Twisty, Curvy Roads

I grew up in North Alabama during the 50's. Things were pretty simple back then, it was a good time to be a kid. I guess that kids are usually looking forward, and that may have been particularly exaggerated for kids growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. It was an exciting time. Everything was about rockets and satellites so it seemed natural to be looking toward where we thought we were going, not toward where we had been. And it was exciting! I can remember sitting in school and hearing the sound of rocket engines as they were tested out at Redstone Arsenal.  They would fasten the engines to a test stand and fire them off. The sound could be heard for miles and miles. I got to meet people like Wernher von Braun whose daughter kept her horse at Mr. Jack Darnell's stable where I spent a lot of time. In 1957, my 10th grade year, the Russians put Sputnik into orbit. In the evenings we would go outside and stare into the sky looking for it. That triggered a "space race...

  At our wilderness camp near Brazos Bluffs, in New Mexico, this tiny visitor decided to check out our truck. He was a bit puzzled when he discovered an unseen force would not allow him to pass through to the world he could see so plainly before him! I must admit that I have often been in the same or similar situations!  I opened the truck doors and left him to learn the lesson he had set for himself. He did eventually learn that butting one's head against an immovable object is not productive behavior and flew happily off through an open door of opportunity.

Max likes for me to sing to him! Quite often I sing to myself and Max as we are driving on our trips. We were boondocking in New Mexico somewhere of of New Mexico highway 64. I started singing the song "Playmate, Come Out And Play With Me". Max jumped into may lap. Every time I stopped singing, he would make a little begging motion with his front paws. I'm lucky to have a traveling companion with such good musical taste! This song has been around a long time! It was a big hit for Philip Wingate and Henry W. Petrie in in 1894! The name of the tune is "Playmate", or sometimes "You Can't Play In My Yard". Here are the original words to the first verse: Say, say, oh playmate, Come out and play with me And bring your dollies three, Climb up my apple tree. Shout down my rain barrel, Slide down my cellar door, And we'll be jolly friends forevermore. Today's kids, raised on TV and video games, would probably not have the faintest id...

After weeks of anticipation, last Monday, Max and I finally pulled out of Round Rock headed for the Teagarden Jazz Camp somewhere in the Sieras above Sacramento, California. The trip across Texas was uneventful. We spent Monday night in one of our favorite overnighting spots in Littlefield, Texas and struck out fresh and bushy tailed early Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning was pro forma, following highway 84 west to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, then north to Interstate 40 where we turned west. As you know, I really don't like driving on interstate highways. I love twisty-curves little roads because I "know" that just around the next curve, or at the crest of the next hill, there will be a scene of such breathtaking beauty that existence of the very universe will be totally justified! I soon realized that this was not going to be a twisty-curvey kind of trip. We stuck it out on IH 40 although several times I did consider lashing the steering wheel like an old time saili...

Brings back some great memories. Must have been 1957. Our parents hauled 8 barely teenage boys to where Hwy. 72 crosses the Flint. We had four canoes. My partner, Owen Bennett, and I had built our canoe in his dad's garage. I lived on Pratt Avenue and Owen lived a block away on Ward Avenue. We had plans for a "canoeyak" that we had ordered from Boy's Life Magazine. Owen was enrolled in shop classes at Huntsville Jr. High, so he was the leader of our constructions project. A view of the Flint River over the bow of a canoe Took us a couple of months to complete the building project, but finally, it was ready. We hoisted it to the top of my folks' car and headed east on 72. At the bridge, we met the others who would be paddling down the Flint with us. I can't remember exactly who all was there - memory dims. But we were eight young men full of ourselves and ready to take on the world. We figured that a good canoe trip was just the thing to set us...

Max an I pulled out of Round Rock  on Monday, July 18. I did not have an exact plan, only that I needed to be at Sly Park, California by the following Sunday, July 24, for the Sacramento Jazz Camp. The camp would run for a week. After that we were free to go where we wanted with no time limit other than I needed to be back in Round Rock for a gig on August 26. We had a great time and I am having fun reliving the trip through photos and my GPS track on Google Maps. Zoom in on the map and you can see exactly were we were each day!

