[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.