a sauna. Now we're all getting ready for bed at what seems to be an amazingly early hour to wake up well rested and ready to take on Montreal tomorrow.

Sunday Aug 9, 2009. Dryden, ON

Whew! What a week it's been! I'll start at the beginning. We had quite a nice vacation in Saskatoon. We booked ourselves into a Ramada because we thought we'd make good use of the pool and exercise room, it was close to downtown and Ramadas are usually fairly good hotels. The one we stayed in, the Golf Dome, was actually kinda sketchy. The pool was gross. So was the hot tub. The exercise room was non-existant and the house keeping staff yelled swear words at each other in the hall ways. It's also in what turns out is the sketchy part of town. I guess now we know.... On a good note, they were the most comfortable beds we've seen all tour. We watched movies on tv, did face masks, went for a run along the river while the expedition parade was on, ate Thai food and walked through the Fringe festival, went out for pizza with our Saskatoon friends, and practiced Oh Susanna's songs for our upcoming set as her back up band in Toronto.

Terri with the gift baskets made from continental breakfast items the general manager of the Ramada sent up after she told the front desk the housekeepers were swearing at each other very loudly in the hall way while we were waiting for the elevator.

On Thursday morning we said farewell to Saskatoon for now and headed for Winnipeg. We took the Yellowhead highway along with all the semi trucks in Canada. We stayed at our friend Kevin's place and left the next morning after he cooked us up a wicked breakfast. The drive to Ear Falls Ontario was a little... infuriating. It was fine until we got to Ontario when everyone suddenly started driving about ten kilometers below the speed limit. There's nothing that irks me more than when people don't drive the speed limit. I don't mind if they drive exactly the speed limit and not a hair faster but ten below?! Come on! We got to Ear Falls in the afternoon and set up our tents in the camp ground before eating dinner and getting ready for our concert set which was that night.

Phaedra and Keri Latimer from Nathan. We could be related! Only one person mistook me for Keri this weekend.

We had the first concert set of the whole festival and it went pretty well even though only part of the audience was able to make it out for Friday night. Trout Forest Festival is awesome. The food is great and readily available (this is a major plus... most festivals leave you hungry when you need food and feed you when you're playing...), there are only two stages so the audience isn't spread too thin, the sound was good, the volunteers were friendly and helpful and the line up was awesome. There was only one thing that wasn't totally wonderful about Trout Forest and that was the rain. It rained and rained and rained all weekend long. It didnt' start until Friday night and Saturday morning was pretty dry but Saturday evening it started up and didn't let off until... well... we're in Dryden now but it's currently still raining.

Jenny, Pilsner and The Crooked Brothers
Terri's tent leaked. Everything in my tent was suspiciously damp but there wasn't actually any water in it... I figured out why when I packed it up today. The tarp I put under the tent did a really good job at collecting all the water draining along the ground and made a big puddle for my tent to sit in. It took an hour and half to dry out my sleeping bag by body heat power last night... Jenny's tent leaked only onto her book which was lucky (and unlucky.. it's a borrowed book....) and Chris' tent didn't leak at all. Our clothes, and especially our shoes, are soaked right through and we're planning on hitting up the laundromat tomorrow morning to try and get the mud out of our only pairs of pants tomorrow morning. But everyone had a great time anyway.

Muddy!!
The audience was prepared and came with all matters of rain gear and rubber boots. It was just the musicians looking a little bedraggled and damp this afternoon. And Everyone was covered in mud. Despite the weather, the festival saw more attendees than ever before and we made lots of new music friends over tasty meals, soggy camp fires and bottles of whiskey. I have to say I'm pretty glad to be out of the rain and dry in a motel on a bed that has dry blankets and no puddle underneath it. We went over pretty well at the festival too which is always nice. Lots of people told us how much they enjoyed us and we sold lots of cds (the most at the whole festival according to the merch lady!)

Terri and Darwin (Crooked Brothers) staying dry.

Monday Aug 3, 2009. Highway #7 to Saskatoon

This isn't on the way to Saskatoon... it's on the way to Twin Butte, AB
It's late afternoon and we're almost in Saskatoon for our not-quite-mid-tour vacation. Alberta week went pretty well I must say. Here are the post-Edmonton highlights:
The Ironwood Stage and Grill - Calgary
We love the Ironwood. The room is nice, the sound is great, the audience is always really good even if it's not huge, and the bar takes really good care of us. There were about 30 people at the show and a lot of them were friends and surrogate family but they were delightful none-the-less and we had Juanita Brandt singing beautiful songs about the prairies to open. It was great. After the show we went to our surrogate Calgarian parents' house and had an amazing sleep. When Calgary dad asked me how my sleep was I answered "I woke up at nine, blinked my eyes and it was eleven!" and then asked Terri the same question who answered "I woek up at six, blinked my eyes and it was eleven!" Terri's pre-amp finally kicked the bucket and we spent some time hanging out at Long and McQuade while she picked up a replacement to get us through the rest of the tour and then it was off to Twin Butte!
The Twin Butte General Store - Twin Butte

