I get into Calgary around 5 and arrive at Glenn & Jane’s place. They’re somewhat new to house concerts and we play around with the living room arrangement – they’re expecting 40 people –the biggest crowd yet. They’re also Castle Mountain people and have heard good things from their friends. House concert people and ski people are good people – and Glenn and Jane prove the same.

They also have two lovely goldens – Maddy and Lucy –both are big sucks and require a fair bit of petting and hugging.

An old friend, Alex, comes to this show – and we actually get 40 people – FANTASTIC! I sit by the fireplace and go through my set – I’ve now changed the Montreal verse of “Victoria” to:

They say Montreal will burn you
She’ll say “Laissez-faire”
But her little Alouetters
Couldn’t beat the Stampeders

Bored with Calgary verses, I also add a house specific verse:

I’ve been out here a couple weeks
I’ve been enjoying these plains
But I haven’t had quite as much fun
As I’ve had at Glenn & Jane’s

The crowd is excellent – good singing along and a momentum to the laughter that you only get with 40 people. I have some great conversations with everyone afterwards.

You can tell it’s a good party when someone steals someone else’s pair of shoes… fortunately mine are safe.

I head up to bed and spend some time on the internet. I’m sadly behind on my blogging. It takes time, people! Tomorrow night is Cochrane and the last stop on the Home Routes house concert tour. And while I’m looking forward to the rest of the tour, part of me is wishing I was heading back home.

All this tour, I’ve been watching the mountains waaaaaay in the background – barely there silhouettes and often invisible – but now I’m driving towards them… and they’re getting bigger.

They resolve into waves of blue misty watercolour cutout mountains – beautiful... I get distracted by the giant wind farms out here – I was told there’d be a lot of them but… THIS is a LOT of them! Holy! They’re everywhere and seemingly random groupings. I stick my camera out the window and try to get pictures while not dropping my camera and not driving into oncoming traffic.

And suddenly, while I was looking at giant fans, the mountain silhouettes turn into actual mountains with trees and snow and avalanche signs. They’re stunning – particularly after over a week of prairies.

I make a couple phone calls at Beaver Mines, the last spot for cell signal (Gerry, my host, says “watch out for moose” and then head into the wilderness of Castle Valley. Cruising along a gravel road, I kick up a ton of dust behind me. After about fifteen minutes, I spot a truck coming my way, kicking up even more dust behind it. We cross and for a second I’m lost in a sandstorm – I brake, slowing down – and thank god – a second later a deer dashes right in front of me across the road.

I drive much slower into the Castle Mountain ski resort and am welcomed by Gerry, who’s driven down to meet me on his quad with his 2 golden retrievers, Zella and Zuzu. Zuzu has brought a stuffed bear with her. We drive up the hill a bit to Gerry & Lynn’s place –a beautiful ski resort lodgy place with excellent warpy wood banisters (I find out later that Gerry builds these).

Gerry & Lynn are boisterous, friendly folks – they live up here with their pups year round and they’ve been doing house concerts for years now. Good people. We eat dinner and they tell me a bit about Castle Mountain – apparently one of the best skiing areas around (hey Ferney folks – these Castle Mountain people are dissing your black diamonds). Gerry is also a cancer survivor and Lynn controls her arthritis – both pretty amazingly tough, they’re unfortunately moving out of the resort soon, selling their beautiful place. Gerry explains that after a while you just need a change...

Zella, who likes getting her belly rubbed, is apparently the matriarch of the mountain – the alpha dog of, not only all the dogs in the resort, but also the bears, cougars, coyotes, etc. She’s an 11 year old dog, but still runs around like crazy – she’ll round up a pack to bark off a bear, or fight a cougar herself. Zuzu on the other hand is only 2, still carries her bear around, and is still learning how to fight cougars… they both like dog treats and getting their bellies rubbed.

I’ve heard all along that the Castle Mountain shows are a bit of a party and this one proves no different. Even though it’s a Monday night we get a pretty good crowd – and a quite eclectic one. There’s an older crowd who seems to want a nice night of music, a younger crowd, made up of local working crews, who seem to want a big party, and Gerry’s practically a crowd in himself – he likes to shout out jokes and banter with me – he’s hilarious. It occasionally feels like I’m playing three shows, one for each crowd. But surprisingly everyone enjoys themselves. By the end, Dear Aunty Emm somehow devolves into an improv song called “I hate farms” – dedicated to another Jerry, who owns one of the biggest potato farms in North America – nearby in Lethbridge. He’s apparently responsible for McCain’s French fries.

