February 2012

Greetings

“Where are you? How come we haven’t seen a BusRoads Buzz lately?” Many of our loyal followers have been asking these questions. Indeed, our annual travels are well underway for the season and we are eager to bring you up to date. As for our trip to Italy last fall,  it was monumentally fun, but just too big to put into the Buzz, so we hope you can be patient until the proverbial (and actual) movie comes out. Since November, we have toured our way down from Washington through Oregon and all the way to San Diego. We now join the snowbirds who winter in Tucson and for several weeks we will play concerts for the local retirement facilities while calling Davis Monthan Air Force Base home. Thanks for reading our Buzz and bringing a little slice of our travels into your own home.     ~ Brian and Andi

Life on the Road

 One of the treats of travel is experiencing the different festivals held in the places we visit. You can tell a lot about a community by what it chooses to celebrate. We have been to a crowded waterfront festival in Savannah, Georgia with shrimp venders and noisy boat races, a small Texas border town fiesta with Mexican food and a high school mariachi band, a bratwurst festival in Ohio, and many other events featuring food, music and culture. For us, the past two weekends in Arizona were all about cowboys and Indians. First was the 20^th Annual Cochise Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering in Sierra Vista. This was a full weekend of cowboy songs and western verse recitations. The themes were generally old west ways and ranch realities told in clever song or poem. We heard terrific singers and guitar players as well as talented speakers, including the youthful winners of a children’s cowboy poetry competition. A week later we attended the 4^th Annual American Indian Music and Arts Fest at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. This was a chance to catch up with some friends we had already met through the Native flute, to hear some different performers, and to see beading, basketry, jewelry and carving done by local Native American artisans. The smooth adobe Hohokam ruin at Casa Grande is always worth a look, being the first protected archeological reserve in the country. The “big house” with its protective modern shelter was the backdrop for American Indian musicians and dancers, while audience members lounged on hay bales in the Arizona sunshine.

Wish You Were Here

If you drive south from Tucson you might find yourself in Patagonia, however we do not mean the one at the bottom of South America. Patagonia, Arizona is a small, dry town that happens to have a big Native flute manufacturing operation, but we’ll save that for another story. This year we skipped the flutes and made our way to Patagonia Lake State Park, about 11 miles outside of town. The lake is long, man-made reservoir with a jagged coastline of rippling hills covered with dry, yellow grasses and sparse desert shrubs. That may not sound too inviting to you, but migratory birds love this lake, and so do migratory bird-watchers. There are mesquite and palo verde trees, creosote bushes, cattail rushes, cactus, and 265 acres of actual lake, so the both land and water birds enjoy the area. Fish ripple the surface of the lake while deer, coyotes, and even mountain lions roam the hills. We set an alarm clock for sometime-before-dawn and carried a thermal cup of coffee through the cold, morning darkness to a picnic table by the waterfront just so we could listen to the songs of the birds as they greeted the day. The campground is much improved since our first visit several years ago and features a visitor center, hiking trails, marina with boat rentals, nearly a hundred RV sites plus designated tent camping spots, a small but diversified general store, and one of the largest bath and shower houses we’ve ever seen! Funny what makes an impression when you live on the road.

 

 
Did You Know?

Arizona celebrates more than Valentine’s Day this February 14^th. That is the day that our 48^th state officially becomes 100 years old. Happy birthday to the Grand Canyon State.

Coffee Chat

 We will always remember our first visit to Casa Grande Ruins in 2003 when a park ranger told us a favorite answer she had received when asking visitors for theories as to why such a big structure had been built at this particular location. Someone had replied,  “Because there’s a WalMart right across the street.”

Photo Collage: Winter Bits and Pieces