Regina-Bound | The Show | After-Gig | Trip Home
Back To Van.

There are white fields that seem to glow in the dark out here. I don’t know what they are. The new driver who got on in Brooks looks like he’s 12. At 5am we hit Strathmore, where there’s a really neat old cemetery. The sky is lightening to a glorious dawn in the east. It’s chasing us. “What did you think you would see? That the sky’d open up and show you all its glory?” I want Red Stars Theory’s September to be my wedding song. Granted, I don’t want to get married for years and years yet, but I need to keep it in mind. “Every place I’ve seen; Nowhere I’d rather be; Than with you…” This revelation is courtesy of my 5:20am delirium.

It is now nighttime-dark on one side of us and daylighty on the other. How neat. We hit Calgary at 5:40, where I have to transfer buses. The Vancouver bus departs at 7am. I will miss the sunrise in order to keep myself a decent spot in line. The dreadlocked boy and his sex partner head off to a different bus.

At 7:20, we are still in the terminal. There’s a million people getting on these two Vancouver buses, and someone has mistakenly boarded the wrong bus. There’s an amusing trio of gay guys on the back of the bus. They were sitting across from me at the terminal too. They have a lot of luggage, and are very flamboyant, but they look like video game nerds. I hate how crowded this bus is, but my seat is still empty. Now there is a pair of Asian girls pushing my seat from behind. There is a grating noise, and I think they are fiddling with the stereo controls. Ariana Incomplete is entrenched firmly in my head, and has been drifting through my mindscape since Todd mentioned it somewhere along the way. I completely love the song (how can you not?), but all I keep hearing is the distinctive “AaaahhrEEEyanaaaaa take from meeeee… ArheeeeHAN. AHH. IN. COM. PLEEET…” What a fuckin’ voice that man has. My god.

I hate it when dull, idiotic people try to make conversation with you on the bus just because they’re sitting beside you. DO I LOOK INTRIGUING TO YOU OR SOMETHING?!?!?! The movie Hearts In Atlantis is playing already but the sound is on through the bus. My leg is now fine but my hand is still achy. And I realize just how haphazard my writing from the nighttime hours is. I was blind. Not bad considering that, I guess. I managed to get pen all over my hands though. I spoke too soon, as I have now acquired a pleasant female seatmate. She seems like a quiet girl. Her friend is sitting across the aisle from her. There was a creepy smelly guy first in line for general boarding. I don’t know where he is now, but I can smell him. There’s a courier package lying in the bus lane next to us. I hope someone finds it and does something about that. There’s a big creepy dude who keeps looking back at the girls sitting behind him. Seedy. The clever girl beside me is blowing up a neck pillow. Smart. She admits it looks goofy but keeps her comfy.

Another fun bus driver. He greeted the bus with a raucous Good Morning, and was met with silence. “Oh boy, lots of people ready to go! What a response! It sounds like you’re ready for class and waiting for your homework already!” Now my ribs hurt, in addition to my left pinky killing me. This driver says I should be home by 8:40. In New Westminster.

I forgot how good SELF is. Ken Andrews is the man. Cows are so fucking cool. Big fat asses up in the air and they just don’t care who’s looking. Hawk sighting at 8am. Gorgeous bird. The hay bale rolls in the fields. I need to do a cross-Canada trip in a car with some pals and just stop everywhere and shoot. Dusk is cool. So is dawn. It’s morning now. Looking for animals and not having much success. Here come the mountains, and what do you know, I choose now to start dozing off. Sun, exhaustion and the lolling road. Taking its toll. Someone painted DAD on a grassy incline. The deer on the wildlife signs near Banff look fat and clumsy and silly. We are in Banff by 9:10, and my hand is absolutely killing me. It’s starting to stretch all up my arm now. 48 hours ago I was cozily lying in a hotel bed, snoozing and awaiting a show.