The young crowd is part of a local “Fire Safe” crew – they’re contracted to fly around in helicopters to forest areas where the trees are overgrown and to remove the brush below the trees, the dead trees, and basically anything overly flammable – they hack their way through these areas and then burn their piles up – working about 12 hours a day, it sounds like hard work, but pretty rewarding – especially since they may be responsible for stopping some of the major forest firest out here.

Outside there are 10 million stars in the sky. Gerry tells me that this is nothing – up on the hill you see even more.

After the show, I hang out with Gerry & Lynn, who tell me countless Zella stories, bear stories, wolf stories, coyote stories – basically letting me know how close I am to dying out here – and then wish me a good night.

The next morning, Gerry takes me out on the quad, with the dogs running ahead – we driving around and I learn about packrat tracks (apparently packrats are real – they like to collect shiny object like pop can tabs, and they also smell horrific), snowflake rocks (dark stones flecked with white volcanic rocks), as well as valley politics, poachers, mountain men, and a million other things. At one point, Gerry says, “well, we’ve gone up about 800 feet, we should turn around to get you off in time.” 800 FEET? Apparently all the roads just slowly wind up the mountain and we’ve been going up the entire time. We stop by some creeks and the dogs go swimming in the sub-zero water, crashing through the ice happily.

We get back and I pack up – heading back into Calgary, I can’t think of a bigger difference from this land of stars, bears, and mountains.

Okay, I’m sucking up a bit to my Calgary audiences, but still… I watched the game with my Dad in Medicine Hat and was more than usually excited when they won.

Here also are my dad's two cats - one weighing slightly more than the other.

Frank and Debby are a great folksy couple in Coaldale with a couple horses for sale, two dogs, some chickens and a nice farmhouse. They’ve lit up a Christmas tree out front for tonight’s show and I pull up next to the prettiest sunset I’ve seen the whole trip. Bright reds and oranges splash across the clouds and I remember again why, to quote Blue Rodeo, I miss those Western skies.

Coaldale, I find out, is a bedroom community of Lethbridge. It’s in the same desert areas as Medicine Hat and it’s much warmer than Calgary or Cochrane, where it felt like I was much farther north. Coaldale is known for its Birds of Prey rescue centre – which explains their tagline “The Town that Gives a Hoot.” Coaldale also recently prides itself on delivering the latest Canadian Idol, giving Medicine Hat’s Kaylan Porter a run for his money.

Frank and Deb’s place is great for shows, with two level audience seating, most on the main floor, but some up on the balcony above watching me through the railing. The audience arrives and seats themselves. The audience includes a fair number of church choir singers, so the sing alongs sound lovely. Apparently we’re in the bible belt of Alberta and I worry a bit again about “My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding”, but it goes over fine – or at least, no one runs me out of town.

I have to constantly remember to sing up to the balcony above me, tilting my head every second line. I ask everyone’s advice on how to get out to Vancouver and everyone agrees I should fly. I’m now a bit freaked out about the 2-day drive from Moose Jaw to Vancouver (with a show on the 2nd day) – in the little Suzuki Swift with no snow-tires.

The most awkward part of the show is when the door in the front hall next to me opens suddenly and I end up making conversation with the new guests who have joined us, clearly taking off their coats and shoes, only to find out from the audience, who can see into the front hall, that no one is there and the door just blew open by itself. The crowd forgives this though and by night’s end gives me the best encore clapping an cheering yet. I’m never prepared for encores, so I give them a choice of songs and they pick both. Nice.

Afterwards, one of their guests, a police officer in Lethbridge tells me that he really likes that my songs are all about real things and real people – he gives me a Lethbridge police pin that he designed and invites me to come on a “ride-along” with him, hoping that I’d write a song about the experience… I can’t wait – very cool.

Once almost everyone has left we do another jam – pulling out more guitars, songsheets and wine. A lovely end to a lovely evening.

I leave as early as I can – after pancakes – and head out on Highway 1 to Medicine Hat – where my Dad lives – and where I’m going to play the first show I’ve every played for him. I’m a bit nervous, honestly, but the shows have been going well and my voice feels good.

I get to my Dad’s and we hang out a bit – I make some more CDs and play with his cats, Katey and Siley. We talk a lot about the shows – something we don’t normally do over the phone – it’s nice to give him the inside scoop on what I think during the shows.

