Marfa to San Antonio, Miles and miles of Texas,Cannon Ball Day 3

Marfa to San Antonio, Miles and miles of Texas, Day 3

We are headed East on Hwy 10...   The Ciscos mountains lay ahead... We will cross via Paisano Pass...

Then through Alpine… through Sanderson with its abandoned railroad depot… Pictures were taken... of the depot, a store front, and an abandoned fire station… a sign on what appears to be the new fire station suggested that a fire truck is a “fire extinguishing device” 

On to Marathon and a stop for gas… we are moving fast across hard country…

We had considered stopping for breakfast in Alpine but didn’t…. considered stopping for lunch in Sanderson, but didn’t… we bought beef jerky and candy in Marathon… There are few other options...

In Langtry we stop… visit Judge Roy Bean’s saloon/courtroom… The railroad has bypassed the town, then the highway… the population is now 16…   It is a study in a town left to die, kept alive by the “Texas Welcome Center”, which preserves the Jersey Lilly ,and brings just enough tourist to keep the gas station open on Highway 90.  A sign on a store in town suggested ice cream might be available, but it looked closed...  Back to Hwy 90... back to the hard run

We crossed the Pecos… we crossed Amistad reservoir… and the country changed from vacant range to peopled country… our progress slowed…  east of the Pecos there were traffic lights (we hadn’t seen one since Van Horn)   with its line of cars, its dog, and the question, “are you US citizens” and again were allowed to continue…

We reached San Antonio about 4:00 and went straight to the Alamo… It was 105 degrees… we explored, glad we were there, but with less enthusiasm due to heat and crowds…. It is hard to understand the truth here… there are legends that may overwhelm the facts… There is hero worship.  There is a very large gift shop, with some artifacts tossed into cases in the middle to give context to the Alamo shot glasses, Alamo tee shirts (some with sequins) Alamo post cards, books, children’s books, coloring books, Christmas ornaments, planters, and other “stuff”…. Strangely, for me, I didn’t buy a book… I wanted one that discussed what happened here honestly, and didn’t find it… it may have been here, hiding among the “white picket fence” and “hoop skirt” histories, but I didn’t find it.

In 1947, the Mills Brothers sang; 

Across the alley from the Alamo
Lived a pinto pony and a Navajo
Who sang a sort of Indian "Hi-de-ho"
To the people passin' by…

Today, just across the street you will find corporate tourism of the worst sort…   Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum and Ripley's Haunted Adventure, ghost walks (including a couple of hanging trees…) and segway tours… Tee shirts may be available.  All that is missing is an Imax theater and putput golf…

Having “done” the Alamo, we reclaimed the car, and located our hotel (Best Western, River Walk) checked in and collapsed… The girls were overheated, over tired… the road was taking its toll…

I took a walk… to the river walk… by myself…  I returned to find the ladies refreshed… and ready to explore… we walked to the river walk, found dinner… sitting outside above the river and the walk… enjoyed… 

We returned via city streets rather than the river walk… regained the hotel… Now, at 10:30 are watching the Olympics… 

All are tired… Tomorrow is a light day… San Antonio to Lafayette… Texas has taken portions of three days and two full nights… There are miles and miles of Texas…

Cannon Ball Run, Day 2, Arizona to Texas...

We hit the road at 9:20... Gina is taking the first shift...  A bit later than planned...

Now, just after 10:00, we are clear of town and well into the desert... The ladies are on line, on EBay, Gina needs a new pair of shoes, and the is a pair of Christian  Louboutin's, the auction is lively, and Gina is no longer the high bidder... There is a overwhelming sense of absurdity, buying expensive shoes, while driving across the desert...  With two minutes to go, Gina is once again high bidder...   The bid holds... She wins...

1:00, Mountain time.. We have crossed the border a ways back, and are now in New Mexico... We have crossed the continental divide as well, and any water would, if there was any water to be found would drain to the east, and the gulf...

About 1:40 we reach Deming New Mexico, and leave I-10, headed for Hatch the chile capital of the world... We are in search of lunch, and it seems like a good place to look..  Tony Bourdain visited on his South West show... That by itself is a good recommendation.  Highway 26 to Hatch passes though empty country... Grazing land, with little grass in evidence... It would be a hard land to make a living from.   A little further along we see a modern wind farm... Windmills... Nearby, a livestock tank with an old school aero-motor, broken down.  A new icon for the new west.

