Jodie Ponto Photography

I’ve peed on more roadsides this summer than you probably have in your entire life.  The two that put the icing on the prettiest roadside pee cake were both in Jasper National Park.

A few long overdue photos of Seattle’s The Cave Singers and Miss Quincy & The Showdown rockin’ a sold-out show at The Royal in Nelson, BC on July 20, 2012.

Miss Quincy & The Showdown

The Cave Singers

A few excerpts from the Trout Forest Music Festival in Ear Falls, ON … Or, as we like to call it, Fredstival (after Fred Penner, who was without a doubt the highlight of the weekend).

Miss Quincy & The Showdown at the Trout Forest tavern.

Although Miss Quincy & The Showdown may have mean reputations, nothing can reduce them to a gaggle of giggling 6 year old girls faster than hanging out with Fred Penner for the weekend.

Poor Choices Christmas card shot with Andrew Neville.

Ross Roeck, King of Hospitality & Master of Midnight Pulled Pork.

Jonathan Byrd and Corin Raymond, 2 of this continent’s greatest songwriters, rehearse for their set.

Shari grows a horn (or drinks a viking festival goblet beer).

Post-festival van & trailer fumigation.

Here’s an absolute once in a lifetime photo adventure — Full moon light so bright that the sky & lake both shine hints of blue and a night & water so warm that no one hesitates to dive in naked for the 30+ second exposures required to make silhouettes appear.  All light in these photos is solely from the moon.

Oyama Lake by full moon light.

Midnight moonlit swim in Oyama Lake.

Miss Quincy & The Showdown moonlight as Sailor Moon.

Attempting to awaken Artemis.

How many upright bass players do you know who can hold their big brown friend above their head for 30 seconds while submerged naked in a lake? I only know one — Shari Rae.

In this summer’s second display of unprecedented sportiness (see Hiking Quincy Style for the first), Miss Quincy, The Showdown, and I spent the last weekend of July playing on & offstage at the Kumsheen Rafting Resort near Lytton, BC.

Room with a view.

View of White Canyon from our canvas cabin’s front porch (click on the panorama for a full screen view).

Inside our antique-clad, electricity-free, luxury wall tent (click on the panorama for a full screen view).

Shari feeling sexy in her wetsuit while Miss Q mopes about being given and XL sized one.

Whitewater rafting on the Thompson River Peruvian pirate ship style (photo by Timshel Jackson).

Celebrating Fiestas Patrias with Nice, Peruvian rafting guide extraordinaire (photo by Timshel Jackson).

First time I’ve ever watched Miss Quincy & The Showdown play while lounging in a hot tub.

Miss Quincy & The Showdown rock a late night rafting resort pool party.

Morning-after-whitewater-rafting partner yoga.

Once upon last week Miss Quincy, The Showdown, and I did something unprecedentedly sporty — we woke up at the buttcrack of dawn and went hiking in the Kootenays.  After our attempt to hike up Idaho Peak and frolic amongst the legendary wild mountain flowers was thwarted by a washed out road we decided to re-route our hike along the K & S (Kaslo & Slocan) Rail Trail, an old mining railway that was used from 1895-1955.

The trail begins at Sandon, a ghost town that during a late 1800′s mining boom boasted 5,000 residents, saloons & brothels galore, and was the first town in BC to be fully electrified.  It also served as a Japanese Canadian interment camp during WWII.

Buttcrack of dawn.

Miss Quincy & The Showdown go tour bus shopping amongst Sandon’s collection of vintage Vancouver trolley buses.

Why go hiking in hiking boots & fancy sweat-wicking clothing when you can go hiking shirtless & in flip flops?

Hitching a ride in a construction truck instead of making the grueling 2 hour uphill climb back to the trail-head.

Would you pick this girl up if you saw her hitchhiking?

Nothing cools you off after a long hot hike quite like 4 litres of Vag Watre.

Shari shaves her legs while Miss Q goes in to wash her hair during a post-hike Kootenay Lake bath. Shortly after this photo was taken a crusty old lady threatened to call the cops on us for indecent exposure.

Ruby aboard the Osprey 2000 headed from Kootenay Bay to Balfour.

Miss Quincy writes a new song, Shari picks her bass blisters, and Holly contemplates the view.

Beeeyoootiful Kootenay Lake.

Mistaking the Kootenay Lake Ferry for the Titanic, Shari and Miss Quincy belt out My Heart Will Go On from the bow.

Camping with an all-girl rock n’ roll band doesn’t usually involve roasting marshmallows around a Kumbaya singing campfire so much as it does rolling into the campground after the office closes, drinking beerverages, donning costumes, plugging in the band’s sound system to have a late night outdoor dance party, and rolling out the next morning before anyone has time to come around and collect the camping fees.

Photos below are from a rare night off that Miss Quincy, The Showdown, and I spent camping near Waterton Lakes National Park, AB.

A doe and her fawn right outside Ruby.

Getting the dance party started while setting up Camp Quincy.

Shari & Miss Quincy perform an impromptu air upright bass & guitar concert for a few lucky campers.

Camping costume change in Ruby. Notice the Bose speaker plugged into the trailer.

Picnic table costume change.

Shari as a camp tramp pin-up postcard.

You may remember meeting Ruby last year, Miss Quincy’s 1974 Trillium trailer.  We lived large in her for one whole week of tourcation before a misadventure with a tow truck driver left her stranded in Jasper for the rest of the summer.

After a year at the trailer rehab center, Ruby is not only back on the road with us, but has been revamped into a little jewel that would give even the most modest vintage trailer enthusiast a boner.

Ruby parkin’ with the big boys.

The newly revamped insides of Ruby (click on the panorama to get a better look). Yes, those are pin-up girl curtains.

In true trailer trash fashion, using an extension cord to steal power from the venue so I can compute and Miss Quincy can blow-dry her hair.

Curbside dressing room.

Miss Quincy on-demand silkscreens a Pussies Are For Eating t-shirt in Ruby after a show.

Having a beerverage in Ruby with C.R. Avery and Noah Walker (The Broken Mirrors) at South Country Fair.

Jamming in Ruby with Scott Cook at Freedom Fest.

I don’t know how many nights I’ve spent at Tracks Pub in Olds, AB … But more often than not it all ends in 3am table-top dance parties, inventing new interpretive dance fueled drinking games like Beer Pass, or one of the band members’ moms having to come pick us up in her pajamas late night high school style because none of us are fit to drive.

(Photos from Miss Quincy & The Showdown‘s July 14, 2012 show)