Twin Butte is a tiny tiny place along highway #6 south of Pincher Creek. One of the girls at the General Store, which is one of two buildings in Twin Butte... the other is the community hall, told us that it's an inlet on the highway and there are only nine offical residents. There are 100 mailboxes though and our best guess is that Twin Butte is in the middle of Pincher Creek No.9 Municipal District and that's where the other 91 mailbox owners officially live. The General Store is a general store and a Mexican restaurant in one and man alive is it awesome. The staff is super cool, the customers are awesome, the food is great... there's nothing to complain about at all really. They put us up at their place down Spread Eagle Road nestled in a cooley above the remodeled barn. It's so beautiful there I don't even know what to do with myself.

It's really close to Waterton Provincial Park so there are a lot of young seasonal workers in the area and a bunch of them came out to the show along with the other Twin Butte locals. The show was super fun. Everyone stayed out late and had a blast. I learned that in Twin Butte they can get winds that blow up to 250kms/hour!!! One nice old heckling farmer told me that when I asked them what the random fences along the road were for. I guess they're to keep the snow off the road. I thought they just were to encourage the cows to make decisions for themselves. It wasn't hard to tell I'm not from around there...

two Mexican bar staples... Corona and Tequila!
On Saturday we slept in a bit, packed up, had a really great breakfast at the General Store and headed into Pincher Creek to visit... dun dun duuuuun... Walmart! Yep, that's right. Sometimes you just gotta. The van needed some fuel system cleaner (which, on a side note, seems to be working already... she was awfully tempermental first thing in the morning and spluttered and groaned for what felt like ages blowing black smoke out the exhaust pipe and threatening to asfixiate anything within a twenty meter radius. Chris said that's what his van did before he put some of that fuel system cleaner stuff in so we thought we'd give it a try...), we also picked up some crazy glue and fixed Leila. The glue holding her torso (which is mostly a spring...) to her legs got really hot and she just popped in half! We've got her back together now though. We also picked up some skipping ropes which we christened in the parking lot of the Thriftlodge in Lethbridge later in the day. Terri picked up a towel after leaving hers somewhere along the way and I got a couple of little face cloths because I've been working so hard at shows in this summer heat that I need to mop my brow every few songs. We also had a flip flop makeover. Things had been getting a little rank in the van so Terri, Jenny and Chris all got new flip flops! Unfortunatley, they didn't have any cheap men's flip flops so Chris picked out a nice pair of ladies baby blue flip flops with yoga babes and clear blue jelly straps on the them. So pretty! After we fueled up (luckily!! more on that later...) and dumped the fuel system cleaner in the tank we popped in Bruce Springsteen and rocked out all the way to Lethbridge.

The Slice- Lethbridge
Playing at The Slice in Lethbridge is always high on my list of Alberta highlights. This time we were deternined to finally decide on a Gruff pizza to add to the menu. We talked about it all the way to the venue and then again at dinner while we all ate our own individual pizzas and finally just gave up because we can't decide on one pizza that we all agree on. I guess we're just destined to order four seperate ones every time.

dinner conversation...
Our friend and Alberta groupie Matt came to have pizza with us before the show and brought the gas shortage to our attention. Apparently lightning hit some processing plant in Edmonton or something and all of Southern Alberta is experiencing a gas shortage. There are gas stations that don't have any gas at all! A lot of stations! I guess we got to the gas station in Pincher Creek at exactly the right time because earlier that day there were line ups all down the road and they ran out. We showed up about half an hour after they got some more. Even today we passed a gas station in Drumheller without any gas. Luckily we found some and we're good not to get to Saskatoon. It sounds like they'll have it all resolved by tomorrow. The show at the Slice was probably the most relaxed show we've ever had there. Well, not probably. Definitely. It was kinda nice. The audience was very well behaved and paid attention all the way through. It was easier than normal to hear everything on stage and we had a great show. We followed it up with more pizza (seriously. It's the best pizza in Alberta) and played DJ on the jukebox for a while before turning in at our average bedtime of late which is quite late. Or early... depending on how you look at it. The next morning we woke up slowly and went in search of a Booster Juice for breakfast. It was relatively hard to find but we made a little stop at the comic book shop where Chris and Jenny picked up some summer reading. Finally fueled with bananas, acai berries and all kinds of frozen yogurt and fancy boosters and we were off to Nanton.
The Auditorium Hotel - Nanton

