The Day the Music Died

I guess being in the middle of nowhere, Iowa has an affinity for music. Hence the Iowa Rock and Roll Museum in Arnold’s Park. Iowa prides itself on its many dancehalls. Similar to Texas, a lot of the best venues are old time music halls that were popular in the 20s and 30s. A lot of them have closed now, but there are still a few around.


Iowa’s biggest music claim to fame seems to be that it was the last place Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens sang before their plane crash -- or the “day the music died.” You might know this from the movie “La Bamba” or the song “American Pie,” but the musicians played at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA and boarded a plane for their next gig in Minnesota. Their plane crashed about five miles from the airport due to bad weather and pilot error. Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on the plane, but the Big Bopper had a severe case of the flu, so Jennings gave up his seat. Ritchie Valens had never flown on a plane, so he and one of Holly’s band members flipped a coin for the last seat and Valens won. The museum had a ton of old posters about the show as well as newspaper stories on the crash.

The museum also had a working juke box and it was fun to punch in a few songs while I was there.

On one of our last nights in Iowa, Michael and I went to the Superior 71, a drive-in movie. They were showing “Eclipse” and the drive-in experience was pretty cool. I had not seen any of the previous Twilight movies nor read the books, and needless to say I was pretty pessimistic about it. There wasn’t much of a story, but I will say it was pretty entertaining overall. Can I also point out that Jake has his shirt off for the ENTIRE movie? Not that I’m complaining, but I thought it was hilarious. I give it a B-, but I may rent the first two movies just for fun.