10:30 in the Rockies somewhere. We just passed a tour bus that had stopped on the side of the road and all its passengers were off looking for something with their cameras. Obviously some wildlife, but I saw nothing. I don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on in this movie, but the cinematography is great. It’s very emotional. We are driving by a river that is such a neat milky, minty blue. To think, there was a time not that long ago, that Vancouver looked like this. All trees and rocks and lakes. The guy in the movie has a baseball bat that he’s not using for baseball. If you’re not TK or his band, you might not get that. We pass by a whitewaterrafting trek in a river. I want to do that sometime. The construction is still going on outside of Golden, and the movie ends five minutes before we get there. 11:15 with a half hour stop. SUBWAY never tasted so good. I haven’t eaten since Swift Current. After sitting for that long, not even standing to stretch, between Calgary and Golden, I thought my legs were just going to give out. Circulation good.

The stone here is amazing. I can see small chips falling off of the cliffs that tower above the highway. There are huge nets supported by poles that are jammed into the rock far up. Nine hours to go from here. The hand hurt is subsiding slightly and a couple guys just came back on the bus reeking to high holy hell of pot. *CREERK!* “Whoa, that was my pants ripping!” says hackysack guy #1, as his pants got caught on the armrest.

Fucking, man, they were fucking on the bus! How did no one speak up about this? They just turned away when they walked past to the washroom. Were they convinced it was a hallucination? Or maybe they weren’t seeing it right, because, who has the lack of sense to screw on a charter bus? I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to have to confront people like that. I felt like turning around, grabbing the chick around the waist, picking her up off that guy’s cock, hauling her into the seat in front of me, and telling her to fucking sit there and not move. Then turn to the guy and kick him in the nuts for being such a jackass. Sorry, sweetie, you’re cute, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with this. Could they not at least use the bathroom? It’s not like they were being subtle anyhow.

I don’t understand how, at this moment, there are people NOT looking out the windows in wonder at this all! I just saw another eagle above the trees. The rocks here are shiny and pink, like some sort of weird metal. And this pen is slowly dying on me. There is a stone arch over a waterfall up on a mountain. It’s part of that incredible old rail line, and is now a tourist attraction. It’s amazing.

I’m dozing more now and my legs are getting more uncomfy as we arrive in Revelstoke. This would be a nice place to come home to. In the mountains. The prairies bred much more asinine and creative comments in me.

“Drift like sleep into the Hotel Montana. Like a voice in an empty house; breathe your breath and speak to me. And speak through me.”

The hackysack three really suck. Really. It’s painful to watch them. I’m so bitter suddenly. Hackysack guy #1 just whipped hackysack guy #3 in the balls with the hackysack. They’re all laughing. Why are we still waiting for our new driver, and why am I forced to stare at this chick’s ass while she leans across her seat? “Shook out my salvation, in all four corners of my room…”

Leonard Maltin’s Animated Favourites is playing. I have got to find this. Interesting animation, and all Canadian. There is a black, still lake beside us reflecting the sky. We pass 3 Valley again. There’s a ghost town here, and that amazing hotel, which still looks impressive in daylight. The hellfire funnels are no longer smoldering either. “Synthesizers give me some wings. We are electronic performers. We are electronics.” This is where I would keep my horses. A sunny, grassy valley between the highway and the railroad. There is a clear, cool creek meandering through the grasses. I think Todd said something about wanting a horse, and how he could have rode it to Regina and just let it wander around the hotel room.

Sicamous is apparently the houseboat capital of Canada. There are ostrich farms, chickens in the forests, and lots of mobile homes and adventure companies. The water here is very turquoise and it’s 2pm. We have been playing leapfrog with a large truck full of colourful playground equipment for hours. I assume it wants me to mention it, or it wouldn’t keep showing up. I bet now I won’t see it for the rest of the trip. Clearcutting sucks, and the golf course in Salmon Arm looks like carpet, it’s so plush. It’s 2:15, back on Pacific Standard time, but it feels more like 8 or so. Who needs sleep when you’ve got rock n’ roll? The Chase area of Shushwap has enormous shallows. You can see the pale sand just below the surface all the way to the end of the dock.

