August is in a Rush to get here

The summer's almost over and I still haven't gone to Gros Morne. I don't think I've shut up about going camping there since last summer when I went to a cabin about 40 minutes outside of town with a few friends. I said "Cabin? That's not camping, that's a fucking house in the woods. If I wanted to get drunk in a house in the woods I'd go to my dad's place. At least there I'm not paying for beer or board."

Regardless of my stubbornness, we had a time and I wouldn't mind going back to Rabbit Pond (?can't quite remember if that's the right name...), but I still felt like I was missing the fun that tenting includes. To me, camping is in tents....sorry couldn't resist that well-worn pun, Candice, heh. Don't get me wrong either, there's a time and a place for cabin-going, like May 24th weekend and the like...

I had hoped I'd be leaving St. John's in August for school (which looks now like it's definitely not happening...at least not this year). I was adamant I'd go to Gros Morne when I returned back from the UK and have spent the past few weeks bugging friends that we should go because we're missing out on so much on the Avalon Peninsula.  I haven't been there since I was seven and considering that the first of August is going to be my 20th anniversary of living in Canada, I wanted to do something quintessentially Canadian, heading out into the deep dark woods.

Hell, at this point I don't really care if I'm on the West Coast, I just want to get a tent, some food to barbeque, some other camping "essentials," and my best friends, get far enough away from the city, and just pray that it won't rain. Actually, after the classic Scottish rain that happened at Rockness, which took place at Loch Ness, I think I can handle a bit of Newfoundland rain. I might just embrace it.

To sum up the degree of soaked-ness: I was standing 25 feet in the air for eight hours on an Oxfam observation tower, got soaked through a cheapo rain poncho, my "175 quid tabard" (it was considered our security deposit, if we lost it we wouldn't get our money back) a leather coat, fleece liner, hoodie, t-shirt, tank top, rubber boots, my jeans, socks,  and underwear, then had to put almost all of it all on the next day because my backpack with my layers in it got drenched as well. There's not much more disgusting than having to put on rain damp muddy clothes. And yet it was still the best weekend EVER. Even though the streamers I caught at the Flaming Lips show got soaked in my backpack and I had to toss them because it just looked like wet toilet paper. And I nearly ruined my grandmother's cellphone when it got water-logged. Luckily it only really rained for half the weekend....I can't wait to go back!

Taken from my observation tower when it WASN'T a downpour. Lovely view of the main stage, the Loch, and the toilets.

I'm pretty excited about tomorrow, I'm supposed doing a few interviews for the Current's Folk Festival cover story in the evening. I haven't done any proper music writing since before I went on holiday, so I'm happy to get back into it. Once they're published, I'll start posting the articles on here again. I should rack my hard drive some day for old interviews to post, there's a few I really liked, especially the Weakerthans piece where I completely embarrassed myself for the sake of a funny article...:)

More rainy day projects to add to the list (like unpacking my room...guuh). Maybe if I put enough clothes on top of the boxes they'll go away. Maybe.