Caribou Tour Diary: Goodbye Canada, Hello Mt. Rainier

We've completed all of our Canadian dates. It's funny... I didn't really think that Caribou shows in Canada would be as crazy as they are. I have never been playing in a band that sold out a string of shows let alone one. To say the least, Canada treated Caribou very very well. I met a lot of people and we had some of our best shows to date. The ferry ride from Vancouver to Victoria was absolutely beautiful. We spotted a couple of leopard seals. The endless scenery of pine trees stacking on top of each other, packed together so tightly on small islands was so gnarly.

We were in Seattle last night. A lot of my time was spent looking outside at Mt. Rainier. If you are not familiar with that mountain I have attached this blog post with a picture of Mt. Rainier. It is single handedly the most ominous looking land mass in the west coast. I mean, look at it! You cannot take your eyes off of it at all (read previous post about my obsession with large things). I am totally going to kick this mountains ass one day and climb it. Sure, it's an active volcano and if it blows up it will completely wipe me and the entire city of Seattle out but at least I'll get to say that I kicked Mt. Rainier's ass.

The Seattle show was great as was the KEXP radio session that we did. Right now we're in Portland. We're playing at a place called the Doug Fir. It's a log cabin.... .No seriously....

Pretty excited for the upcoming dates. I have yet to go swimming on this tour and We'll be in California starting tomorrow. I have a rule that I must at least swim in one ocean while on tour. We missed our chance in Florida because I was fine tuning all the drum patterns I had learned the previous days. We did, in fact, get a chance to visit the city of Gibsonton while in Florida. Gibsonton is the town were all the carnies and circus freaks would live during the off season. Several of them have retired and live there to this day. Apparently the post office in Gibsonton has a midget desk and the city has an ordinance allowing residents to keep elephants and circus stuff on their front lawns.

That said, I was totally expecting to get into town and see Lobster Boy, The Alligator Man and Percilla the Monkey Girl hanging out drinking mimosas on some front porch. I didn't see such a thing at all. Granted it was a Sunday but still... That's when I would be drinking mimosas on some front porch.... wouldn't you?
Post office was closed, the tallest man in the world's restaurant "Giant's Camp" was out of business and the closest thing to elephants that we saw were a couple of elephant ear candy trailers so it was some what of a let down. But it's ok. We ran into a park called "Nature Park" located right next to a giant smoke belching silo. That was kind of funny.

Things have been amazing. The guys are treating me as one of their own. I'm very blessed to be in this position. More to come...

Ahmed
"the replacement drummer"