The plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens didn’t make it very far, and it crashed in a field several miles north of Clear Lake. The local news has a good summary of the cause of the crash, so I won’t rehash it here.

Unlike the freezing cold, snowy winter night of the crash, it was a hot, muggy summer morning when I pulled up. Rather than dealing with constant trespassing, the farmers nearby have instead realized it is better to just manage the large number of visitors, building a small gravel parking lot and also mowing a flat path the quarter mile or so from the road to the crash site.

An oversized pair of glasses like Buddy Holly wore marks the beginning of the trail.

I set out down the path; the corn is quite tall at this point in the year.

There is a permanent monument at the actual crash site. I find it interesting the sorts of things people leave behind, just as how I found it intriguing how people had co-opted the Statue of Liberty monument in Paris for Princess Diana.

I also found it interesting that the reputation of the pilot has been rehabilitated in the last decade or so; he is now commemorated with his own memorial to the east by several feet.

I was surprised by the large number of people who were showing up when I was leaving (I got there very early). I am always torn by such sites; is it insensitive to the families of the people who died to visit? I’m still debating it; I suppose if people visit it out of a genuine reverence for the musicians then it’s ok, but I wouldn’t want it to be a locus of morbid curiosity.