Finally, I head out to Blair and June’s place, which is on the outskirts of Medicine Hat – it’s a beautiful place that Blair built himself. Although they’ve done a number of these shows and Blair was the first to get involved with them, tonight he’s stuck in Ottawa, so June’s fling solo.

We chat happily and I play with her border collie, Sadie, who seems to have an unlimited need to chase stuffed animals. She has a stuffed skunk that makes a noise similar to a Transformer when you bite it. She bites it a lot.

June’s mom and dad show up and then my dad shows up. It’s not like the show will really be any different, but I’m still nervous about playing in front of him – maybe it’s because this is one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to play this tour. Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing “My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding” and I have no idea what my dad’ll think of it.

Unlike the night before, the crowd doesn’t really know each other, which makes for a nice night of socializing – everyone meeting each other for the first time. My dad seems to have a good time and I introduce myself to everyone.

June introduces me saying that Blair was really sorry he couldn’t be here – they’d listened to my CD and were looking forward to me coming the most out of the lineup – which again is very cool, since I kind of think my old CD is, well, old.

The chairs are lined up about Sadie’s width away from me – she snakes herself through the audience during the sets getting petted. The audience is excellent and my voice feels better than ever. Occasionally I glance over to my dad and he’s laughing and singing along with all of them – and he laughs with everyone during My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish-Wiccan Wedding – I’m a happy singer/songwriter. Betty, my dad’s wife arrives a couple songs in – she got stuck at work. At intermission I check in with them and they’re having a good time.

I meet a nice couple from Holland, Piet and Ina – Piet tells me the story of Piet Hein, a famous German pirate who fought the Spanish in Cuba, stealing all of the Spanish armada’s gold and silver. Apparently there’s a Danish song devoted to him. Who knew I had a famous Spanish-fighting Cuban-german pirate relative? There’s even a hotel chain in Amsterdam named after him.

In the second set I rib the Medicine Hat-ers about their city’s tagline, “The Gas City” – I told them that Rocky Mountain House was “Where Adventure Begins” and they could at least do “Where Gas Adventures Begin.”

June sings along in the background, mouthing the words to the songs off my album. In the second set, Sadie gets hold of her stuffed skunk again and goes off on a skunk solo during a song.

Eventually the night ends and we say goodbye to everyone – my Dad tells me he really enjoyed it. Someone tells June’s parents that they have a very nice son-in-law… ummmm… sorry, Blair!

I head back to my Dad’s and stay up with him and Betty for awhile – my Dad had a great time and wants to go to more house concerts – very cool.

I head back into Calgary and try to find a bank – everything I make is in 5’s, 10’s, and 20’s, so I have a wad of cash that I get nervous about carrying around. Afterwards I head to Chris & Jo-Anne’s – nice folks who are doing their first house concert.

Their kids, Cam and Griffin are great boys but totally different. Cam is into sports and Griffin is the resident artist – playing music on all sort of instruments, making comics, and generally being creative (sound familiar?).

Tonight’s crowd is interesting for a couple reasons – almost all of them are skiers and also, an old friend, Denene, from Toronto is coming to the show. The skiers are all serious skiers (case in point: Chris once got Jo-Anne an avalanche oxygen mask for a birthday present – yes, a mask, just in case you get buried in an avalanche… you have to REALLY want to ski, if there’s a chance there’s an avalanche, and you STILL go skiing!!!).

It’s nice to catch up with Denene - she’s getting married – Congrats, D!! – but part of my job is to meet everyone and kind of welcome them, so it’s hard to talk too much, just to her.

The show is downstairs in the basement. Like in Rocky Mountain House, my bedroom is right behind the performance space, which rocks! The show goes great – Chris & Jo-Anne pull out the most people on the tour so far and they’re an excellent group, with a rowdy front row. On the side, Gryphon watches – I think he’ll be playing house concerts soon. Or making comics. Or both.

After the show, two of their friends arrive late and I promise them a couple tunes once everyone else has left. They’re good folks who clean up completely. We head back downstairs and I ask Chris & Jo-Anne for requests from the show – and to my surprise Chris chooses My Eyes Wide and Seventeen – two of my older tunes – which is pretty cool. One of the nice things about this tour is the fact that I’m playing 2 hour shows, which means I have to play some of my older songs, which I don’t normally play – but it’s sweet to have people hear these songs again for the first time – and respond to them. Especially the somewhat more serious tunes – since I’m sometime known for my goofy tunes like Jetpack or My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding.

We play songs until I feel like I’m going to fall asleep playing – so I stop playing and go fall sleep.

