Going Back Out

Sunday, September 28, 2025

We have an interesting tour beginning this week. Seven shows in the US mid-west including Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago. The first show is scheduled for Wednesday in Pittsburgh. It’s six and a half hours of actual driving, plus a stop at the border in Buffalo, which could take an hour. Call it a possible eight-hour journey with two rest stops along the way. 
There’s a wild card as well. Traffic jams, caused by inclement weather, an accident, construction, or sheer volume can add hours to the trip. So we’ll be leaving on Tuesday.
The rest of the drives won’t be as bad, except for returning home on the 12th from Skokie (Chicago). That could easily be ten hours. 
It’s not like we haven’t done this before. The tour in Atlantic Canada last year was brutal, and just a few weeks ago, we drove back from Boston.
I thought I had left that kind of thing behind me years ago. In my bar band days, we would do 20 to 30-hour drives straight through.  
I recall playing in Kingston, Ontario, one time early in my career. On Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), we packed up our gear and began a twenty-hour drive to Sydney, Nova Scotia. Once there, we boarded a ferry bound for Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. The nine hours of tossing and turning in the angry waters of the North Atlantic precluded getting much sleep. When the boat docked, we drove for another 170 kilometres to Stephenville. Due to some difficulties (at one point, our truck was stuck and perched precariously over the side of a ravine), we didn’t arrive at the place we were booked until almost 9 PM on Monday, which was when we were supposed to start. 
The manager listened to our excuses, gave us all a drink on the house, and said, “You can start tomorrow night.”
That was fine with us until our band leader found out that we would be pro-rated….. paid for five days instead of six. The profit margin was slim enough as it was.
We were on stage performing by 9:45, having gotten almost no sleep for three days. 
That wasn’t the worst. Not a chance. It doesn’t come close to driving home non-stop from Lethbridge, Alberta. Five guys in a truck that had only two seats. Forty-two hours! If you weren’t driving or navigating, which we took turns doing, you were sitting on an amplifier in the back. I have “FENDER” permanently imprinted on my ass. 
I shouldn’t complain. I mean, it’s quite a bit less convenient than how we travelled with Gord, but I’ll take eight hours of driving over one hour of flying in an executive jet any time. 
I plan to write and post a little something about each stop on this trip. I’ll take a few pictures as well. 
If you’d like to travel vicariously with me, check my blog regularly from Tuesday on.