We reach Hatch, just in time to make last call for lunch at the Valley Cafe... Tony eat across the street at the Pepper Pot, but the Valley Cafe had better reviews on several web sites...  We all had enchiladas... Gina had chicken with red sauce, Steph had beef with green sauce, I had chicken, half red, half green... We are behind the clock, or would have lingered longer... There were lots of chile shops and such, and other sites... Even a muffler man, repurposed a RV in place of the muffler...  We cross the Rio Grande, then back on the interstate, this time I-25... Headed towards I-10.

We rejoin I-10 in Las Cruces... Then across the border, into Texas... Stuck in traffic in El Paso... Break free, then wait in line at the border patrol check point... Every vehicle stops... There is a dog, sniffing cars... Then a question, "Are you US citizens?"...  We are waved on, or at least not detained...

Now INS approved, we continue east… on the horizon we see smoke… we get closer to find a brush fire on the far side of the railroad tracks… no fire response visible… we call it in to 911… continuing eastward towards Van Horn, and the junction with Highway 90… we reach Van Horn, find Highway 90 and leave the Interstate… some miles down the road some miles from our destination we find the Marfa Prada, an art project… a small Prada store, complete with shoes and bags and appropriate graphics, where no Prada store should be found.  We stop, walk about, take pictures, laugh.  A UP train goes by across the road… we take more pictures, then back in the vehical, headed east, through Valentine to Marfa proper… We find our hotel… a true hotel, the Hotel Paisano, built in the 1930’s, the center of town life,   James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor stayed here while filming Giant…

We checked in, checked the room, and had dinner in the courtyard… next to the fountain… It was a glorious West Texas evening… not too hot, a nice breeze… good food…

Having eaten, we set out for today’s last adventure… night had fallen… Marfa is known for many things… the hotels… its art community… but also for the lights… the Marfa lights… strange unexplained lights seen from the foot of the nearby mountains when looking to the south west.  The Texas Highway commission has built a viewing area…  We drove out of town, found the viewing area… it was crowded… there was a festive feeling… some were laying on their backs, looking at a broad night sky without light pollution… the milky way, and more stars than would be believed by city folk… others were watching the horizon, waiting for the lights, talking about the lights… some were regulars and had seen them before…

We didn’t wait long before a shout went out… there they are… There was a red beacon, stationary on the horizon, presumably a tower, with navigation lights. Beside it appeared lights… some call them orbs… they generally moved in a line from left to right, but some would rise higher,  some seemed to bounce, they would go out them appear…

As a rational person, I suspect car lights along a distant road, but there were never beams, and cars don’t explain the bouncing, and as we approached town, watching the lights, they didn’t seem to act in car light ways… eventually they went away.

We have been to Marfa, and seen the light….

Ft Lauderdale cannon ball run Day 1

5:34 am… Its dark outside…time for sleep but Steph and I are up, showering.

 It is time to leave… check email one last time… stuff a couple of things into the packed bags…

It is time to let the road do its magic. 

Gina is here, we are off at 6:20, a few minutes later than planned, but still early…  We point south on Hwy 101, through San Jose, then eastbound over 152, Pacheco Pass, into the San Joaquin Valley…  We stopped at Starbucks for coffee, having agreed that they were not subject rule 2, “No Corporate Fast Food” rule… Again, headed south, the traffic on I-5 was clumpy, dominated by large trucks, frequently trying to pass one another, blocking the fast lane, then having passed moving over, releasing the cars to surge past.   When you add a the Winnebago tribe (aka, large recreational vehicles), some U-hauls who have no idea how slow they are going (or where) and the occasional fast lane bandit (driving slow in the fast lane because they think we are all driving too fast…) and we not making the progress we expected.  

We spend much time exploring each other’s music… we multiple Ipods and an Ipad loaded with play lists as well as a handful of CD’s…  Gina’s is late 60’s and 70’s rock, interspersed with children’s songs (there was one about a beluga whale) while Steph’s has current rock and stuff a high school student would have listened to 10 years ago, while mine is heavily into Americana, and is organize as albums…  We seem to have sufficient music for any situation.

