Country Jamboree Wannabe

This past weekend, I hit the road with Krista along Highway 7 towards Havelock, Ontario.  My parents were up there visiting Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette so I figured it was a great time to pay everyone a visit.  Krista’s parents live in Peterborough so I convinced her to go visit them and drop me off along the way.

During a fairly uneventful road trip (which involved the obligatory stop-over at Wendy’s in Perth), I arrived around 9:30, had some beers, listened to some tunes and went to bed.

The next morning I got the royal treat of some great breakfast and Uncle Greg showed me his vinyl collection which was pretty well a classic rock lover’s dream collection.  I had no idea that Uncle Greg was that much into music and I was amazed at how similar our tastes were.  We ended up hooking up the record player and listening to a few albums – Supertramp’s Indeliby Stamped which was decent upon first listen, The Beatles’ Abbey Road (our favourite) and some Blues artist that I can’t remember right now.  I also got him to hook me up with some great mix albums that he made and some Ted Hawkins and Mark Knopfler’ solo projects.  I will have to take a listen to them soon enough.

I also had a hand in shoveling the mile long driveway which was alright considering it was a mild day.  On the way up, Krista asked if I felt like more of an equal around my family now that I was an adult.  I thought about this and thought “Well, I suppose so?”.  But when I went to go shovel the driveway and I heard questions like “Do you have a toque?” or “Where are your mitts?” I realized that I shall always be a kid to these folks, which is fine by me.

We headed into Peterborough in the afternoon to the Toyota dealership where Mom and Dad tried out a few Camry’s.  In the end, they decided to wait for the 2009 models to come out (which is soon considering the 2009 Corolla’s are already out!) to see if the 2008 models will drop in price.

After a drop into Dairy Queen, we headed home, had some beer, listened to tunes (on a Gramophone!  Cross-Eyed Sue was a hit!) and played pool all night long (with a break in between consisting of a scrumptious club house sandwich and fries.  Yum!).  Unfortunately, Dad and I had a curse put upon us and we lost ten games of pool in a row to Mom and Uncle Greg.  We managed to squeak out four wins afterwards but as soon as we lost another game we realized it was futile to continue.

I then took out the guitar and must have played for a couple of hours.  The beer had hit me so I definitely wasn’t playing up to my usual standards but I was surrounded by family who are tone deaf anyhow so I had nothing to worry about.  I premiered In the 705, a song written about my Dad living in Sudbury in the 70s and I think it went over well.  I also played The Stomper and an old tune called Down That Old Road which got the fabled question “Who sings that song?” which can only mean that they enjoyed it.  It was with pleasure that I said that it was a Palmer original from years ago.  Good to see it had an effect on the crowd.

We retired for the night (I got to crash on the most comfortable sofa anyone has ever sat on) and the next morning Krista picked me up and we headed home with the crappiest pair of wipers I’ve ever had the pleasure of using and it didn’t help that freezing rain was hitting the windshield and making the wipers virtually useless.  We stopped into downtown Perth and went to the Crown pub for some lunch.  I had a great smoked meat sandwich and a Guinness before we headed on home.  While it was a long detour, it beat eating at Wendy’s again.  Clearly the weather was getting bad as I slipped on some ice and took a header into the road before getting into the car!

I arrived back in Ottawa to pick up Vero and we headed over to Carrie’s place where Katie and Jen were hanging out after a great night at the Heart and Crown.  We hung out there until the evening and then headed home in the desolate skating rink which was Ottawa before settling in to watch an episode of Flight of the Conchords.  The episode I watched may in fact be the funniest episode I’ve seen so far; it’s the one where they speak French to a bunch of Croissant-selling ladies.  Very hilarious.

iplaying: Head Like A Hole (Copper) – Nine Inch Nails (Head Like A Hole Single)