Bluegrass: Kingman pickin in the vines

The bluegrass festival off the route 66 near Kingman in the Stetson winery was delightful. With several people from Chloride present we enjoyed the atmosphere and the music. We started out at 10 am with gospels performed by the The Central Valley Boys. Peter Hicks on the violin was remarkable. They performed several songs in  the traditional style as a sign of respect to Vern Williams. So we  were treated with Oh Suzannah! and Bald knob Arkansas.

After this really fitting Sunday  morning Gospel bonanza the Snap Jackson & the knock on wood players gave us a brilliant set. The banjos stirred up memories of Tony and Norris playing and the ballads made me think of Dave... Americana, Bluegrass, souls blends in to a fresh new sound. The musicians have fun on stage and so did the audience.

The last set we listened to was performed by The get down boys out of Los Angeles. The rhythms and their own songs are just excellent. I also appreciate that they support new movements in Bluegrass. The sound people are musicians in their own right and went up on stage at one point.... In this set the vocal harmonies were just stirring and moving. Also note the mountains in the background...

Flagstaf and Route 66

With a friend
in a silver spiffy car
cruising route 66
Kingman Hackberry
Truxton
where the apple pie was
when the two old ladies were
Peach Springs of the Hualapai
Seligman where I got breakfast
a couple of times
ate black eyed peas
on New Year's day in 1995
oh those icy roads
and now new to me Route 66
looping to Ashfork
stretches of walls in red lava rock
and the spacey silence
which will forever last                                      
then I 40 weaving to Williams
to Flag
old buildings old hippies
old books & new thoughts
and time in slower flow
autumn light
in peaceful glow

I met Jack in the Starrlight
and howling Allen
Collins and Simic
and De Bello Gallico printed by Plantin
in 1570 in Antwerp
where so soon I must return...

Route 66-III

The buildings are about energy in a strange way. Providing gas, shade, sustenance.

People must have had big dreams with grand designs to match. So they built plywood castles sold by Mr. Barocchio.  And of course an ice machine was part of the luxuries of life. Across the street mail boxes. I wonder where these people live who do receive mail.

Then wonderful honey yet at 23 dollars for a big pot rather expensive: but the taste of the woodland honey is sublime. The surprises of the road...
So the drive to Kingman with a taste of honey ready for sweet dreams ends here.

Route 66- continued

The route is all about the road, the place longed for, dreamed of, imagined in one's soul. The state of the road doesn't matter.
Neither does the means of transportation. being on the move, desire, solitude and beauty are the guiding lights.  

Restaurants I didn't stop at. And forlorn places where time was framed in old signs: Roadrunner Restaurant.
One  almost hears the jazz of those days in the purring motor.


Waterside property advertised in the enormous and beautiful Mojave Desert... No, no, not a sedentary life, near a moist air river.



It is all about the road, the encounters, the sharing of long vistas which heal your eyes. There is a road to where you're going.
May traveling the Route 66 help each of us find our road, straight or winding, up and down with left curves and straight ahead: a metaphor for life, a road with many futures.

 

 From the glamor of Hollywood to the Old Historic Route 66. At first still maintained but then fallen to the wayside.


Present Past and Future is the slogan of Route 66...

 The Best Western in Bartsow with a view of the trucks going by on the I 40. Imagine the joy of a road all to oneself... In Ludlow there is a new coffee shop, its fate uncertain.

House -garage - gas station -
Ludlow café -
all derelict
publictés fanées
faded billboards
fallen by the wayside

a good life
with a real house across
at the east direction
nobody took
all went west

and needed shelter
repairs
gas
sustenance
courage for the crossing
but NO CHECKS CASHED


neither is anybody responsible
for fire or theft
of ones dreams
on Route 66.
How long before new Ludlow resembles the old
before the desert has taken back its space
before a new generation builds
a fresh watering hole for the thirsty and weary

Corvette in the drive way

In the Corvette driveway
there it stands
all perfect she is -
not an it -
in red & white
& silver chrome

a photo-opportunity
for passers by

and every time
she smiles -

A friend of mine, Petra, saw the car about four years ago and now is the proud owner of her own Corvette in almost mint condition, driving it on the roads in Belgium.

Route 66 II -Kingman-Hackberry-Seligman

I love the Route 66 in AZ: the steady change in the landscape, the sparse traffic consisting mainly of locals, aficionados and bikers.

I love the small places: funky Hackberry with its red and white Corvette, and the forlorn gas stations. Every time less and less. This time of two the pumps were gone.

I see Valentine's stone building and think about the Navajo and Hopi and Hualapai children brought here to be thought English and Religion as if not having any of their own.

Yet when in Seligman the saga, this boulevard of broken dreams, the myth is turned into a '50's theme park without a thought for those who out of dire need left family behind, home and hearthstone for an uncertain destination. Many fell by the wayside and staying where they fell they found alfe of menial jobs sometimes over several generations.

Yet living on Route 66 what destination is left to dream of? Can one get away from only candied past to pure present fed by a ream of doing. They may miss the majestic mountains, the long vista's, panorama and space? Do they wonder how much space there is at the golden shores?

The silence and loneliness of men staring in their beer.

I love the train, the Sante Fe, Atchinson and Topeka line meandering along the road.

I love the Route 66. It touches me by its tragic beauty & brass commercialism.

Yet it doesn't shine in everybody's eyes-

Route 66 - Kingman to Oatman - get your kicks

 Route 66, carrier of dreams and hopes and also of loss and hardship.

In all kinds of vehicles people packed their belongings, their kids, their pets, the grown up sleeping under the car next to road and the kids in the car.
Once in Kingman  there was still the hard stretch to Oatman

They would pass on winding, narrow roads, going over mountains and passing the Goldmine road. Part of it still in operation today.

Yet danger awaited the travelers at every twist and turn. And if their car broke down, more often than not crooked mechanics would take advantage of the poor desperate people.

The road itself still holds its warnings for today's tourists. Unguarded cliffs, give a majestic view of these imposing multicolored mountains.
  

Yet once in town other risks still exist: the local residents, human and animal will try to take advantage of you in this one street tourist town with high noon shootouts, aegfrying on the asphalt contest and their donkeys.