I get up early and prepare myself for a LOT of driving. But the prairies are beautiful early in the morning – kind of underwater fields of blue. Plus I’ve just finished two Harry Potter books on tape and, although I kind of hate J.K. Rowling at this point, I have begun the 6th book.

I get into Medicine Hat early enough to get a couple Christmas presents for my folks – I drop them off and grab lunch with my Dad. It’s been great to get to duck back and see him so much.

But I have to keep going – Vancouver is very far away. Harry Potter going strong, I cruise through Calgary and head towards the mountains. I’ve chosen HWY 1 over 3, which is apparently more twisty-turny… but once I hit the mountains, I wonder how it could be. Suffice to say the beauty of these peaks is dwarfed by my fear of driving off them – especially once night falls and giant trucks start barreling all around me. No fun.

I pull into a town called Golden sometime around 7 that night. My muscles have totally cramped up and I’m getting tired. In front of me is a sign saying that the road ahead has serious visibility issues and poor road conditions. The guy at the gas station says that all the cars coming back from that route have been coated in mud and their headlight barely shone. I decide to stay the night here and brave an 8-hour trip tomorrow in the daylight – all before playing a show. Who booked this stupid tour??

The hotel is nice enough, but the internet isn’t working, so I use their strangely smelling whirlpool and sauna and try to uncramp my driving muscles.

The next morning, I’m up early and the daylight feels more hospitable to driving – but soon flurries are falling and, although I thought I was out of the worst of it in Vernon, my GPS tries to kill me by taking me the long way round. Up and down and round and round – my ears popping at least 20 times and my tires skidding underneath me – the only good thing about this road is that there doesn’t seem to be any giant trucks – they clearly have better relationships with their GPS units.