BusRoads Buzz: January 2018

Greetings!

Happy New Year! We closed our 2017 calendar at Patrick Air Force Base on Florida's Space Coast. As a result of hurricane Irma damage to the Florida Keys and the necessary recovery at our planned Key West destination, we wound up spending more than a month here at Patrick. Although we are still looking forward to our two upcoming weeks in Key West now that the Navy base RV parks are able to accept campers, the Space Coast has turned out to be an unexpected pleasure. We hope the coming year is full of nice surprises for you as well. ~ Brian & Andi

Wish You Were Here

Our prolonged visit to central Florida's eastern edge gave us as opportunity for greater exploration of the Space Coast than ever before. The area incorporates a long, skinny strip of barrier island and the adjacent mainland, with Cape Canaveral at the northeast corner. Running down the narrow island, which in some places is barely wide enough to hold little highway A1A, the first town you encounter is Cocoa Beach. Below that is Patrick Air Force Base, then Satellite Beach and Indialantic.

Across the Indian and Banana Rivers on the mainland lie Cocoa, Rockledge, Melbourne and Palm Bay, with Merritt Island between the two rivers. With a semi-tropical climate and tons of lovely waterfront, the Space Coast is a mecca for surfing, fishing, boating and condo living. We found beautiful disc golf courses and enjoyed riding bikes on the flat Florida terrain. When the weather threw a little temper tantrum, we still had a handy Air Force Base fitness center to get our blood pumping. A lack of TV reception motivated us to check out movies at the base library for evening entertainment. Overall, we basked in the balmy, beachy feel and tropical palm trees, pelicans and dolphins. We will also never forget the warning one of us gave the other as we wound our way between cars in a parking lot – "Don't bump your head on that surfboard!" It might be a long time before we get to say that again.

Life on the Road

The church-like interior of the Ryman Auditorium

Playing ukuleles is one of our favorite pastimes while traveling and usually we strum original tunes that I composed on the road. This is Andi speaking, and I thought you might be curious about my songwriting process. It doesn't work the same for every song but I just wrote a tribute tune in response to our recent visit to Nashville. The new song is called "The Ghosts of the Ryman" and since it came about in a fairly typical manner for me, I'll tell you my method.

1. Inspiration came to me in the form of a 4-bar ditty while I was sitting in the passenger seat with my plastic "travel" uke as we were leaving Nashville. It became the introduction (and ending) of the song, establishing a casual, country feel in waltz time.

2. In keeping with the style, I found a fairly basic but pleasing chord progression for the storytelling verses of the song, then some contrasting but related chords for a repeated chorus. This all gets written down so I don't forget it.

3. The next part requires utter silence and isolation (bye, bye Brian...) I strum the chords and try humming melody lines that might make a nice song. I hate to have people hear me testing out ideas – don't ask me why. The best tune gets jotted down in a spiral bound book of music manuscript paper near the chords. Needless to say this takes some amount of pencil lead and lots of eraser rubber.

4. Now the words have to fit the melody and express the sentiment. For this song it took some actual research about Ryman Auditorium in order to get my facts straight (for example, was Sousa there before or after the Grand Ole Opry came to the Ryman?) Then I had to establish a rhyming scheme and figure out exactly how much ground to cover in each verse. For this song I realized I was going to run out of real estate before the story could be told, so I actually added a bridge and another verse. Writing the lyrics usually feels like the hardest work of the entire process; I'll obsess for days (and nights) trying to find a particular rhyme or a three-syllable way to say something. A three minute song can easily consume a dozen or more sheets of notebook paper during the difficult birthing procedure.

5. Finally I give it a test strum for Brian, change a few words that didn't work right, then put it into a legible form so we can begin to learn it together. This is when we work out the arrangement, including strumming or picking patterns, harmony parts, tempo changes and other details.

And a new song is born! Unfortunately, we can't play it well enough yet to record it for you but we hope to add "The Ghosts of the Ryman" to our repertoire soon.

"The bricks of a sinner reborn

stand empty in the Cumberland morning

but when night falls and musical stars appear

the ghosts of the Ryman draw near..."

Coffee Chat

Eight years ago we stumbled upon an unpretentious Cuban restaurant in Melbourne, Florida. There we had our first Cuban sandwich and watched part of a black and white TV documentary about the queen of Cuban music, Celia Cruz. In the tiny garage-like space there was a piano by the wall, guitars on stands and percussion instruments scattered around. It was a charming experience and we felt right at home there.

Now on this trip we wondered if we could find the same restaurant or if it had even survived. Sure enough, El Ambia Cubano is right where we left it. The layout inside had changed a bit and they added some tables and a stage outside.

The owner is the same musician and they frequently have live music and jam sessions. It was like visiting an old friend.

Did You Know?

The Guinness world record for the most surfing Santas in one location is held by Cocoa Beach. It has become a Christmas Eve tradition and we naively decided to check out this local oddity. Little did we know that we would be part of a crowd of 10,000 onlookers (most also in their Santa finery) as 837 surfers dressed in variations on the Old St Nick theme took to the waves.