I took a mini-break in Clear Lake, Iowa, from my seemingly endless dreary conversation with the Interstate 35 on my way to Minneapolis.  This unplanned visit turned out to be one of interesting stops of the trip filled with bits of magical sparks.

After feeding my hungry car in a gas station, I visited a café to have a glass of iced tea and ran into musician/songwriter Stoney Footwalker from Britt, Iowa, enjoying a pleasant chat about Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.  Footwalker, wrapped in his incredibly fascinating aura of music and history, kindly shared his poem “I’m Not Afraid” with me.  I then drove pass the famed Surf Ballroom, where Rock & Roll musicians Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens performed their last show before their airplane lost control in bad weather and crashed in Clear Lake on February 3, 1959.  That particularly day has then been known as “The Day the Music Died” since the release of Don McLean’s song “American Pie” in 1971.

I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died

I gave up the idea to visit the monument at the crash site and decided to take a short stroll near the Lake View Drive instead.  The gorgeous sunset gently washed out my worldly thoughts and I can faintly hear Buddy Holly singing his “Peggy Sue” across the lake of speechless beauty.