The August long weekend is Round-Up Days in Nanton. There's a rodeo and a chilli cook-off and all kinds of fun things going on. The town was just hopping when we rolled in yesterday afternoon. We wandered around a little bit while Chris sampled the chillis and then sprawled out in our hotel rooms and watched a few episodes of Cake Boss before we couldn't take it anymore, went and got cake, ate it watching more Cake Boss and then promptly fell asleep during Family Guy. We ate some Chinese food and then started playing early so that we could take a good long break for the fireworks. Yep, you read that right. We played two sets and then rode in the back of Barb and Larry's pick up truck (they own the bar) over to watch one of the most amazing firework shows we've ever seen.

The guy who did the show is the guy who does the firewords for the Calgary Stampede so you know he's good. And! Nanton apparently has a huge budget for Round-Up Days Fireworks. It was amazing!! And we were so close there was ash falling on our heads! After the fireworks we headed back to the bar and played one more rockin' set for our biggest Nanton audience yet. Two of them even laid down their firework watching blanket on the dance floor and watched from there until people started dancing. It's safe to say that's the first time that's ever happened. This morning was a standard Nanton morning. We ate breakfast in the restaurant, loaded up, said goodbye and headed out. We'll be arriving in Saskatoon in just under an hour now where we're gonna pamper ourselves for three nights before we head out to the wilds of Northern Ontario and beyond.
But first! It's laundry time! Don't forget the smell test!



Late Wednesday July 29, 2009. Edmonton, AB

getting a little nap in after sound check
Welp! I guess the success of last night's show didn't quite carry over to tonight's. We played at this little bar downtown called the Hydeaway. It's a pretty cool place.... I think. At least it could be. But it seems sort of strange. Almost like an abandoned cafeteria. Which could be really great if it was full of people rockin out. Tonight's audience rocked out a little... but not like last night's audience. There weren't a lot of them there and they spent more time getting loud and drunk and not paying attention to us than they did listening. We were also exhausted from our Breakfast TV experience and it was hard to crank out the energy for a show in that space tonight. Chris convinced a fellow to come in and check out the show and when he told him the show was five bucks, the guy said we better be worth five bucks. Chris said we were worth five bucks and five cents and at the end of the show the guy came up to him, handed him a nickel and said we were way too classy to play in a place like that and that he felt sorry for us. I didn't think it was quite That bad at all although it was REALLY HOT! It's been sweaty work so far this tour but tonight I actually had sweat dripping off the end of my nose like a rock star! Anyway... after the first two of this tour's Edmonton shows we feel better about Edmonton than we ever have before despite the small turn out tonight and are stoked to come back at the end of August.

Wednesday July 29, 2009. Edmonton, AB

Our brand new radiator shining in the early morning sun.
Here we are in Edmonton. So far it's been great. We're staying with our Provincial Archive friends again, the weather has been perfect and our first show here last night was awesome. One problem is that the old Goose is putting the test to our unconditional love. She's been smelling a little gasey lately and we noticed a little coolant ooze at a gas station just outside of Edmonton so we brought her in to have her looked at. Turns out there was a leak in the gas line (thankfully it was under the van and not in the engine...) and a crack in the radiator. So! One new custom fit section of fuel line and a new radiator and we're ready to hit the road again a sizeable chunk of cash lighter. So far Edmonton's been helping us out with that though. We had a great show last night at The Empress and sold a record number of CDs at a bar show.

The place was packed and the audience was awesome. This is them in the second set. The first set was so full and loud that we forgot to take a picture. The guy in the bright blue shirt was really into the picture thing... We had so much fun last night that we've decided we love Edmonton and are hoping tonights show will go just as well.

Currently we're all having a little rest. We got up super early to be on Breakfast TV this morning after playing late at the bar last night. It was a little frustrating because we were there for two hours only to play for two and half minutes but I guess that's show biz! On Monday night we got to play on a radio show on CJSR called Get Some West. It was fun. The show is all about Western Canadian music and we got to pick some tracks off of our ipods to play on the radio. We picked our friends of course and played songs by Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles, Kent McAlister and the Iron Choir, Luke Ryalls and the Provincial Archive. We also got to play some of our songs live.

