A Percussionist's Notebook

This is not meant to be morbid but rather a reminder of the extremes of danger for those who traveled this desert trail.  What I saw were the historic graves, nothing from the pre-Spanish era. The Sonoran Desert has been inhabited for over 10,000 years and archaeologists have limited knowledge of the first people. What little is known consists of trails, trail shrines, petroglyphs/pictographs, mano and metate sites, sleeping circles and geoglyphs (the Blythe geoglyphs being some of the most famous). Some of these markers were names of people who may have died on their desert crossing or maybe just the fact that they were here. There is little information even for the historic markers. They are marked with rock piles in the form of a cross. Many were just rocks piled over the grave. One documented grave is that of Dave O'Neill, a prospector whose body was found along the trail in 1915.  The irony of the circumstances of his death is that his body was found face down in a puddle...

Three days before Christmas I answered the door and was greeted by one of my best friends and his wife. Big G and I have known each other since 1974 when I first started teaching, him PE and me Music. Eventually he became a Principal and transferred to a different school in the district but we still kept in touch on occasion. That friendship took a turning point in 1983. He called me and was excited about watching the movie 'Breaking Away'. He wanted to ride his bike to San Diego (where his wife's parents lived) and wanted to know if I would ride with him. I thought long and hard about this (5 minutes) and said it was a great idea. In June of 1984 he stopped at my house, loaded my bike on his car and drove his family to San Diego. We had previously decided to reverse the direction and ride from San Diego back to Colorado Springs because of the prevailing winds. As it turned out the winds blew in every direction on the trip. I flew out to San Diego and spent a few days wit...

I've been watching the  Tour de France this week so I decided to write about one of my own bike trips. In 1996 I rode the historic trail El Camino del Diablo or The Devil's Highway in Southern Arizona. This was a trail that I first heard about during a bike ride from San Diego to home in 1984. I had become obsessed about riding it for 12 years. This trail follows the border of Mexico and Arizona on the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge and has seen human activity for over 10,000 yrs. There are many ancient trails, sleeping circles and shrines left by the Paleoamericans (or First People). It was first used by Europeans (the Conquistadors) in the early 1600's and was a popular route to the California goldfields in the 1800's. There are estimates of over 2,000 deaths along this trail from Ajo to Yuma. Temperatures easily go over 120 degrees and the only water for the near 100 miles of track is found in the occasional tinajas, depressions in the rocks where rain water colle...