I realize how useless I am at music, so I have to live vicariously through people like these fine gentlemen to exist. I wish I could make myself a musician, but I can’t, so why bother trying? I have a talent that I can apply to music and musicians through my photography, so I would best stick with that, and improve what I know. There’s so many talentless, hackish doorknobs chasing their stupid rockstar dreams and clogging the industry with crap. Why should I add to that just because I’m a whiner? Hello darkness my old friend…

We arrive in Kamloops around 4:30pm. The people I see in Kamloops stink, and their bathrooms are rank. I suppose I’m no sugarcube by now myself though. I haven’t seen the truck with the playground equipment again yet. Looks like I managed to appease it. There are still a couple of people with me from Regina, like the old man who talks to other people as though he’s talking to himself. The nice girl who got on in Calgary hasn’t exchanged a single word with me. I’m listening to tunes, and she has a friend. They got off the bus in Salmon Arm to meet one of their grandmothers, who loaded them up with grandmotherly food. It smells and looks good. I haven’t spend even $20 on food on the way home so far. And I feel great! How do I do it? The hackysack 3 are eating McDonald’s ice cream cones outside the bus. Must be too hot to ‘sack. Kamloops is muggy.

Kamloops doesn’t seem like a terrible place. Odd-looking. Dry. Smallish. “Oh look, they have a Starbuck’s! Oh my god, is that a Chapters??” was the exclamation on the way in with the band. I expect to see a frontier town up here or something. The Kamloops area has such a strange, dusty beauty. Sandy, craggy cliffs with fences marching over them, dry hills, salt-encrusted lakes and sun sun sun. There is a guy outside of Kamloops photographing his buddy by their broken-down car on the highway. Such a proud moment.

Finally I see a deer. 5:15 on my last day. Eating at a shrub by the livestock fence. It looked really skinny for some reason. At 5:20, there is a family of black bears! They are by the wildlife fence. One of the cubs is on the road side of the fence, and the other cub and the mom look like theyre trying to figure out how to get to him. There is a sheep alone and feeding contentedly outside of Merritt. Why only one sheep? And would you call that a shoop? Moo, there's a cow. It’s cute. That’s it, sleep is a must. There is one poof of cloud that’s been following us for some time, but the sun is still stinging my eyes. It’s getting really warm on the bus. I keep losing focus and drifting away, jolted back by points in the songs I’m listening to. The slide zone near Hope is incredible. Blasters, trees down like a river, carved paths, piles of rubble. Everywhere! The shale mountain is amazing too. I love it, every time I see it. It looks like a melted pile of pewter wax. People are so tiny compared to all of this. The clouds are a steely grey through Roger’s pass. Looks like a storm, but it never comes. The sun pokes through here and there. There are prints on the sand in a river bed that look too small to be human. Elk perhaps?

We hit Chilliwack by 7:20. I need to find the name of that junkyard near the airport so I can go there and shoot. The weather is pleasant, and the journey is nearing it’s close. Holy shit, it was so damn neat! I love Todd for this! What an experience. There is a tabby cat hanging out near the side of the highway in the ‘Wack. That can’t be good. Go home kitty! We are going to Abbottsford because the connecting bus in Chilliwack never showed up. Those fucking people, where do they keep their brains? Not on their person, obviously. I don’t know why this consumes me so much, but what gall! We are in Abbottsford at 8:05. And I leave the bus with my belongings in New Westminster just before 9pm. It was a 27-hour trip. Now I shall wait for my ride and go to bed, which is well deserving.

Todd Kerns. He’ll save your sanity. Good night.

All images and words © 2002 Andy Scheffler/Todd Kerns and may not be
reproduced without permission. Email MasterAndy with any questions.