How to Paint A Dying Bird Back to Life

So we've made it to Kelowna. Twas a long long trip to get here from vancouver, but we made it. Josh and Shawn are currently making a trip to Kal-Tire, while I sit at an old friends house writing this blog to you.

You may be wondering how getting to Kelowna from Vancouver is a long trip when really it should only take a bit over 4 hours, and you'd be even more surprised to find out that it took us around 8 hours to make the trip. Well wonder no further for i will tell you how such a trip could take so long.

I'd woken up with premonitions about our journey on Thursday night as the last time we'd driven the Coquihalla we'd hit snow, fishtailed, put on our cables and then had them break about 20 minutes later. We still didn't have new tires, and now that i think of it we hadn't purchased new tires since we'd purchased our van in the spring of 2008. Since then we've taken our van on 4 tours, 2 all the way across canada. We've put about 45,000 clicks on our van since we purchased it and the tires weren't even new then. So tires, not fit for the journey, but we had purchased new chains.

Around 1 PM we saw somewhat of an omen. On a curb just of Main Street and Terminal a pigeon was lying on the sidewalk, flapping one wing and looking like it needed to be put out of it's misery. After our roommate Jarred, who decided to make the trip with us, declared it to be a bad omen, I said the we should probably knock on wood. Shawn was quick to correct me saying that it was kind of difficult to knock on wood in our van, where there was no wood. Save for the guitars that were in their cases, and us being far too lazy to open up the cases etc, etc. Plus we're really not that superstitious.

I made an off color joke, no pun intended, about the only way we could undo this omen is if we could somehow paint the bird back to life. I think acrylic and oil paint would be a bit heavy, much more suited for putting the bird out of it's misery. We'd probably have to use a light water color or the spray cans. But we needed to be in Kelowna by 6 and like I said, we're really not that superstitious...

We head for the highway and it's Friday so of course we hit bad traffic for an hour or so. After getting some gas and being relieved from the driver's seat by Shawn I hit the back seat for some sweet sweet nap time. I awake as the van is fishtailing up the Coquihalla. We immediately pull over and start to put chains on the tires. On the side of the road we quickly realize that our headlights have both burnt out. Our high beams still work but not one, but both headlights are burnt out. Looks like we're driving the whole way with our high beams on.

The next thing we notice is that it's cold. It's snowing, and it's really not as temperate as vancouver. Josh quickly jumps back in the driver seat announcing that he'll back us over the chains when we tell him to. We lay the chains out, josh backs over them, and we then proceed to struggle to get the chains hooked on the the tires.
Now two things make this difficult, or three, three things make this difficult. 1. It's dark and you can't see behind the wheel very well to hook up the chains, 2. your hands are freezing, cuz you're a city boy who couldn't have possibly thought about how cold it is in the interior and 3. you have to get that chain as tight as possible which is tougher than ever with painfully numb fingers. If you don't you'll hear a rickety tickety clackety clackety in your wheel well as you drive.

After much cursing and struggling with the cold josh opens the door and asks us if we want to borrow the gloves he's wearing. More cursing ensues as the hilarity of the gloves being on the guy who's keeping himself warm in the van. We finally get the chains on and depart. Moments later the rickety tickety starts up in the left wheel well. We stop tighten them a bit, continue on. Rickety tickety continues. We then proceed to stop and tighten the chains every couple minutes because we just cant get the chains tight enough. At some point we even improvise and use other metal clips to connect the chains and use a pair of wire snips to tighten the metal clips around the chain. Drive, stop, tighten, curse, drive, clickety clackety, stop, curse, tighten. This goes on for 2 hours.

It's now 630 and we're still on the Coquihalla, and we were supposed to be in Kelowna at 6. We text the owner of the Habitat, who thankfully gives us no stress and tells us to just get there safe. We love Quinn, he's the Best. Finally, after tightening the chain for the 9th time, we figure we've got it now, nipped it in the bud.

Wrong. We drive away and in moments we hear the loudest clickety clackety yet. We inspect to see that the chain has now broken. It's at this time that i must advise you, or perhaps you can deduce this yourself.
Don't buy chains. Or do, but if you can, just get winter tires. It's so much easier. Yes it costs a lot of money, but isn't hassle an expense??

In the end we just slugged it out with our old crappy tires. We arrived in Kelowna at 9, a half hour after we were supposed to go on, but Quinn the Habitat's proprietor, who really is the BEST, let us play a full set, and it was tonnes of fun. Ohbijou the headliner rocked as well, check them out.

So how do you paint a dying bird back to life??? I don't think you do it with paint. Unless it's that spray paint that jerry o'connell used to make himself fly in My Secret Identity. Great show. Wish it was still on TV.