BusRoads Buzz: March 2014

Greetings!

Early spring finds us in one of our most comfortable and familiar RV parks – Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is always tough to say goodbye to Arizona. Staying in Tucson is as lively and exciting as visiting a vacation resort, but when we reach the casual, more laid back style of Albuquerque, it’s like coming home. As hard as it is to leave Tucson, we now remember that the only way to be somewhere else you enjoy is to leave where you are. This (possibly obvious) fact helped inspire the lyrics to one of the songs we wrote, which states, “Each new hello starts with a goodbye...” ~ Brian and Andi

Wish You Were Here

When your wandering thoughts touch upon Roswell, New Mexico, what is the first thing that comes to mind? UFOs, of course! Imagine our surprise when we found another worthwhile reason to stop at this large but isolated desert prairie city. On this our 9^th or 10^th time passing through town, we discovered the Roswell Museum and Art Center. With a bit of free time on our hands, we decided it would be hard to go wrong visiting a free art museum. To our surprise, we were totally engaged for as long as our feet held up. As the name indicates, it is both a gallery of visual arts and showcase of museum objects. There are paintings with a southwest emphasis by Hurd, Wyeth, O’Keeffe and many others, objects created by Native and Hispanic artisans, 1200 artifacts of the old west, and the entire reconstructed workshop of rocket pioneer, Robert Goddard. Perhaps Roswell should try out a slogan like, “come for the aliens, stay for the art.”

Life on the Road

Fate looked on us favorably when we had our very first negative adventure of a type that most road warriors are bound to encounter. At Chiricahua National Monument, about an hour south of Willcox, Arizona, our RV had a breakdown and needed a tow. The bad news was that this happened in a remote location with no cell phone signal and 40 miles from the nearest small town. The good occurrences were several: we found helpful campground hosts who had access to a private wifi signal so phone calls could be made by talking into their iPad; Willcox had several auto shops and the only one who answered our iPad call was run by a capable and reputable guy named Joe, who had the water pump we probably needed in stock; a kindly, talented tow truck driver managed to haul Sierra up onto a flatbed right at the campground where we were parked and we were treated to a magnificent magenta sunset as we rode with him to Willcox; Joe allowed us to sleep in the RV overnight while parked in front of service bay #2, where he commenced work on Sierra at 8:00 the next morning; we had a cute, historic

western town to explore by foot during the repair; Sierra was fixed and on the road by 10:30 the very morning after we encountered the problem. All in all, we count this as a good memory and perhaps a case of fortune smiling on the innocent wandering minstrels.

Did you know?

Legendary singing cowboy Rex Allen was born in Willcox, Arizona in 1920 and began his recording career in 1946, eventually selling more than 3 million copies of his famous “Streets of Laredo.” Rex Allen also starred in 19 western movies and 39 television episodes of “Frontier Doctor,” as well as narrating more than 100 nature films for Walt Disney.

Coffee Chat

Some people collect commemorative matchbooks from restaurants and bars as souvenirs of the places they have been. We rarely drink or dine out as we travel but there is one type of establishment we cannot resist – music shops. We especially like to patronize the unique, local mom and pop stores. Often these places offer the musical souvenir equivalent of a matchbook; come to the Happy House in Talent, Oregon and see our growing collection of guitar picks.