Prasheel Goes to Winnipeg

Background: I'm on a touring stunt team called 'Craz-E Crew'. I travel and do shows. We have shows at the Red River Ex in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Day 1:

Wake up at 5:30am, as I was told I's being picked up at 6. It was a little rough getting up at that time, as I went out the night before, and only went to bed at 2:30. Sure enough, I had a little extra time in the morning as the tour van was expectedly late in picking me up. Ben Kauffman finally calls and shows up, and we hit the road at 7.

In the van already is Will Fisher and Paul Hoerdt, both of whom I haven't met or done shows with before, but quickly learn that they're both rad dudes. I've been on the road with Ben a few times previous, which is always a good time. He pretty much runs the ship. I find out that our other two guys (Dave Osato and Richard Sarrazin) are flying in to winnipeg on Thursday night and Saturday morning, respectively.

In the van, I am pretty much useless. For the most part, I just eat, piss, and pass out, filling the time in between by chatting with the guys, listening to music, or watching some cartoons I downloaded previous for this purpose of passing time.

Around 9pm, I wake up when Ben pulls over to the side of the road. We've apparently lost a tire on the trailer on the side of the highway. The four of us wander around in and around the bushes for half an hour, but turn up empty handed.

The closest town to us is Longlac, Ontario, which is still an 80km trek from where we were. With a lack of options available, we slowly make our way there, with only three wheels on the trailer. I pass out again along the way.

Around 11:30pm, I wake up again when Ben pulls over to the side of the road. The tire next to the one we've lost has apparently gone flat, right as we were pulling in to town. It's a quick fix, and we check in to a hotel for the night, and proceed to drink whiskey Ben has packed.


Day 2:

I wake up, and within 10 minutes, Ben says we're heading back to the spot from last night, and are not returning without our tire. He's already dropped the trailer at a garage, and they are apparently quite helpful, but without the tire, they can't really do much for us today. So, we now make the much shorter drive out there (finally going at appropriate speeds), and after a half hour of lurking through bushes, Ben emerges with our tire. We head back to Longlac.

We're still apparently out of luck, as our bearings are blown and we need a new hub, which they need to order from Thunderbay (4h east of our location), so we're stuck in Longlac for another night.

We make our way over to the LCBO (liquor store) and acquire beverages for the evening, and get that started at 6pm. We later make our way over to the local pizzeria and steakhouse for a drunken dinner, which was taken care of courtesy of our manager. We head back to the hotel, drink more, and pass out.


Day 3:

Wake up, do breakfast, and chill for a bit. Around 10am, a couple hours earlier than expected, Ben comes in and tells us to pack up as the trailer is ready to go. We pick up the trailer, and head to get some gas and food before hitting the road. As we're waiting for Paul to finish paying for his Subway at the cornerstore, a Native man jumps in the van with us and makes conversation for about 5 minutes. We're not really sure what he was saying, but he kept opening the door to say goodbye to his friends, remarking that he's going to Winnipeg and will be back in a month. Paul finally gets back, and we convince our friend 'Dan' (which was the name on his jacket) to give Paul his seat back. We finally hit the road around 11:30, and proceed to drive for a long ass time.

Along the way, Ben made us watch a terribly gruesome movie called 'Dirty Sanchez' I believe. For the most part, it was a Jackass style film, but much much worse. It involved lady-boys, dismemberment, cannabalism, snorting lines of wasabi, and much worse.

We stopped in Ben's hometown, Kenora, for a little bit. We grabbed some food and headed to the skatepark, where the guys rode some bikes, did some tricks, and shot some photos. We headed back on the road again for another couple hours.

We finally reached Winnipeg at 1am (their time...which is an hour behind my normal time). The city seems nice, the people seem nice, the hotel seems nice, but...they gave us three rooms with one king sized bed in each. We normally have rooms with two queens, as there is six adult males on our trip. That aside, I lucked out and got a room twice the size of the others. I walked in to see a conference room, with a nice big table and chairs, sink, fridge, coffee maker, and a bathroom. Another door opens to reveal the master bedroom and master bathroom, with dual sinks and a nice large shower and two robes, hahaha.