We leave I-5 to cut across the valley to Hwy 99 at Wasco, where we saw our first train…  down to Bakersfield and the junction with Hwy 58 over the Tehachapi, again, trucks  passing trucks dominating the climb over the top.  We saw a few more trains… across the southern San Joaquin the field hands were harvesting table grapes… white shade umbrellas and structures over white packing tables, grapes being carefully laid into cardboard boxed, placed on pallets protected by white shrink wrap… even the porta-potties were white.  It was a bit weird, a cross between old school hand farm labor and a society party….  Elsewhere, Alfalfa was being mowed, baled and moved…  Tomato trucks were everywhere…

Climbing the Tehachapi, we saw another train, got off the Highway for a bit to look at the Tehachapi loop, an railroad engineering marvel where the tracks in their hard climb loop over themselves.  Sadly no trains passed during our inspection, and we did not have time to wait…   

Downhill now, eastbound again, into the desert.  The road bypasses Mojave, but off to the west we could see the field of stored commercial aircraft , in storage, waiting for an upturn in business, or a new owner.  Most seemed to be in United Airlines paint…

Across the desert, Edwards Air Force bas e to the west, the right, into Boron, a center of Borax mining.  Steph keeps chanting “Borax, the magical element” in an Indian accent, mimicking a (non-Indian) organic chemistry professor…  (Borax being very reactive, facilitating reactions in other elements in marvelous ways, at least if you are interested in organic chemistry, who knew today’s blog would have included a reference to organic chemistry?)  We leave the highway seeking the 20-Mule Team Museum (and chamber of commerce office and visitor’s center)  We discover the desert lawn mower, and a fighter plane next door… We were not overwhelmed, but photos were taken…

Back to the vehicle, back to the highway, soon turning south again, now on Hwy 395, better known as the road along the east side of the Sierra, but here, just a 2 lane black top in the desert.  Down to I-15, through Cajon pass, and into San Bernardino, at the eastern edge of the Los Angeles basin.

Here we stop for lunch, at Mitla Cafe  on North Mount Vernon Avenue… we found it on roadfood.com… It was an old school Mexican place in a Mexican neighborhood near the Santa Fe Station…  

We arrived in San Bernardino about an hour behind our planned schedule… we left about 45 minutes behind… Now on I-10, we are finally headed truly headed east… it has taken us 7 hours to reach the road that will define our cross country adventure.

Climbing up out of the LA basin, towards Beaumont pass the trucks again become an issue… based on trucks and trains seen so far there is an active economy, and based on the number of trains and trucks, possibly a healthy one…

Over Beaumont hill, then down into Palm Desert and Palm Springs, the landscape dominated by wind mills… again in the desert, but to our surprise it rains…not a lot of rain, just enough to turn on the wipers, and open the windows to smell the wet asphalt.  We picked up fuel in Indio, and changed drivers… there were no obvious date milkshakes to be found… then headed up the hill, past Joshua Tree… Past Indio we started to make up time… down into the strip of green which is the Colorado at Blithe… across the border into Arizona… Then we put the hammer down.

We change drivers again an hour into Arizona, by now we have a chance to arrive on time… on to Buckeye, then south away from I-10 towards Gila Bend, for gas, then eastward on I-8 to Casa Grande and I-10 to Tucson and family…

We were greeted by Tina’s brother, his wife, Tina’s sister, and husband, two nieces, one with husband, and 5 great nieces and nephews… a house full… I suspect Gina was overwhelmed… dinner, talk, then to bed… 

Up early to blog with coffee, say goodbye, then on the road again

24 hours out….

One full day from now I will be on the road… eastward bound for the right coast… the Atlantic…

I haven’t begun to pack… I haven’t really thought about it…

I am likely to wait until about 9:00 this evening (17:00 for those of you with who may have served in the military….) then throw some things in a duffle bag, then to bed, to get up too early when the road calls a bit before dawn.