I wrote this arrangement of Ellington's "Creole Love Call" for the Second Line Jazz Band. This is not a recording of the band, but a mp3 file that I generated with the composition software, Musescore. It sound considerably better with live musicians, but it is considerably easier to use the computer. Ain't technology great?  Oh, well! Creole+Love+Call" by Jim Ivy

My little Casita is only 13' from tip of the hitch to the rear bumper. Just enough room inside for me and my traveling companion, Max, who weight maybe 7 pounds soaking wet. I had a high axle and larger tires installed so that it has as much road clearance as my truck. I can get it into some pretty interesting places!  Last year I made a couple of trips to Colorado and did some exploring along the Continental Divide. This year, I am pulling out to the mountains around Sacramento, CA to play some music. On the way back, I am going to try to get the trailer over Stony Pass and into the headwater area of the Rio Grande. I drove that trail in the truck last year but, wisely, left the trailer set up in the lower altitudes for a base camp. Here are a few photos: This is my rig. On the way, Max and I spent the night at the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, NM. The smell of the sage and desert air is exhilarating when you wake up in the mornings.  Camping at...

I am sort of used to waking with strange melodies running through my head, but this morning was pretty unusual... I found myself in what must have been a dusty small colonias - a subdivision with no running water or sewers - standing beside an ugly stucco colored building. To the west, an azure sea stretched into the distance. But between where I was standing and the sea, there was a small, round-topped hill with almost vertical sides. A single weedy looking tree on the crest hung over what appeared to be a dark, English-style cottage rapidly rotting away. I seemed to be speaking with, or at least being talked at, by a builder-type person dressed in khakis. He seemed to be trying to sell me the ugly building which turned out to be a semi-finished duplex. Suddenly there was a diesel engine roar on the single caliche street on the other side of the building. I looked over and there you were. You were driving what appeared to be a very large glass tour bus. It was made of glass but acc...

Lot's of work, but it looks much better! This Casita group on Facebook is such an inspiration! After all these years, thanks to your posted examples, I finally decided to actually do something about the definitely grubby and chalky exterior of my '89 Patriot. Up until now, I have always told myself that having a "well-used" look to my equipment was a sign of true outdoorsman sophistication. None of that newby gloss and shine for old Jim! I mean, does anything communicate true "campfire savoir faire" better than a well worn pack and smelly sleeping bag? But your helpful posts and photos soon convinced me that, au contraire to my long standing prejudice, a grubby Casita was more of an expression of extreme anti-social tendencies than it was of manly know-how and experience. So soon I was up to my knees in bottles of Meguiars, Poly-Glow, applicators, wiping cloths - every possible tool and gadget that might somewhat smooth the Herculean task of cl...

When I am traveling I often park for the night in places where I do not want to call attention to the fact that I am there. It may be the parking lot of a truck stop or a big box store, or it may be a roadside pull-off in the middle of nowhere. If I am sleeping in a well lighted parking lot, I do not want the light creeping into my Casita. If I have stopped in a lonely spot alongside the highway, I want to be able to cook, read, etc. with no light leaking out of the Casita to draw attention to the fact that I am there. Above all, I do not want anyone to be able to look into my Casita through the windows day or night. The blinds that were in my Casita when I bought it did not appeal to me. At night, anyone passing by could tell that I was in the trailer and if they got close enough, they could peep around the edge of the blinds and see where and what I was doing. I wanted more privacy. Also, I am not an aficionado of frilly decor - Everything in my Casita is plain a...

Getting lost is something at which I am quite handy! I had heard that Arkansas was a beautiful place, so I pointed myself in that general direction. Ended up somewhere around Mena, Arkansas. I liked it a lot. When it was time to head back toward Texas, I saw a little road that looked interesting. It was paved and looked well maintained, so, "Why not?". Gradually the pavement turned to gravel. The the gravel turned to dirt. The the dirt turned to..., well, let's just say that  those who live a sane existence, would have found a place to gracefully turn back toward whence they came. Eventually I came to a fork in the road. The Forest Service had helpfully posted a map on an old fence post. That gave me some assurance that eventually I would find my way back to civilization. I snapped a photo of the map with my phone, and so continued onward. That night I camped at Shady Lake Campground. Marvelous spot, and if you ever find your way to where ever I was, I am ce...

