{"id":66543,"date":"2026-05-27T15:18:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=66543"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:18:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:18:41","slug":"captains-log-tour-date-0001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=66543","title":{"rendered":"Captain\u2019s Log, Tour Date 0001"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[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!]<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The rental bus, formerly used by the Wolverine Eunuchs<\/strong>, proved to be a challenge right from the start.\u00a0 Neither I<\/strong> or First Mate Lady R<\/strong> smoke and it took quite a while to clean out all of the old cigarette butts. \u00a0Or whatever they were, some of them smelled a bit like funny weed, not that I would ever know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our first leg of the journey, to Consort, Ab, took us through Beaumont[1]<\/sup>and then down Highway 21 where we took the 3rd<\/sup> 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 \u00bd hours later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to self:\u00a0 Small town restaurants are not open on civic holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ed. note: In Albert, this route is known as the “Golden Lasso”]<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/sup> There was initially some confusion, where Elder JA thought the first stop was in Beaumont, Texas! This added 86 hour and $3,99999 <\/sup>in gas, but it was really a minor blip and didn’t dampen their enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But Lady R got things straightened out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And every cloud has a silver lining. They stopped at Buc-ees!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And today, being Queen Victoria day<\/strong>, the only place to eat was at the local truck stop, the one with the \u201cEat Here and Get Gas\u201d sign.\u00a0 But ok, the pizza slice was expensive, but tasty, and it tided us over through our afternoon setup, performance and teardown.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good thing we opted for the smaller, 6 KW[2]<\/sup> speakers or we would have been exhausted even before we started to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[ed. note: Elder JA may be pulling our leg just a bit. Here’s a video of the world’s largest guitar amp.]<\/span>

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