I drive out of Calgary past stretches of beautiful snow covered trees. Although I know we’re south of Calgary, it feels like I’m heading into some northern logging town.

I don’t get to see a lot of some of the towns that I stop in out here – I usually arrive around dark and leave in the morning– so often I have to ask things like “What’s Cochrane known for?”

Apparently it’s known for hangliding. Who knew?

Unfortunately it’s too cold to hanglide (I totally would), but instead I get to hang out with Brian and Carolyn, who are totally sweet. Brian and I share a love of comics and after dinner, he shows me his excellent collection of Marvel Masterworks, and Calvin & Hobbes books. I space out a bit to early Captain America stories, but snap back in time to set up.

It’s a Wednesday and I’ve heard from some of the house concert hosts that school nights are harder to get people out, so when only 10 people show up, I’m not surprised. But I’m also not disappointed, because the crowd is great. Everyone is totally nice and they include a couple incredibly talented painters, who have been involved with an amazing mural project in town – basically the town creates a huge mural, but each painter creates their own little 2’ x 2’ painting. Pretty neat – check it out and click on some of the individual squares.

Plus, for a 10 person show, everyone is loud, singing and laughing along with the best of them. And afterwards, they’re very nice – one nice art therapist, says that my song, High School Geography and Another Time or Year make for great musical therapy.

It’s a beautiful night, but I’m tired and head to bed… and then read Calvin & Hobbes for several hours…

I spent the day in Starbucks - apparently if you buy a starbucks card in a tiny mitten, you get 2 hours of free internet everyday. Plus, they have awesome hot chocolate. A good deal in my books.

Finally, I head out of town - although this show is listed as Calgary, it's technically on the outskirts in a beautiful log cabin home - the dream home of Karen and Bill, who meet me and welcome me to their lovely home. They're Ontarians and theatre folk, so we're instantly related - Karen's a director and teaches high school theatre, while being totally involved with the Canadian improv scene. Bill's a technician who has built, run, flown, and teched every aspect of theatre shows. They moved out to Alberta a while back and, since they were building their dream home, decided to construct a full black box theatre in the basement. Seriously, who knew?! There's a booth, a grid, a green room, and theatre seating - it's pretty cool!

We eat dinner and I get introduced to their lovely cats - Gizmo, who likes to hug people and chew on buttons is my favourite.

Karen and Bill have been doing house concerts in the theatre for a while - I decide to continue with the acoustic route and forego the sound system, since the acoustics in the space are beautiful. People arrive and I meet some of them - this house concert is a bit more formal or professional than the others, possibly because of their theatre experience, not to mention their theatre! Everyone troops down to the basement, Karen gives an intro and I come out from backstage. With the stage lights on, I can't see the audience and it all feels a bit bizarre compared to the living rooms I've been playing in the past couple days. But the audience is lovely and even if I can't see them, I can hear them laughing and clapping along.

On my 2nd song, one of my strings breaks. I hate this. It generally throws off my whole show. I get rid of the string while telling a story - I can't change the string since all my gear is backstage, so I play the rest of the set on 5 strings which constantly go out of tune. I'm sure no one cares, but I feel a bit off balance.

The 2nd set though, once restrung, is excellent and intimate. The crowd asks me Muppet and touring questions and it feels like a great dialogue rather than a one-way show.

After everyone leaves, Karen, Bill and I sip wine outside on their deck with a fire blazing. We share theatre stories and they tell me that deer frequently come up to their house. I stare into the darkness hoping to see one, but none come. Eventually, wined out, I head to bed.

The next day, Karen and Bill leave me the keys and I hang out, using the internet, playing with Gizmo and eating delicious home made bread. Way better than Starbucks.

[where adventure begins... and where I get drunk on wine and play songs way too fast]

Contrary to popular belief - or at least MY belief - Rocky Mountain House is a city, not a house. Apparently it's the place where the Hudson's Bay Company started and people regularly revisit famous Canadian voyageur routes from here in giant canoes and sled dogs. It's motto is "where adventure begins" and I wish I could stay long enough to play. Travelling north, I pass buffaloes, lamas, and cows in golden fields glinting with snow - it's very pretty. I also pass a small town called Caroline - I roll the windows down and sing my song "Caroline" to them. No one seems particularly impressed, but I'm happy.

Sadly again, even though I have an address, I get lost - the house is brand new and my GPS doesn't think it exists. I drive through a game of ball hockey twice before my host, Cheri, comes to my rescue. She and her husband, Doug's place is beautiful - all wood and stone and set against a backdrop of trees and mountains. This is their first house concert and they've gone all out, borrowing a popcorn maker and stocking up on wine.

