[ed. note: Today Elder JA and his wife, Lady R, share their experiences on the first day of the Spring 2026 Mountain Sapphire World Tour!]
The rental bus, formerly used by the Wolverine Eunuchs, proved to be a challenge right from the start. Neither I or First Mate Lady R smoke and it took quite a while to clean out all of the old cigarette butts. Or whatever they were, some of them smelled a bit like funny weed, not that I would ever know.
Having gotten the bus cleaned up and ready to roll, we stopped by the local Co-Op gas station, which has the lowest price, and filled the tank, 515 litres (113.2842 gallons) for the low, low price of $3342.35 (2,420.94 USD) and headed out on our journey.
Our first leg of the journey, to Consort, Ab, took us through Beaumont[1]and then down Highway 21 where we took the 3rd exit from the roundabout to Camrose. From there we visited the thriving metropolises of Daysland, Killam, Sedgewick, Hardisty, Amisk, Czar and finally arrived in Consort, about 3 ½ hours later.
Note to self: Small town restaurants are not open on civic holidays.
[ed. note: In Albert, this route is known as the “Golden Lasso”]
[1] There was initially some confusion, where Elder JA thought the first stop was in Beaumont, Texas! This added 86 hour and $3,99999 in gas, but it was really a minor blip and didn’t dampen their enthusiasm.
But Lady R got things straightened out.
And every cloud has a silver lining. They stopped at Buc-ees!
And today, being Queen Victoria day, the only place to eat was at the local truck stop, the one with the “Eat Here and Get Gas” sign. But ok, the pizza slice was expensive, but tasty, and it tided us over through our afternoon setup, performance and teardown. It’s a good thing we opted for the smaller, 6 KW[2] speakers or we would have been exhausted even before we started to play.
[ed. note: Elder JA may be pulling our leg just a bit. Here’s a video of the world’s largest guitar amp.]
The gig was great. When we first set up, there was only one old guy sitting in the lobby and he didn’t seem to know anything about a concert that day. But the cook showed us where to set up and sure enough, about 3 minutes before our scheduled starting time, the placed filled up. They were really terrific, laughing at our jokes and applauding our songs. Made the long trip worthwhile and gave us the encouragement we needed to carry on.
So, we finished our performance and 3 encores, packed up and headed down the road to Hanna and the Grey Goose hotel, arriving just at the right time for dinner in the restaurant and a quiet evening watching Stephen Colbert’s show from the previous Thursday.
End of log
