11:00 p.m. Pacific time, Best Western Hotel, Vernon, B.C.

This is the first "Tour Journal" entry that I'm writing specifically for the Anagnoson and Kinton web site. Jim and I are at the beginning of a seven-day tour of British Columbia, consisting of five concerts in Vernon, Port Moody, Mission, Denman Island, and Hornby Island, and our programme is as follows:

"Jupiter" from The Planets (original version by the composer)........................................Holst

Variations on a Theme of Haydn....................................................................................Brahms

The Blue Danube...............................................................................................Strauss/Chasins

Intermission

Capriccio for Two Pianos..................................................................................................Baker

Rhapsody in Blue (original version by the composer)................................................Gershwin

Our friend and tuner, Bill Chapple, arrived from Vancouver this morning in the truck with two 9-foot Yamaha concert grands in tow. He had picked up them up from the warehouse yesterday after flying to Vancouver from Edmonton. Jim and I had assumed that everything had gone off without a hitch, but I guess life is never that simple. When Bill got to the airport in Edmonton yesterday forty-five minutes before his flight, he was greeted with a lineup of about 100 people. After waiting for half an hour, he finally got checked in, and raced to the gate... only to find that they had given his seat away, and that the plane was full! The next Air Canada flight to Vancouver wasn't for a couple of hours, which would mean he would miss his appointment with the movers at the Yamaha warehouse. After making it clear that he just could not wait for two hours, they finally agreed to transfer him to a Canadian Airlines flight leaving in 45 minutes.

After arriving in Vancouver, Bill rented a small truck for the transportation of the pianos, and went to the warehouse, where the pianos were loaded with no problems. All was well... or at least, so he thought. Because of the distance to Vernon (about 400 km over the mountains) it had been decided that he would do the trip in two legs. In any case, there would some driving after dark. Driving over the mountains after dark is a chore under the best of circumstances, but just as it became dark, he discovered to his horror that when he turned the headlights on, all the other lights, including those on the dashboard and the rear lights, refused to work, though they worked just fine as long as the headlights were turned off! So, for the whole trip (over the mountains, mind you), he had to turn the dome light on whenever he wanted a look at the dash, and he also had to constantly keep looking in the side mirror to check for cars coming up behind him, at which point he would use his 4-way flashers to let them know he was there. It was either that, or drive in the dark over the mountains with no headlights on.

We only found out about all this later today. When he had called me at the hotel this morning, he'd been his usual cheery self, though I had thought I could detect slight edge in his voice. Anyway, he came through for us again. When Bill is in charge, all Jim and I have to do is worry about playing the concert. A great guy, a wonderful tuner, and we'd be lost without him.

As to the concert itself, it went very well; over 900 people, which says a lot for a town the size of Vernon (I think someone said it had a population of about 30,000). Jupiter and the Baker are new to our programmes, at least in terms of memory, and we were pretty happy with our playing. The audience responded to the Baker, which is nice, as we like to see Canadian composers promoted as much as possible. Our verbal introduction to Jupiter was more polished than the other night in Oshawa Ontario, which was the first time we had included the piece on a programme. There's so much we could say about all of the pieces that it's difficult to know how to capture their essence without being too wordy.