After another great home cooked meal (okay, I'll stop talking about them now - but Mom, I'm being very well fed), I take ANOTHER steam shower and, freshly cleaned, I set up as Cheri and Doug's friends arrive. It's always interesting to see where people come from for shows - this crowd is filled with Doug's Shell co-workers, Cheri's swimming coach, and teaching friends - all very sweet.

The show is a lot of fun. Doug puts a cowboy hat on my head for Caroline and a fight breaks out between Calgary and Edmonton football fans. Everyone sings along and heckles me happily. I sell a LOT of CDs. Again, I improv up a verse for Victoria:

Well they said that it was far out
They said 3 hours out of town
But they never told me how much fun I'd be having
At Rocky Mountain House

Afterwards, after everyone left, I play cover tunes with Doug, Cheri and a couple of their friends as we drink wine. I babble my way through one-week and end of the world as we know it, realizing that I haven't really drank much recently and am suddenly a super cheap date.

The next morning, after another steam shower (where have these things been all my life?), I eat breakfast with Cheri and she tells me that there's routinely moose, cougars, and deer outside their house. Luckily I don't see any cougars, but Rocky is definitely where adventure begins.

[in which, I wear a cowboy-shirt for the first time, rock out acoustically and virtually, and it snows...]

For the first time on tour, I don't get lost - I actually have an address and my GPS guides me neatly past a stadium packed with people to Allison and Paul's place. It's a beautiful house with an AMAZING shower downstairs (more on that later) and a nice dog named Mocha. Allison is a doctor, and we bond talking about standardized patient tests. Paul, her husband and another doctor, comes back with their son Evan from a Stampeders game - the Stamps have won and are heading to Montreal for the Grey Cup - pretty exciting. I should mention how nice all my hosts have been so far - house concert hosts are great people. They make you lasagna and welcome you into their home as if you were family.

After a brilliant lasagna dinner, we set up for the show and people start to arrive. Dave, a friend of theirs arrives early, apologizing for not being able to make it due to a wedding, but dropping off flowers and $20. Dave rocks.

The crowd spans a fair age range, from 20's to 70's - I meet a bunch of them and tell Paul that his friends are all nice - he replies that he has "no idea who half these people are." I love house concerts.

The show, I think, goes flawlessly. My voice is a back and feels great. Plus, what a great crowd - the biggest yet on this tour - and happy to sing along or get really quiet when I whisper. One man asks nicely before hand if he can put a microphone for his hearing aid up close to me - it's amazing that he came out to this and I hope he enjoyed it. Mocha wanders through the crowd getting petted - I should bring a nice golden retriever to all my shows. I introduce the show as the first I've ever played in Calgary and the first I've ever played in a cowboy shirt - everyone seems to approve of the shirt except for one woman afterwards who is convinced that I'm colour-blind and have no fashion sense.

Again, I improvise a verse for "Victoria" which goes:

They say Calgary's a wild one
And she'll take you for a ride
But I think I'm going to like her
And I hear that the Stampeders won tonight

The crowd goes wild.

I even get an encore, ending the show with Guilt Trip Song, which (thank god) goes well. I've played it once or twice to completely silent audiences who all suddenly think that I'm a psychopath.

Afterwards everyone's very nice, buying CDs and chatting - there are lots of Canada and world travellers in the crowd and we bond over cities we've seen. Finally the crowd dribbles away and Allison, Paul, Evan and I rock out downstairs on Rock Band. I'm okay on guitar and vocals, but kind of suck at drums. Finally I head to bed, but at 1am, Dave shows up again to apologize again for missing the show and to buy a set of CDs. Did I mention that Dave rocks?

The next morning, I wake up to a thick blanket of snow outside. Oh god. I was hoping for snow to start much later - if at all - this does not bode well for my little Suzuki Swift's trip through the mountains.

On the plus side though, I get to use Allison's infamous shower - which is a steam shower with a rain/overhead showerhead plus a normal showerhead, PLUS has 3 little side jets that I have no idea what are for except to really clean your stomach and back well. There are about 14 knobs to control it all. I stay in it for about half an hour.

Paul makes me amazing raspberry crepes. He also gives me a Stampeders hat, which is pretty close to "white hatting" - a tradition where Calgarians give newcomers a white hat. I'm a pretty happy touring musician.