For now, I will go to work, write up a vacation plan, do payroll (due on Monday, but since I don’t plan on being at work on Monday I will do it today) and try to get everything done… or at least enough done to make my absence possible…

At least I have the music together… The Ipad is loaded, and I have three new CD’s… Shovels and Rope, O’ Be Joyful, Bonnie Raitt’s Slip Stream, and Together Again, with Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark… I have particular hopes for Together Again…

I need to charge the camera batteries… I need to find my travel journal… 

There is a pile of maps on the table…

In the impmortal words of Elwood and Jake Blues… we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses., Hit it

It’s a Cannon Ball Run

The Ladies (Steph, Gina) and I are doing something a bit over 3,100 miles in six days….  From San Francisco to South Florida… a true Cannon Ball Run…

The Cannon Ball reference comes from a series of races, or runs… Sometimes the Cannon Ball Rally… Sometimes the Gumball rally… in any case, a fast cross country run… commonly a race…  There are movies based on the run…  Legends…  

 In the case of the Canon Ball, Redondo Beach or Santa Monica to Long Island… West, the Pacific, to East, the Atlantic…

We can blame the concept on Brock Yates…  On Car & Driver magazine, on a couple of movies…  more likely David E Davis…. Journalist, car enthusiast…  these were the automotive journalists of my youth…

Our trip is not a race… there are no competitors excepting the clock…  We are traveling West to East… San Francisco, aka San Mateo, to South Florida, aka the Atlantic… Since not racing, we get to take time out to sleep, to explore Cajun country and eat in New Orleans…  Walk the river walk in San Antonio, look for lights in Marfa, and visit family in Tucson…

Still it will be a hard run….  And, We are making a longer run than the classic cannon ball…

I think we can dedicate the run is to the spirit of David E Davis…   Automotive Journalist… Editor of Car & Driver… Founder of Automotive Magazine…  I think he would approve of our run… not a race…  not a time and distance test… not a just about cars… but instead about a fast journey… we will stop for food, road food, not corporate fast food, about local road food… We will go slowly near New Orleans… 

Still, it will be a 3,100 mile run in 6 days… fast, a celebration of the road, occasionally the interstate, sometimes the Highway, in any case the road.  We will be civilized… staying in Hotels, motels, sleeping in comfort… eating well, while not wearing suits, we will dress nicely for the road… I will sport a beard…   As David E Davis did... It is a point of pride...

We will likely too often drive too fast… beyond posted speed limits… We have miles to go before we sleep, and speeding makes the journey go faster…

It will be a good, hard, fast run... 

Randy

Music… a sound track for my life…

I find myself following music… much like a follow the yellow line down the center of a road… occasionally leaving the road to follow some interesting path…  dodging dead skunks and armadillos…  It is a journey of connections, events, people and influences…

 Like music, I rarely sit in silence…  the radio(KFOG) is playing in the background in the early morning… later it may be the TV instead, not so much to watch, but as background noise…  Late at night, I generally shift to CD’s or vinyl… in the car it is the radio, mostly music, but NPR and who ever might have the best traffic report…  At work when at my desk it is KFOG again…  I look for concerts, buy CD’s sometimes downloads… 

We (Tina and I) recently attended a house concert, Mike Compton playing mandolin…  We attend a lot of house concerts, small venue concerts…  Our favorite is ”Acoustic Tune ups and Joe’s Garage”… If it is a stand up show (Slim’s or the Fillmore) Steph joins me in place of the lovely Tina… she is beyond stand up venues…  If neither is available I will go by myself…  Recently I spent three days in the redwoods listening  to music at the Kate Wolf Festival by myself (with several  thousand of my new friends) The pull of the music is strong…

If I attend a concert, I generally visit the “merch table” and pick up a CD or two, occasionally a t-shirt…  The CD’s generally from the earlier acts… I probably have the current CD’s from the headliners already.  Over the next weeks I listen to the CD’s… getting to know the group… some continue in the rotation, some are filed in the CD shelf’s, rarely to surface…  

The best lead me down a road… looking for more related music… googleing (is it spelled google-ing or googl –ing?, what is the rule on the last “e”…  Microsoft word’s dictionary doesn’t know… of course, Google is a competitor… and there for ignored, shunned if possible…).  Back to the blog, I Google the musicians, the back-up musicians, song writers, covers of the same song…  Each can be its own road… with more music, more roads, sometimes alternate paths to follow…

