Wrapping Up That Roadtrip

One of the highlights of the trip, the unscheduled stop at San Antonio de Padua, the one Mission that still looks much as it did in Padre days, thanks to its isolation. Call me an unrepentant English Literature Major, but I always like to have a theme to my roadtrips. I strive for some contextual symmetry, a narrative line, a hero’s journey. Sometimes it works, sometimes it...

Out with the Truckers and the Kickers an...

  The last day of our roadtrip started with a near fight. See Mom was born during the Depression, she knows the value of a dollar and she doesn’t waste food. So I indulged her when she carted the remains of her chicken fried steak out of Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace. I figured there was plenty of time to talk her out of taking it in the car. But Saturday morning when she...

Where We Meet Nixon Near the Kitchy Cath...

Today, we left San Juan Capistrano and headed up toward Northern California to the right. I mean WAY to the Right. Since our motel was actually in San Clemente, and we had eaten dinner at Richard Nixon’s favorite restaurant, we thought we should swing by the Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace. But on the way we’d be passing the Crystal Cathedral of Dr. Robert...

RFD-TV: Sonoma Edition

Lately, I’ve discovered a great cable channel called RFD-TV, which bills itself as “Rural America’s Most Important Network”. I guess so. It features a whole raft of horse programs such as live coverage of rodeos and the great Parelli Natural Horsemanship (kind of a “do it yourself Horse Whispering”). I find myself fascinated by the Louisiana Ag...

Talk to the Blog! Cause the Facebook Ain...

My recent post on Buck Owens just highlighted an issue I’m having with my blog readers. I Twittered about that Buck Owens post and the Tweet connected automatically to my Facebook page. Almost immediately dozens of readers showed up — most from metropolitan areas — and, according to my Secret Squirrel traffic detecting software, stayed on that post long enough to...

Rediscovering Buck Owens

If you were like me, you knew Buck Owens, if you knew of him at all, as the toothy guy from that sappy old show Hee-Haw. I say, “if you were like me”, because I’m not like that any more. I have a new appreciation for Buck Owens. And in our upcoming roadtrip to San Juan Capistrano, we’ll be dropping by Bakersfield to pay him homage. Many scholars of country...