I head out and am halfway down to Medicine Hat when Allison phones to tell me that I've left my itinerary there - I've now played 3 shows and have forgotten things at 2 of them.

I spend a day down in Medicine Hat visiting with my Dad, his wife, and their two cats. Thankfully all the snow melts away as I head south. I wash clothes. We go out for dinner and watch football, while I make more CDs. A nice day off from my grueling travels, playing guitar, taking steam showers and getting fed crepes.

[in which I meet a tailless pig, play in an old school hall for an internet show, meet the queen of the smurfs, and buy a cowboy shirt at "midnight madness"]

I roll into Olds around 5, employing my normal arrival style of driving past the house several times before finally pulling into the correct driveway. This is partly due to the fact that I keep arriving after dark and directions like "look for the big shiny barn" don't do much for you without any shininess.

I'm greeted by a nice, old dog and am welcomed into Sharyl and Warren's farmhouse - somewhat newly rebuilt after a horrific hail storm earlier this year. Sharyl and Warren are awesome folks and we take to each other immediately - their two kids, Joshy and Ryan are totally cute, showing me their bloody halloween costume and plastic katanas and throwing stars during an excellent home-cooked dinner. Sharyl was actually just in Toronto - she came out for the Tina Turner concert and threatens me with bodily harm if I don't go when she comes back to Toronto in December. The dog who met me at the door is Stanley Firetruck Cosco - named by Ryan, I think. Sharyl & Warren have been missing two other dogs for a couple days and they're worried that coyotes may have got them. Coyotes are apparently a regular problem out here - a while ago their basset hound got chased for miles by a pack of coyotes and recently their pet pig, Beulah, (yes, they have a pet pig and yes, she has a Jewish name) had her tail and a chunk of flank bitten off by them (she's okay). Warren, sad about his pups, wasn't sure if he was coming to show, but we get along so well that he agrees.

The show is being held in an old school house/community centre-esque place. It's fantastic - paint peeling and old wood - one of the most memorable places I've played - and inside, the piano and the wood chairs bring to mind Little House on the Prairie. Inside, a friendly guy named dave is setting up a camera for OldsTV.com - apparently the place to go for all your Olds info needs (who knew?) - and theoretically my show should be posted up there soon.

I get the kitchen as my warm-up room where I can go if I need to "get all zen" as Sheryl puts it. I tune up and play a bit with Josh and the uber-adorable 2-year old Annabelle on piano. Soon enough, a crowd comes in made up of friends, family and neighbours. Sheryl claims she didn't do much advertising, but apparently a poster on a local post box goes a long way. One family brings in 7 children. It's a pretty good crowd, considering I have competition - it's "Midnight Madness" in Olds - where all the stores stay open till midnight and there are sales and free hotdogs outside the bank.

For the first time, I get to see the package that was sent to the concert organizers - it includes a quick bio on all the artists - mine is mostly lifted from my website but mysteriously has the added line, "David looks normal enough, but beware - he has a creative mind and that makes him dangerous." I love it and make Sheryl say it in my introduction.

The show goes well - my voice is still a bit rough, but it's getting better - I try out a new tune called Victoria - a love song to Canadian cities - which features an improvised 3rd verse - tonight it goes:

Well, they say Calgary's a cool one
But it's nothing compared to Olds
It's just a little North and I'm sorry folks
But your city rhymes with "cold"

The kids get antsy quickly - Josh and Ryan run around a bit till Sheryl shoos them outside - but the 7 kids on the side bench sit nicely and listen, even though I can tell a couple are bored. Otherwise, it's a great show - people laugh in all the right places and sing along. I end the set with Dear Aunty Emm and immediately feel bad for Warren when I sing the song "I'm taking your little dog too" - but he seems alright when I apologize afterwards. I sell some CDs at and meet everyone - including Sheryl's boss, the local MLA and the mennonite family - who are totally nice. After the show all the kids amuse themselves by jumping out at people and screaming - I do it right back to them, which I think buys me more cred than any of my songs. I try to take a picture of them, but it ends up looking totally creepy - like something out of children of the corn.

Sheryl takes me into town for Midnight Madness - which is a little less "madness" than I expected - but maybe it's the cold. We stop into a cowboy store (I don't know what these are called, but they sell cowboy things...). I pick out a bunch of cowboy shirts and find a nice little green number - clearly this will make me fit into Alberta crowds as if I was born here. We check out cowboy boots as well, but I'm not quite ready for that level of cowboy lifestyle - plus, I don't know how I'd even decide - who knew they came in all shapes and sizes? Sheryl sports some pretty funky pink ones.

