my first car

you might wonder what my first car has to do with our motorcycle ride to moose jaw, but i will explain in a minute. it was a matter of choosing to turn left or right at the end of the road, so we turned right and started off with a plan of going to walsh for dinner at the trailside restaurant and then maybe spend the night at the elkwater lodge, but the trailside restaurant was closed (now only open monday to friday) so i said, how about lets go to moose jaw! Roz Church (my ex weekend news gal and now CHAT TV promotions director) was there visiting dustin dion (ex my96er, now morning guy on Moose Jaw's Country 100... our little guy is a big kid now!) so we said what the heck. it is so wonderful on the bike, i feel so close to nature. i could hear the trill of the meadowlark, see the huge red ball of fire setting in the prairie sky, smell of cool dew on freshly turned soil that reminded me of digging for worms in the garden as a kid, and jack frost nipping at your n-n-nose and t-t-toes because after the sun sets, it gets cold on a bike very fast and my chaps won't be in until friday. forget bad to the bone.. more like cold to the bone. we stopped in swift current to find a jacuzzi suite we could warm up in and gave my buddy darwin gooding (ex CJSW morning man etc) a quick call to see if he could come out to the big eye for a round, but his daughter was being baptized the next day so ray and i danced to the live band until the wee hours of the morning.

no need to set alarms for the next morning since my internal body clock is set for the crack of 10, enough time to be checked out by 11 and on our way to the jaw. dustin gave us a quick tour of his newly renovated 1912 home and then we followed him out to a farm with tons of old cars for jason blaine's video shoot! how cool was that. we met jason as they were breaking for lunch, his wife amy was there and his little brother matt (drummer) kept us entertained til the shoot began. we were going to get a picture taken with jason sitting on one of the old rusty cars but he warned us against going into the long grass, it was tick season and they had spent the last two days picking them off themselves... brad paisley's song tick was definitely going thru our heads til jasons new song (which we just added to CHAT today) began playing. can't wait to see the final product when 'My First Car' debuts on CMT and we were even asked about our first cars on camera.. and asked if we would mind if it ended up on CMT in a promo for the song - HECK NO!!!

but then we had to head back home and let them get back to work so we drove past my old place (414 Fairford Ave W) and took a picture for old time sake. ray couldn't believe how small it was, but that was back in 82 when my son was just born. we moved to dartmouth nova scotia 6 months later, but that was our first real house we lived in, but i digress, back to the bike trip, we were planning to head all the way home, but once again, it got cold, and started to rain, and me with no chaps, we decided to stay in swift current again, and aaron pritchett was playing at the pavillion, so we went to the concert, (thank you carmen) bought his last cd (new one is coming out in november) and a shirt and back to the hotel until, yes, 10 am the next day, and headed home. this tim we were able to have lunch at the trailside (missed jeff and carol though, next time we hope to be able to visit) and admired all the ranch brands on the wall (especially dimented acres golf and country club) and then headed home, only to jump in the shower, repack, and jump in the caddy to go to the aaron pritchett concert in lethbridge! lol. we picked up Roz at the end (or would it be beginning) of the etzikom highway and were chauffeured by a hot cowboy to another hotel room and met up with roz's cousin from calgary and my friend andrea from edmonton (ex power92er and now adtel extrordinaire) and then to suede for the concert. Lethbridge's own brianne urban opened the show and WOW! that young girls voice just blew me away. i hope she has another single coming out soon, she made it to #80 with her first one. we had a blast at the concert but ray and i were so tired after so many late nights, we hit the hay early and missed out on hanging with aaron at Boston Pizza (yes, AP goes to BP when he is on tour) and then even to denny's at 4 am.

but it was up and at'em at 10 am, some burger king to get us fed and then drive back to the etzikon to pick up the vehicled, drive to the hat and head to work. so it's been a whirlwind weekend and lots of good memories with ray, roz, dustin, jason and aaron and i haven't been in my own bed for 4 nights and can't wait to crash when i am done my show at midnight. as long as i don't crash ray's caddy on the drive home!