When I find an interesting artist, I sign up for updates at their websites… I occasionally Google them…  I look at their page on Amazon…

I am planning a road trip in a week…  music is important on a road trip… hours driving frequently away from good radio signals… having music available is good… it is a good time to listen to full albums, with limited distractions…  So I Googled several favorite artists… and found some new stuff…  Likely the best is a Guy Clark tribute album “This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark”… it is on in the background while I write this… The album is Guy Clark’s friends, playing Guy Clarks songs…  It has meaning…  I am familiar with them sung by Guy, but the different caring voices let the lyrics sing in a different way… It is likely influencing this blog post… From a song just played, “Stuff That Works”  “I got a woman that I love…. I got a tattoo with her name right through my soul”…  Tina, I love you… 

There are a number of song writers that I follow… Guy Clark, Gram Parsons, Towns Van Sant… I have followed the sound of a Gram Parsons song into a bar on Beale Street… with my daughter, only to find it was the only Gram song the duo knew, but sat happily listening for three beers…  My cousin was playing guitar at a family reunion at Thanksgiving… along the banks of the Merced in Yosemite…  He played one of Gram’s… I said something… he said his favorite was Towns… I don’t think we have talked about music that way in the last 40 years…  It brings us closer…

Back to Mile Compton… I bought three CD’s…  inside one was a postcard… a questionnaire… a survey… with a possible reward of 30 CD’s from his record label if I return it… They are looking for my contact information to add to a mailing list…

Beyond that, under the heading:  “And if you have a minute…” (complete with three dots) were 4 open questions… plus a 4 more multiple choice questions…  the question that got my attention, and lead to this blog post was; “How do you find out about new music?”… (this time my three dots)

I think they get it… The new paradigm… music beyond labels… A&R men… Music for music… But, it calls the question… how do I find out about new (to me) music…  They give me about 4” to answer… not nearly enough…  hence the blog post, the answer to the question.

Among the multiple choice questions is another interesting “thing”…. They offer four alternatives for the question “what kinds of music are you interested in”… among the choices is “Americana”…  A new category trying to define a place between country (and western) and rock and folk… 40 years ago Gram called it “Cosmic American Music”… Houston Jones calls it “High Octane American Music”… Americana works…  In the current mix in the truck’s CD player is a new CD by Chris Doud, “The Story Song”… I found Chris through his participation in the band “Good Time Thrift Store Outfit”…  I bought his CD at the Kate Wolf Festival.

The CD player has now flopped to the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” … the first single I ever bought… they lead me to Emmy Lou, to Levon Helm… Emmy Lou and Levon lead me to Gram, who lost his battles with his demons before I found him…

Back to Chris… I found Good Time Thrift Store Outfit at a concert at Slim’s… I followed them to the Kate Wolf Festival… Chris is the lead vocalist, co-song writer with WilleTeaTaylor…  Chris has a song, “Guitar Case Sticker”…  about a folk singer (“the good news he’s a great folk singer, the bad news is he is a great folk singer…”) It contains the line “ Americana was created by industry folks to give us  folk singers a second chance”

Back to Mike Compton… I sent the post card with the survey back…  It seemed to matter…

Bye, Randy

Blogging…. Blogger

I blog, therefore I am…. Or at least you have something to waste a few minutes on…

Blogging, via blogger is free… recently I added a few ads, so maybe it is better than free…It is an experiment that I may abandon, but may continue… comments from readers are welcome… negative, positive, just thoughts…

It is not about money, the couple of cents a click that Google pays… instead it is a a continuation of the experiment in new media that is this blog…

I changed the look as well… but there are issues… I post via a paste from word… and when it appears it is in different fonts, different colors, different size fonts… confusing…  but I generally like the new look… Blogger is a free service, so if there are issues, I tend to let them ride…

Like I said, comments on the look welcome.

I tend to write in MS word… then cut and paste… recently I have been writing on an Ipad, then emailing it and pasting… each has issues on how the formatting appears once in Blogger.

 I continue to blog…    Hopefully you continue to read… 

Randy