On the way home, we narrowly miss hitting a gigantic porcupine - Sheryl informs me sagely that "they can flip your car" and I believe her since she's had experience hitting animals - a while back she and her family hit a moose and survived thanks to being in a gigantic vehicle. My little Suzuki Swift seems very small all of a sudden.

The next morning, I give a quick guitar lesson to Joshy (who's the most musical kid I've met). We make up some songs and he plays ukelele - admittedly he hasn't totally mastered it at 3-years old, but I'm confident he'll pick it up.

Sheryl, her boys and I go for a walk in a "coulee" which, to those of you not in the know, is a "valley." I've never heard this term because I grew up in Saskatchewan - where a "hoody" is called "bunny hug."

This land has been with Sheryl's family for over 100 years - beautiful land, with well-worn paths, patches of trees, and deer running across the plains. We meet a pack of their family's horses who trot over happily to get their noses rubbed. Sheryl gives me a tour of local natural disasters - where the trees were all blown down, where the hail destroyed house and house. We stop at "the sand pit" and I try to teach Josh about geology and why there are striations in the rocks, but my 5th grade geography is showing. Sheryl says it's fine: "making up stuff is what you do when you're a parent."

We head back for lunch, and take one more trip to Sheryl's parents place to see her fine smurf collection. We also have a smurf collection at home, but Sheryl's is clearly superior - she has every smurf from Ugly Smurfette to the masked super-smurf. Apparently she had a cousin who worked at a toy store and only found out much later that many of her smurfs, um, "followed her cousin home." Awesome.

I say goodbye to everyone and head out of the farm, past Buella the pig, the fields of horses, and the woods filled with coyotes towards the big city of Calgary.

[In which my plane gets delayed, I get lost, lose my voice, smash up my already smashed up knee, and forget my guitar... wow. GREAT START TO A TOUR! On the good side though, the show was great, the people were excellent and I met some horses]

Here it is - the start of my West of Wherever tour and things are already going badly. I try to do too much at home to prep, too much at work, and get sick which leads to a last minute stop for antibiotics at a walk-in clinic. My throats hurts, I'm losing my voice, and I have to sing for 2 hours in 24.

I've been looking forward to this tour since I got booked on it a couple months back - the Home Routes house concert part of the trip is a tour of living room shows booked by Mitch Podolak's company. Mitch founded many of the folk festivals across Canada and has put me up at his house several times, telling me crazy stories and feeding me very well. I wanted to get on a Home Routes tour, but he didn't book me until he heard from "his spies" at the Brandon Folk Fest that I put on a pretty good show. The premise of the tour is pretty good - I get booked for house concerts across Alberta - which means (A) I get to play in my socks, (B) I usually get fed dinner and breakfast - usually REALLY good dinner and breakfast, and (C) I sleep where I play. All very efficient. Plus all the proceeds from house concerts go to the artists, so I actually make an okay living singing songs. Crazy talk.

The other reason I'm psyched for this is that I'm touring through Medicine Hat and my dad and his wife are coming out to one of my shows - and he's never seen me play a show. Very cool.

But as I currently have no voice, it may be a short tour experience - David Hein Mimes His Way Through Alberta. It just gets worse when I get to the airport. I check in for my 10am flight and find out that it's been cancelled and they were expecting me to board the 6am flight... and the next flight they can get me on is at 2pm, which gets me in for 4:30, which gets me to my 7pm concert at... 7:30pm.

Frantic phone calls and emails ensue.

Then I wait around the airport for a long time.

The plane trip goes fast. I should sleep, but my achilles heel on plane rides is superhero movies and the Hulk is on. Then I sleep.

I wake up to sunlight streaming in the plane's window overtop of purple mountains in the distance. Back in the prairies, where I was born and raised. Flatness, yellow fields and straight lines. Calgary.

I stress out in the airport waiting for my fragile bags of CDs and computers and gifts to arrive in the fragile section. They don't. They come crashing out of the baggage chute. I grab them and run to cab and we speed to the Enterprise Car Rental. I get a tiny red Suzuki Swift - possibly the smallest car in Alberta, land of gigantic trucks, but also the most fuel-efficient! I'm thinking of naming her Ruby.

The Enterprise guys look doubtful that I will get to Ponoka in 2 hours. "What are you driving?" one asks. "A Swift" the other answers. Both give me looks that say, "your little toy car will not be doing you any favours tonight..."