Spent Thanksgiving last visiting my soon-to-be in-laws near Willis, Texas. On the way home I conveniently became lost, saw a sign that proclaimed "Park Road", and soon found myself in an almost empty state park. It was close to dark, so Max (my canine traveling companion) and I found a spot and set up for the night. It was a peaceful night, but the next morning was enough to make even the most insensitive heart break into song! Ma x and I spent most of the morning browsing around and I took a few photos for my memories book. The most remarkable photo turned out to be the one that I did not take! If you look closely you will see a white bird (an egret I believe) flying over the water and if you look closer still, you can see a ripple in the water slightly behind and to the left of the bird. That is an alligator swimming by. What originally caught my attention was that the bird was standing on the alligator's head as the 'gator swam along. The alligator would s...

Around 2:30 this morning one of those infamous Texas rain storms blew into town. Now I dearly love the softly muted sound of rain on a Casita roof. It gently reminds me of boyhood visits to my grandparents and the not so muted sound of rain on the tin roof of their farmhouse. As I lay enjoying the sound of the rain, the thought struck that perhaps this would be a good time to check for leaks around the various rivets and openings in the Casita's  shell. On went the lights, and immediately I saw a fairly constant drip of rainwater coming through the curbside window at the foot of my oh-so-soft and comfy bed. Galvanized into action, I maneuvered my already damp mattress and bedding away from the drip (in my mind it had fully reached the proportions of a Texas Niagara), and examined the spot. The first thing I noticed was that the water was not coming in around the frame of the window, it was coming through the screen! Water was being trapped on the inside of the sliding pa...

I have a selection issue with campsites. I find a place that is nice..., but just not quite right, so onward I go convinced that just over the next hill or around the next curve, the perfect camp is waiting. In younger days, I traveled most often by shank's mare and carried everything I needed upon my back. I spent many nights in camps that were, if not perfect, so close that my imagination was fueled with enthusiasm for what I would discover the next day. --- Of course, I can also remember dropping in the middle of a mountain trail and sleeping on rocks so severe that only total exhaustion allowed any sleep at all. Even now, in my dotage, I continue my quest for the perfect campsite. In lieu of shank's mare, I travel in a 4 wheel drive Toyota. My canvas packsack has become a fiberglass Casita travel trailer. Instead of mountain paths, I travel country back roads and the occasional jeep path. Still, my vision is the same..., just over the next hill, or just ar...

Dr. Dan hard at work! When you got the Terrible Blues, you are blue indeed! Here is Dan Augustine at his most blue - playing his own arrangement of "Terrible Blues". This was recorded live by The Second Line Jazz Band as they played for the City of Lakeway's Brown Bag Concert Series on February 4th. The other members of the ensemble are Larmon Maddox - cornet, Jim Ivy - clarinet, Dave Hargett - trombone, Walter Tibbitts - piano, Rob Schmidt - drums. Terrible Blues Your browser does not support the audio tag.

Side portico of Woodbine Mansion I was out and about on an errand when I noticed this car parked alongside the portico of this home. Something about the 70's vintage automobile parked by the even earlier vintage home struck me so I stopped to shoot a couple of photos. There is a Texas Historical marker by the gate and I learned that the name of the house is "Woodbine" and that it was built between 1895 and 1900 by a local businessman, A.J. Nelson.  Virginia Creeper covers much of the structure The house occupies a full block. There are several rather charming outbuildings and the grounds are nicely cared for. However the house itself has a slightly disheveled  look that, combined with the almost, but not quite vintage automobile, brings a Faulkner novel to mind. How it looked in 1900  My interest piqued, I did a quick internet search. It turns out that the house has been extensively remodeled more than once. It looked quite different when const...

The Lone Star Bakery in Round Rock, TX Bessie Smith's memorable line from her song, "Kitchen Man", is no where more appropriate than in Round Rock, Texas. This morning, Max and I visited the iconic Lone Star Bakery for coffee and one of their "Round Rock Donuts".  These donuts are famous, and rightly so! I first tasted one of them some 35 years ago and have found no reason to eat any other type of donut since then.   The bakery also offers cakes, kolaches, muffins, and all sorts of other goodies. But my favorite is always the plain, glazed donut, served hot with a cup of coffee on the side. Served hot - they melt in your mouth This morning, I asked if it would be OK if I took a photo or two. They were more than obliging, and brought out a hot donut especially for the photo. Of course I knew that the donut photo would look much better after a bite or two - I almost ate the whole thing before I remembered to take a photo! Quite an assortme...