Well, the Edmonton Fringe was alright after all. Though I haven't added up my final numbers, I don't think I ended up losing any money though I didn't make as much as I did last year. I also closed the show to my biggest house of the festival, filled with an incredibly appreciative crowd of Roller Derby players, including the famed "Roxy Balboa" & "Justin (now going by Dixon) Cider". That said, knowing that we would have a brief window between the close of the Edmonton Fringe and the mid-week preview night in Victoria, I decided the best thing for us was to take a mental health day. And since I had heard amazing things about Jasper, but had never been, I knew that was exactly where I wanted to go. So, after dropping off the fabulous Randi, who joined us in Calgary and followed us to Edmonton to work on the documentary, and Cory's always awesome heterosexual lifemate Tony at the airport for 5 a.m., I packed up the car and a few hours later we were on our way to the mountains.
Now, a "mental health day" should entail no work being done whatsoever, but of course that didn't happen. On our way, we stopped a few times to film some more footage for our Hunt Club Volkswagen Road Trip Diaries, there were plenty of discussions about what/who to film in Victoria and we've started talking about post-production & distribution of the film. But when the scenery around you is so beautiful, is it still really work?
Cory and Natalie had no idea where we would be staying because I wanted to surprise them. Weeks ago I decided I would splurge a bit and ended up with a great deal on a room at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. Of course, we couldn't tell anyone Cory was with us, since there was an extra charge for an additional person in the room.
The Lodge was, of course, pretty fantastic. We went swimming in their heated outdoor pool, had a great dinner and enjoyed some free smores by a campfire. It was everything I needed to relax.
The next day we woke up early, said goodbye to our awesome room and made it to Victoria in good time. For the first time, we were all being billeted separately, but fortunately all our places turned out to be really nice. Cory headed off to pick up his girlfriend (and my assistant) Emily from the airport while Natalie and I got ready for preview night.
And the next chapter of our journey continues in Victoria...