Podcast 583-Summer Storm

Podcast 583-Summer Storm. Nothing better than a summer storm to help you forget the bitter cold. It’s well below zero in Minnesota. While Europe and parts of the South consider mid twenties to thirties ‘bitter’ cold, in the Upper Midwest we’re talking minus twenty, thirty or even forty below. This is the kind of cold you don’t need windchill to exaggerate. If you’re in the deep freeze this podcast is designed to provide a half an hour or so of relief.

Last summer I had a chance to record a huge summer storm that rolled through the area. The storm track on this podcast isn’t edited. It was recorded in real time, complete with bouts of heavy rain and thunder. Interspersed throughout the storm are some thought starters to help subscribers to the Bob Davis Podcasts mentally escape.

Maybe when you were a kid your family did a road trip to Florida. Or while in college you and your friends took a trip through the mountains, or the desert. Many have had one of those summer college jobs for some agricultural company that required rolling around on back roads across Iowa and North Dakota, recording the growth of corn, or whatever those companies require people to write down on clipboards.

For me, sitting in a broken down old ’67 Ford Galaxy in the fields and watching the storms roll in across the prairie in Rural Illinois, will always remind me of deep summer. It’s easy for people to say, “Why don’t you get on a plane and go to LA, or Hawaii”. Yes, it sure would be nice. Thing is, not all of us can do that.

As we head into the deep freeze, keep this podcast handy. Put on your headphones for Podcast 583-Summer Storm and prepare to be transported to my porch during an awesome summer storm. Of course, you’ll have to put up with me talking in your ear about places I’ve been and places to go, but it’s better than looking out the window wishing it wasn’t twenty five below.

It is true we welcome the cold weather, at least the first blush and especially at Christmas Time. Trust me, though. You’re going to want to escape. If you can’t get away as soon as you’d like to or at all this year, Podcast 583-Summer Storm is your ticket to paradise. Summer in the Midwest. Storms. Thunder. Steady Rain. The hum of summer insects. Thoughts of rolling down two lane roads cutting through green fields. Freedom is a clean windshield and a full tank of gas.

Sponsored By Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization?

Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization? Adventure and Travel in Arizona at Casa Grande On The Road in at the Casa Grande ruins in the Sonoran Desert, in Southeastern Arizona. From the first century AD, to the mid 1400’s a people flourished in the Sonoran Desert. In Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization? I toured Casa Grande. Descendants of the Huhugham (translated incorrectly as the Hohokam because Huhugham is pronounced Ho Ho KAHM) are represented in many of the Native American tribes of this region. They were hunter gatherers who mastered irrigation from the Salt and Gila rivers. Their villages extended all along those river valleys and into this desert. You often hear from Europeans that there are no ruins in America as old as those in Europe. Of course the ruins in Greece and Italy and across Europe are amazing. America, though, does have ruins dating to a different culture and different people, much older than the United States itself. Some academics believe there were hundreds of thousands of people in this desert. They lived in villages stretching from what is now Southeastern Arizona to California, down into what is today Mexico. These villages flourished for many centuries before the 1400’s producing sophisticated art and trading as far west as today’s California and as far south as today’s Mexico. Think mastering irrigation is no major feat? Today, when you drive through this part of Arizona, all kinds of crops are cultivated year round because of irrigation. What makes the story of the Hohokam so interesting is their dispersal, which archeologists believe began sometime around 1450. What caused these people to break up and leave the area? Was it an overly rainy season? Wars? Disease and perhaps famine as the result of an oscillating climate? What makes Casa Grande so important and unique? Or, did they become victims of their own success, with too many people to support for even their advanced agriculture of the time? It makes me wonder what people will say about us someday. We think we are different but how many know that once there was a people who probably believed they were pretty advanced, and in the course of half a century or so, it all came crashing down. While we argue about something as petty as who said what about whom in these final days before election 2016, the message of Casa Grande might be one we should hear. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and X Governmentcars.com.

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Podcast 564-Trying Not To Talk Politics

Podcast 564-Trying Not To Talk Politics. Live from the Desert in Scottsdale, Arizona in Podcast 564-Trying Not To Talk Politics. After two intense political podcasts, time for an easy talker to start your week out. The real challenge of what I call an ‘easy talker’ is not to talk about the easy stuff, which or me is usually political. This time though, I got into some great content about travel. I feel a motivation to travel and have an increasing desire to cut the tether completely and roll. For good. What would I need to make that happen? About midway through the trip across the Great Northwest, now into the Great Southwest, a sense of well being and relaxation has set in. It’s great to visit friends and family all over the country living their lives, caught up with various pursuit. No matter what you see in the media about the tone of the country life goes on. There’s something reassuring about that reality. Coming through Eastern Los Angeles, into the California desert was a great contrast to a week of rain and wind on the coast. Joshua Tree National Forest is highly recommended. The desert itself is hypnotizing and I have the feeling the most dramatic part of the trip is ahead as we head east on two lane roads through Arizona to New Mexico and then Texas. From the plains of North Dakota to the mountains of Montana, Utah and Washington State, on over to the pacific coastal highways, down through the redwoods to LA, and now headed east in the desert I want to live in so many places! I have always loved road trips and you would think I would get them out of my system, but after a few days in Arizona, I feel like I am starting out the trip all over again. The longer the trip, the better as far as I am concerned. Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota.

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