April 7 - Thunder Bay

I started to write this sitting in the van in Thunder Bay waiting for the Black Pirate pub to open. We arrived in Thunder Bay at about 11am this morning. We drove straight for the full 18 and a half hours with just a few pit stop and driver changes. In retrospect I guess we didn't need to leave so early but I just had no idea what it was going to like on the road. We left ourselves enough time to stop on the way and sleep for a good 6 hours. None of us got much sleep last night though. The roads were really bumpy and the van suspension, super stiff. I was a little worried I might catch some air on our top bunk and hit the roof. Didn't happen though. The drive was great, no traffic anywhere (not even on the way to pick up Brando in Toronto) but holy hell... its a long freakin drive! BUT... the only other vehicles on that particular stretch of highway are logging trucks filled with timber. Jan was driving and I was navigator and we were driving through a pretty mountainous area about 1.5 hours from Thunder Bay. Gas prices are insane so we are trying to drive in a manner that puts as little strain on the van as possible so we can save some money on gas... So on this particular stretch of highway we were heading up a long incline and although the speed limit is 90 we allow the van to drop down to about 70 as its climbing so we don't waste gas. As we were heading up the hill an OPP car passed us going the other way. Oh great... its a natural response to seeing a cop on the road. He u-turns around and follows us. Wonderful... but I have no idea what his problem might be with us. He followed us for about 2 minutes then the cherries come on. WTF?! Will and Brando were sleeping in the back, Brando on the bunk and Will on the seat. We turn around and say “guys, cop!”... no movement... louder this time “COPS!”. Will sits up and Brando, tangled in his blankets rolls off the bunk and joins Will in the seat. Words cannot describe how funny that looked but there was no laughing then, this was serious business... Freaking COPS! Up he comes to the window and says “License and insurance” we hand it over. He asks where we were going. We explain that we are a band on tour and drove all night... we were trying to get to Thunder Bay. His next question, “you been drinking alcohol or smoking marajuana” we reply “no”
“Well you were driving really slow” he says
“We are trying to save gas. Flooring it up a hill burns off tons of gas”
“Take your glasses off” he says to Jan. Jan does
“now look at me, close your eyes then open them” Jan obliges
“Get out of the van please” the officer says
Jan gets out of the van and they move to behind the van to do a sobriety test that included more blinking to checking for pupil dilation. We don't use any kind of drugs so the pupil not dilating at a normal rate was certainly due to a lack of sleep.
“off you go and get some sleep” the cop says. And thats exactly what we did. Off we went on our merry way. We later learned from the locals of Thunder Bay that that particular stretch of highway is crawling with OPP because it is sort of the bottle neck area for trafficking drugs. Makes sense now why we might have gotten pulled over.

Thunder Bay show was cool. It was at a venue called Black Pirate Pub. Owner (the owner of the pub... yeah thats his actual name) was a really awesome dude and was familiar with our neck of the woods. We shot the shit and talked about old days at the Trash in Guelph and Phils in Waterloo. I would recommend making a stop in at this pub if you ever visit Thunder Bay. We played with a Montreal band called The Hangers. They did this very Sublime-ish funk ska. I picked up their albums too. Thunder Bay happened to be their last stop on their tour that went all the way to Jasper and back. Funny how their last show was our first. Check em out if you have a chance.

In Thunder Bay is where we first encountered our van starting problem. Now to start the van you have to pop the hood and jiggle the starter cable in order to make contact with the starter. Its actually genius... its about the best anti-theft system we could get.

We spent that night in the van in a Tim Hortons parking lot. Though it was wicked to be that close to Timmy's coffee first thing in the morning we didn't consider the rush of traffic that would be at the Tims starting super early in the morning. Aside from a much needed hang out in Tim Hortons pit stop close to Kenora we drove straight to Winnipeg.

I'm actually posting this en route to Saskatoon but the Winnipeg stop deserves a separate blog. I'll hopefully get to that tonight.