2006-12-04 - 11:43 p.m.
The band's trip to Ottowa was fun and fruitful. Many thanks to Paul Salvatore, Warren Creats, the firm Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP, Danny Sivyer, the Staff of The Rainbow Bistro and The Parliament Hill Raddison for making our Gig's and Stay there so pleasurable.
On the way back, we got caught in a wicked ice storm crossing the eastern tip of Ontario. There were dozens of cars off in the bush, downed power lines, a couple fires and crazy different colored lightning flashing long bursts of gold, green and red deep within the storm. It was very "dynamic" in the words of Ken Rich...His knuckles, like James's were white.
The car was getting encased in thick ice as we drove east on the 417 highway. It was thick as a wiffle ball bat and pushing the wipers off the windshield. We had to stop twice to break it off. We had 1 good spin out, 3 times across the 417 and almost landed with the others. We lost faith in our route and after a short talk decided to get off the highway and start heading south on 2 lane bi ways. The wind was gusting over the prairie 40 to 50 miles an hour and was just blowing cars off the road. We passed about a half mile of newly downed power lines. They had started a fire in a corn field and the lines were jumping around in the rain arcing their own blasts of lightning toward the saturated ground.
After officially getting lost we passed through a couple of remote towns that reminded us of the TV show "Northern Exposure". All our cell phones were out of service, everything standing had 6" long ice sickles hanging down. We came upon another downed power line, this one had fallen onto the road. The telephone poles snapped like toothpicks for five or six hundred yards and power lines jumping around right next to the car in the oncoming lane. There was no light in any home we passed for the next few miles. We finally found Route 401 that led to Cornwall. It was here we saw the multi-colored lightning and wondered if it was the Aurora borealis.
We were there (me, James Wormworth and Ken Rich), sitting in my little heated Minivan, drinking Molsen, driving past this heavy carnage like we were watching the news. It was surreal, we were stupidly lucky and I will not forget the experience for a long time. It was Awesome.
Some fun gigs this month on dates page.
Check out "Christmas In The Heart" at itunes for the Holidays.
All best to you and yours, HP