Chicks & Eagles

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

LOCATION:  Winnipeg, MB

WEATHER: Cloudy with sunny breaks and huuuumid (but no t-storms! Woo!)

Well, we thought we'd take Beula out on the town this morning just to check out the scene and find a Crappy Tire and maybe a Speedy Glass to fix the ol' chip in her peepers.  So we depart from the hotel around 11:30 a.m. and find the stadium where the concert's going to be tonight and then whaddya know, one street down we find a Crappy.  We pull in and Dad's wheelin' and dealin' through the parking lot like he's on a 10-speed when !*HJ#*HB#&*YU@O!U*@&HB#&!!!  SON. OF. A.  The chip in the windshield is the least of our worries now.  Beula just smashed the ever-loving shit out of a defenseless and unsuspecting Ford Escape, tearing off its left side mirror and proceeding to dent the front left fender and oh hell, why not, put a big scrape in the tire, too.  We didn't make off scott free ourselves, with a big soccer ball-sized hole (now covered ever so elegantly in a lovely shade of duct tape) on the back left side, mud flap hangin' by a string, and a sweet dent in the awning frame.  Looks like we don't have to worry about putting the awning down for fear it might not go back up anymore.  She's now a useless feature.  ANYWAY, even though everyone later admitted that their initial reaction was to peel outta that parking lot like a bat outta hell, we behaved as responsible civilians and decided to wait until the owner came out and lost his or her shit.  It turned out to be a Torontonian woman, currently working in MB, by the name of Francine who's life has apparently been the shits as of late, as she was "not surprised at all."  Sorry, France, wherever you are.  Hope this wasn't the final straw that sent you reeling over the edge.  But an hour or so later, everything was finally settled with the insurance and we bid Francey an apologetic adieu.  After it was all said and done, Ben said he had just been thinking to himself how well Dad maneuvered Beula around and then BAM!  But I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

So that being more than enough excitement for one afternoon, we wormed our way through traffic (& all of its dickheads - Dad: "What happened to fuckin' friendly Manitoba?!") and headed back to the hotel to sack out until concert time.  Our initial plan was to drive to the stadium and camp out in the parking lot until the doors opened and then wait for 83 hours afterward until the lot cleared out enough for us to weasel out with no further catastrophe to add to our record.  We quickly realized, however, that it was a madhouse downtown and  that was probably the worst idea we could've had so we aborted the mission and headed back to the hotel to catch cabs.  We split up with me and Ben in one cab and Mom, Dad, and Mike in the other.  Allow me this opportunity to mention how many times Mom had previously said, "Imagine if I forgot the tickets?"  Well..  I'll let you run with that.  Eventually they got there and we finally made our way inside to our seats. The concert was great. Aunty Buff, I tried to stuff Glenn Frey in m'purse 'cause he looked like the shortest one, but he got away!  Haha  But thank God, the weather held out and was perfect all night without a drop of rain.  I think the guy who came out screaming, "THAT WAS FANTASTIIIIC!" at the top of his lungs summed it up best.  We even managed to beat 25,000 people to the cabs when it was over and made it back in record time.

All in all, it was great weather, a great concert, and a great night - & I'll try to post more pictures soon!

Tomorrow, it's back on the road.

Letting the good times roll,