I drive up highway 2 hitting 140 most of the way. My GPS that I bought for this trip is kind of useless since most of the dates are at addresses like "the red house past the church" which is hard to program in to my Garmin. Which is why I get a little lost. I take a turnoff too early - make about 8 u-turns, and eventually figure my way out. My instructions are to look for the "beige house on the right" but it is pitch black and I pick the house with all the trucks outside it - if it's not my party, at least it's A party, right?

I throw everything I think I need in a bag, run past the buffalo skull outside the house, and dash up the stairs. Inside I see a lot of people. They see me - then I disappear suddenly because I slip on the stairs and come crashing down with a huge noise that only a frantic musician and his guitar can make when hitting a wooden porch. Loyal listeners who know that I hurt my knee earlier this year will recognize that landing on my right knee was the wrong instinct.

I limp inside - my hosts Dale and Barb welcome me and I joke a bit with the audience. I assure them that I'll just tune up and start and Barb says, don't worry - you're right on time - It's 7pm.

Phew.

I pass out comics, warm up in the bathroom and then tune up. Barb and Dale have a lovely open-concept living room, perfect for shows. With no voice, I was worried about no amplification - but it's fine. The songs come out and everyone seems pretty happy. With two full sets to play, I pull out a bunch of songs from my last album which I don't play regularly - and find a newfound respect for them - sometimes I forgot how much I used to love these songs. Maybe we just needed some time apart.

The funny thing about Home Routes is that most of the people attending were at the last house concert in Ponoka - and you invariably get compared to that last person playing, who it turns out was Washboard Hank. Who is apparently a laugh riot, has invented his own instruments and is super crazy entertaining. Now I generally think of myself as a pretty funny guy with goofy songs about jetpacks and Lesbian-Jewish-Wiccan Weddings, but somehow compared to Hank, I come off as a poetic troubador.

Still, the crowd seems to like the songs and the angry Air Canada rants. My voice is a bit rough, but I work thorugh it. Afterwards I sell some CDs and meet everyone. Barb & Dale are sweet folks who raise horses and go on horse vacations, riding them through the Rocky mountains. Barb is a nurse and Dale works at the Ponoka mental institution - the same jobs as my dad and his wife. Most of the guests work with one of them.

Apparently I missed an Alberta steak dinner with seafood pasta - $#@#$^@#$^ Air Canada.

I go to sleep and sleep a looooong time. The next morning Dale makes me the best eggs and bacon ever. Then we head outside and meet his lovely horses, Tiffany, Dandy and their little guy, Mac, who's only a couple months old. The horses wander up for nose scratches and pats. Mac is a little wary of strangers, but once he realizes I'm nice, he nuzzles into my armpit. I want to take him home, but he won't fit in the car.

I take off with goodbyes and handshakes - I make it half an hour away, just past Red Deer when my phone rings. It's Dale. "It's going to be a pretty quiet tour the rest of the way," he says, "you forgot a pretty important part back here."

We meet halfway and Dale hands me my guitar. I'm an idiot.

Still, despite it all, I'm optimistic - apparently I'm booked in a hall tonight in Olds. And this time, I'll be on time.

I'm back from my WEST OF WHEREVER TOUR having played a ton of house concerts in Alberta, as part of the Home Routes house concerts tour, and then cruising through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and BC. For the whole story, check out the BLOG section above.

Here's the top 10 things that happened out West:

1. Met a pet pig named Buella in Olds, who lost her tail to coyotes
2. Played for my dad for the first time ever in Medicine Hat
3. Bought my first cowboy shirt
4. Got my car broken into in Vancouver - and all they stole was a backpack filled with 30 David Hein CDs, a book on musical theatre, and 6 cat toys
5. Got stuck in the snow in the middle of the Rockies
6. Got told that I "looked a lot like Stephen Harper"
7. Played on two internet TV shows on oldstv.com and on the vancouver city limits youtube channel on youtube.com
8. Came very close to getting attacked by a bear (okay, really, I just saw bear markings, but still...)
9. Got pulled over twice by the police... apparently just to discuss what kind of music I played
10. Played some amazing house concerts - literally a new living room every night - and met some outstanding people there. Check out homeroutes.ca if you're interested in getting involved - either attending or hosting - and tell them I sent you!

To everyone I met on the tour, it's was GREAT to meet you - please keep in touch. And to everyone, happy holidays. Hope winter is good to you. Keep safe and don't drive through the Rockies on bald, all-weather tires.

Best,
David