At last we are back in the North Country where there are more trees than people! Up at 5 am, lobby call at 6 am, in the air and heading for Vancouver by 8 a.m. The flight from Vancouver out to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island took 15 minutes in a Dash 8. We flew low over the straight, my eyes scanning the waves for Orcas. Alas, the Orcas weren't singing that morning.

Nanaimo was a first for the Junkies, the first country fair. The audience was great. It was obvious that they had come to see us, but the fair itself was the proverbial country fair with all sorts of contests for the kids and their livestock, a midway featuring a Zipper, miniature horses, miniature donuts, a vintage tractor display, a blacksmith and us.

Unfortunately, Margo had a bad cold that had hounded her in Seattle and Portland and finally caught up with her in Nanaimo making it difficult to sing the more demanding songs. And so, the show started with Mike calling the changes in the set list as we played: Towne's Blues was dropped, Miles became Powder Finger, License to Kill became Pale Sun, but we still managed Common Disaster, Sweet Jane, Walking and Shinning Moon. Through it all Margo soldiered on with a slightly deeper voice.

After the show it was hot mini donuts all around from the local donut guy who wanted an endorsement. Jason had rented the hockey rink on the fairground with skates and equipment. This was the cause of great excitement, but it meant waiting an hour for our ice time after the show. Sadly, the need for sleep was greater then the urge to tie on the blades and beat the crap out of our considerably younger American crew.

Didn't see much of Nanaimo except the road in and out of the airport and the pier directly below the hotel, but one could not ignore the sanguine coastal climate. Leaving it, the brain wrestled with the illogic of returning to the deep pollution of Toronto and trading health and the good life for respiratory malfunction, a shortened life, and a wider selection of first run movie theatres.

Nanaimo is the sunshine and fresh air.