Home Safe

On the road, pointed for home. Too bad the road didn't look like this for long. But that's the adventure, isn't it?

Got in yesterday, catching a WestJet out of Winnipeg for Toronto. Pretty uneventful. Thank goodness. All my gear got back unscathed. It's cold here in Ontario, but not like it was in Winnipeg. My friend Susan Harris drove me to the Winnipeg airport, and there was ice and snow everywhere. The good thing about all this snow is that it will likely fill the sink hole on Big Dave's lawn until spring. Then he can get on with his trapping projects.

Overall the return by land was OK. A stop in Vancouver to visit a friend. On to Golden, BC, from where I met a winter storm on the Kicking Horse Pass. I would of taken pics if I'd thought of it, but honestly, I was too scared and too focused on staying alive to consider it. Here's a winding, two lane highway, at very high elevation, cliffs on either side, at night, with clouds covering the road, dense, fog-like, snow covered road, slippery, can't see beyond a car length or two, nobody else up here but a couple of big semis, down to an eighth of a tank of gas, no where to pull over and stop. I've had some crazy drives over the years, but this was one of the wildest. I was glad to see the last of the mountains. I just kept going until I hit Brooks, Alberta, where I pulled over and slept in the truck.

Actually, in Golden I was lucky enough to pick up another guitar. A woman in a cafe recognized me and said she had an old steel guitar she might be willing to sell, as she was not a player herself. Turns out it was a 1935 National Duolian, and I bought it for cash, on the spot. It came with a cardboard case I had to leave at Long & McQuade's in Regina, where I purchased a hardshell for the flight home. You'll be hearing this guitar on the next album. It's a 14 fret guitar, and quite a bit louder than my early, Type O National. Needs some serious neck work first however. Still, I'm very glad to have it.

Over the next couple of weeks I will wrap the paperwork on this Tour, write up a little summary for this Blog, and send my thank yous out to everybody who played a part in making the National Steel Blues Tour a success. And there are a few holes in the Blog where I need to go back and put in pics and so on, so I'll take care of that, too.

The next Tour will be announced in early January.