After the radio show our lovely housing host Craig took Jenny, Chris and I to the Garneau Pub where we had some beers and listened to the Juke Box play all sorts of wonderful and terrible things. When it was time to go home it was absolutely pouring rain and none of us had a jacket or anything. Resigned to the fact that we were going to get wet, we decided to really go for it and went galavanting through puddle ridden parkinglots. That was two nights ago and my shoes are still wet...

playing with cameras and hands under an overhang in the rain


Monday July 27, 2009. Highway 16 to Edmonton

Today I learned that flax (pictured above) loses its flowers every night and new ones come out every day. Fields of flax look like water. Especially when they're waving in the wind.

Last night we played at Bruno's All Citizens Shop. Tyler, the proprieter and our lovely host has been having music at All Citizens since about March. It's one of the smallest venues we've ever played and is really cool. He's got all sorts of hand made items from artists all over the country as well as good coffee. At full capacity, All Citizens can hold 18 people but they've been known to squish in 21. Our show was a little less attended but was just as special. The Bruno Cherry Festival ended yesterday and most of our audience were volunteers at the festival and tear down took a lot longer than anticipated. We were supposed to start at nine but pushed it back, and pushed it back again hoping the tear down would wrap up and they could join us. We stopped waiting at 10:45 and hit the stage for a nice late night set.

While waiting to play we found all sorts of things to do to occupy ourselves. Terri and Chris had a little nap, Jenny played some drums, we had a rousing game of Slap Jack and got to know the real Chris a little better. He's quite different than Adam....

This morning Tyler wanted to get a video of us playing a song to add to his collection so we went out to the old Bruno brick factory which is now nothing but a few old ovens in a farmer's field. Tyler and his daughter Ashley also presented us with an award! It's The Gruff Cross Country Tour Award and has a picture of the shop on it.

Sunday July 26, 2009. Bruno, SK

So much has happened since my last entry. Well... maybe not that much. We spent four days in Saskatoon and managed to get a lot of relaxing done. Jenny and I went to see the late showing of Harry Potter when we arrived in Saskatoon and got to walk home during a nice display of Northern Lights. We tried whistling at them to make them brighter but it didn't work. Maybe it was because of all the street lights. We had a BBQ at our lovely host's house on Wednesday night complete with an evening frisbee game. Terri, Chris and I got up to some exercise on Thursday morning complete with wheelbarrows (those are hard!) and monkey bar chin ups (only a few I'm afraid...). Then the girls wandered around town for a bit before we met our Saskatoon friends at the Yard and Flagon for dinner before our show at Lydia's.

The show was great! Luke Ryalls opened up with our good friend Lucas Goetz from the Deep Dark Woods on pedal steel and another singer who we just met named Kim. It was amazing and we're really excited for our other shows with Luke at the end of this tour.

Our sets were super fun and the place was really full! Lots of people who saw us at Ness Creek came out again and there was much dancing and singing along. Lucas Goetz helped us out with a few tunes on the pedal steel like old times, our favourite Saskatoon sound guy Ian was rocking the board, and it was just perfect. Except until we found out just how many 'expenses' come off the top at shows at Lydia's. We all felt a little ripped off at the end of the night having more than doubled their typical Thursday night audience but oh well.. I guess that comes with the territory. It would be nice if it didn't though... maybe one day there will be a world where bands and venues can always live in harmony.


We had Friday off and made use of it by sleeping. Well.. I did at least and I'm not really sure what everyone else got up to during that time because I was asleep... But then we had some great fun playing Dance Dance Revolution until we all got too sweaty and had to stop. Chris practiced for the afternoon and Jenny, Terri and I walked downtown to check out the shops and have coffee and tea as per usual. Then we met our friend Rich from Vive productions who has played a huge part in our Saskatoon successes. We went to this awsome little Jamaican place called the Konga Cafe we'd never heard of and it was wonderful. Saturday morning we got up and went down to check out the Saskatoon Farmer's Market which was amazing. And so complete! There was everything from vegetables to fudge to knick knacks and crafts to a full wine store, meats and stuff I'm sure I missed altogether. We didn't stay long as we had to get to Bruno for our afternoon set at The Bruno Cherry Festival but I'm sure one could spend the whole day checking out everything at the market. The drive to Bruno was quite nice. Hilly even! and much shorter than we'd expected.

The festival is pretty neat. A nice little small town festival with lots of cherry things like pie and sundaes and sausages as well as the usual festival type crafty stalls. There are lots of stalls actually.. more than Ness Creek. Our set was fun although extremely hot. Everyone at the festival, who come from miles around, was really enjoying what was one of the first hot days they've had so far this year. We on the other hand were nearly four puddles with instruments in them by the time our hour and fifteen minutes were over. Then Saskatchewan Tourism who is traveling all over Saskatchewan filming at all the little festivals and things asked if we would help them out by playing in the middle of the square in front of the big St Therese College (where we stayed last night) with a crowd gathered to make a nice appealing Cherry Festival shot for their show. It was hard work playing in the direct sun but we pulled through. And now you might just catch a glimpse of The Gruff in an advertisement for Saskachewan which is slated to air during the Olympics. This afternoon we played frisbee by the Bruno jail.

