The next day I lounge at my hotel, getting hypnotized by cable tv and watching old 80's movies (anyone remember Enemy Mine? Awesome!). Eventually house keeping forces me out and I check out, relieved to find that my car hasn't been broken into.

I stop by the Starbucks on the way out, drop off some posters and hunt for CDs - I'm trying to bone up on some of the musicians that I'm playing with this Summer so I'm looking for Justin Rutledge, The Salads, Oh Susanna, etc. (I'm already pretty familiar with Sarah Harmer, Jim Cuddy, Sloan & The Trews... but am still ridiculously excited about playing at the same festival as them all). I also have brought no CDs with me on the trip and am looking at a couple 8 hour drives, which will kill me. Sadly Chapters has zero CD selection so I head for North Bay.

The road to North Bay is plagued with construction - sometimes we just stop, everyone hanging out on the road with their windows up because of the dust and their A/C on to prevent death by sweltering sun. Still, I get their quickly and meet up with Allison Green and some of her family/friends at a Moose-themed restaurant made of logs. I get their early and read some of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods." I seem to always read Bill Bryson when on tour. Anyway, I read about getting attacked by bears for a while and then they arrive. We have dinner. I play with Allison's cousin's daughter, Tessa, who's pretty cute.

I head over to the bar, 100 Georges, where the sign on the front proudly proclaims that someone else is playing on Friday (it's Thursday). Inside they apologize and switch the sign over to say "TONIGHT. DAVID HEIN LIVE." which I'm sure will bring in hundreds of people.

100 Georges just went through a big renovation and is now very fancified. I'm wearing my figment dragon shirt and feel suddenly under-dressed - luckily I've brought 2 dress shirts for the Science North gig and switch into the clean one, which I realize, once I get under the stage lights, may be made of polyester. Whatever it is, it encourages sweating.

The show goes great and starts as a background music cover gig - with many requests - some of which I know (Barenaked Ladies, Dylan) and some of which I don't, but try valiently anyway (Don McLean, Tom Petty). A bunch of folks buy CDs - one strange man refuses to pay more than $10 for a CD saying that he's a pensioner (a pensioner who's on a golf/fishing trip up to North Bay with all his friends... hmmm). He tries to barter, saying he'll pay $15 if Allison's friend, Lisa, comes with the package. Ummmmm, no.

Eventually people trickle away - 100 Georges in its new fancified look is more restaurant than hopping bar (like it was last time I played there) and the crowd goes home after dinner. So the gig transitions into a nice intimate show for the small crowd left - I play some new ones and end on Grace - a song about drinking too much with the chorus "I wish that I weren't here." Allison says that that's a downer way to end a show, so I play Guilt Trip Song - an infinitely more negative way to end.

I crash at Allison's sister's place and hang out with her and her boyfriend, Ed for a bit. The next day I head to the mall (and find Justin Rutledge and Oh Susanna - awesome!), grab lunch in the food court and then sit there getting some graphic design done on my laptop. Then I realize I'm in a food court and take off to enjoy some sun.

Allison gets off work and we head to Sudbury to play at Starbucks. I've played here before, but never with my sound system. The place is relatively packed - there's a movie theatre near by and Pirates of the Carribean is opening - which apparently is big enough news to bring people from over 2 hours away.

I meet a nice guy who's mother recently passed away and who is trying to figure out an algorithm for early detection of seizures - he promised his mother that he'd name the algorithm after her. She also loved music and he requests some tunes, so I play Here Comes The Sun for him (another song I've never played before). Quickly it becomes all-request night at Starbucks - I play a bunch of Blue Rodeo, Dylan, and some others. The only requests I can't do are EVERY request that comes from the Starbucks staff (Come on! BYORK?!!!??). The show goes great though. A very cute 7 year old girl in the front row makes shy smiles at me the whole time.

I wrap up and with free Starbucks drinks in hand, we head back over to the Little Montreal Bar where I was maybe booked. Bev, the owner, said "yeah, come on over on Friday and we'll see what's happening."

Turns out, what was happening was there was an 80's duo playing and a small rat had escaped under a radiator. A girl had come in for Nachos and had brought her pet rat, who was apparently afraid of 80's power ballads and ran under the radiator. Bev was angry, the girl was hysterical, her boyfriend (?) was beligerant and the rat was not coming out. The atmosphere was tense. The beligerant boyfriend yelled at the 80's band. The girl cried. We sat with a new friend from the other night - the future owner of Sudbury's first Thai restaurant.

Eventually the 80's duo took a break and the rat came out. The girl left in tears apologizing for ruining the night. "Not the whole night," Bev said. She invited me back to play there and I was also invited possibly to play the opening of the Thai restaurant (which would be a first). Eventually we take off and drive through the darkness back to North Bay, 2 hours in the wrong direction from tomorrow's show in Sault Ste. Marie, but a free couch to crash on and company for the drive. Another well planned tour.