But before we did that we went to the car show and picked out our favourites.
This is Terri's:

Jenny's:

Mine:

And we picked this one for Chris who was busy practicing in the van while we were there:

We also picked out our new tour vehicle:

Tonight we're playing at the All Citizens shop in downtown Bruno. (which is about thirty steps from the festival and one street big) We've been hearing quite a bit about this little venue lately and are excited to see what might happen tonight.

Tuesday July 21, 2009. Forget, SK

Ok. So Forget is amazing. We had a nice lesisurly drive from Saskatoon yesterday and rolled into town at about four o'clock rocking out to a playlist Terri made complete with Ween, The Wild Turkeys and The Violent Femmes. This town is tiny! We drove around a bit and found The Happy Nun Cafe where things were getting underway for the show. Sound check was smooth and we headed back to get dressed for the show.

Last night was the last night the cafe is open until August because next week is the Forget Festival and then Shannon and Don who run the cafe (and the festival) are going on a well deserved vacation. The show was sold out and the audience was wonderful. There were about 54 people there. The population of Forget is 38. The audience was very lovely and said all sorts of wonderful things to us like "I can't believe you're not making a living doing this full time!" The food was to die for and the beds were the best we've seen on tour.

the girls and Shannon at the Happy Nun after the show
We're having a lazy morning here today. After a big breakfast Terri and Chris went to check out Ken Hamm's music store. (Ken used to live on Vancouver Island but recently bought up a bunch of property here in Forget because it's affordable and in the middle. I enquired last night how I could get myself some property here but it turns out there are no lots available. Darn!) Right now I'm on the porch at the Seven Sisters Bed and Breakfast where we stayed last night taking in the peace and gentle prairie breeze. Eventually we're headed to Saskatoon today where we're thinking a band date is in order on our night off. We're going to go out for Thai food and catch a movie. Or two or three. We can't seem to come to a consensus on movies. Jenny and I are stoked for Harry Potter, Chris is going to Bruno and Terri hasn't decided yet.

Sunday July 19, 2009. Big River, SK

It's Sunday afternoon at Ness Creek festival. The drive here on Friday was really nice. We got to take the number 17 north out of Lloydminster and then some smaller highways across to Big River. We stopped in St Wahlburg to play frisbee and do a phone interview for an Edmonton paper, drove through a huge rain storm, and arrived at Ness Creek just in time to eat some great food and get ready for our mainstage set. The set was super fun and complete with dancing, cheering and yelling from the great audience.

It's really humid here which makes everything, especially us, kind of sticky. There are also lots of bugs. Lots! So we're also pretty itchy. Jenny and Chris jumped in the lake in the afternoon to cool down while Terri and Phaedra hula hooped with Carolyn Mark. There's a nice breeze today which keeps away both the bugs and the stickiness and it's awesome. We watched a really great workshop with The Weber Brothers and now things are winding down. We're going to Saskatoon to stay the night and then head out for Forget tomorrow morning.

Thursday July 16, 2009. Edmonton, AB

Our 2009 Summer Tour is underway! We had the first big drive of the summer today from Falkland to Edmonton and are now snuggling into our beds at our lovely Provincial Archive friends' house to rest up for another big day tomorrow. We're headed for north of Saskatoon tomorrow for the Ness Creek festival. But let's start at the beginning shall we? Our fiddlin' friend Adam, aka Banjo Boy, is busy with other things this summer and we're delighted to have our slidey friend Chris Herbst of Iron Choir fame joining us on dobro. After an afternoon of practicing we headed for Kelowna where we played at this little burger joint called The Grateful Fed. It's a tiny little place with a nice big patio and boy oh boy was it hot. Lot's of people came out and dance and clapped and had a great time.

We spent Wednesday in Vernon and Kamloops renting a sound system, checking out our favourite Value Village and searching for slurpees before a jam packed show at the Falkland Pub. People came from far and wide to rock along with The General Store and danced and sang and had a great time.

The Okanagan is pretty hot these days and the old Goose is having some trouble keeping her cool. It's slow going up the hills and if they're steep, we have to turn the heat on full blast so she doesn't over heat. Needless to say, it's pretty toasty in that van. Today we took the highway north from Kamloops to Jasper and on to Edmonton and it wasn't so bad. The sky was overcast and it even rained a bit through the mountains.