The 3rd February 1959 - the day the music died.

Remember Don Mclean's hauntingly lyrical and nostalgic 1971 song American Pie eulogising the tragic deaths in a plane crash of rock n' roll legends Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper?

A long, boring drive must be broken. It was decided. A visit to an obscure cornfield in Iowa, the site of the plane crash that claimed the lives of the above three legends (and pilot Roger Peterson) was locked in.

But let's back track a bit before we get to that Iowa cornfield.

Today we would achieve our goal for this trip. Cheers and celebrations!

Readers would recall that we needed to visit four states to cover the 48 mainland states of the USA being West Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota and tonight we would stay in Iowa.

Mission accomplished!

We did however have two things to do before leaving Sioux Falls.

Firstly we wanted to have a look at Falls Park, a beautiful centrally located park adjacent to the Big Sioux River. It is famous for a series of fast flowing waterfalls and rapids that spill over roughly hewn rock formations. We wandered beside the river and read about the history of the site.

The Queen Bee Grain Mill was once on the shores of the river and the ruins are preserved for tourists to check out. The water was thundering over the walls today and if you stood too close you got wet from the spray.

Secondly, we wanted to see the site of the 'Massacre of Sioux Falls' from the second TV series of 'Fargo'. We couldn't find the site anywhere. Funny about that (we didn't really look).

After bidding farewell to Sioux Falls we set the GPS to the town of Luverne, another 'Fargo' related location. 'The Butcher of Luverne' or the character of Ed Blumquist, the town's butcher, was caught up in the drama of the second TV series and ended up... well - dead. Poor old Ed.

Naturally, we had to go and find Ed's butcher shop. Only one problem, it burned down in the series! We did however drive up the main street and found a butcher shop, so we guess they rebuilt.

Now back to that Iowa cornfield.

About 150km short of our hotel we left the Interstate Highway and found ourselves on a gravel road surrounded by corn fields.

On the 3rd February 1959 there was a snow storm in this area. The three musicians decided to fly to their next gig because of issues with their bus due to the poor conditions.

Not long after take off from the Mason City airfield Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper as well as the pilot of the small plane crashed in a cornfield near Clear Lake Iowa.

All on board were killed instantly.

On the side of the gravel road there is a large pair of Buddy Holly styled black glasses marking the path into the cornfield to the crash site. A 500m walk through the cornfields on the well worn path, you come to the actual crash site. There is a small memorial in the shape of a guitar with the musicians' names on it and another memorial to the pilot.

You might think this is an unusual place to visit however we were not the only ones on this quest. In the 30 minutes we spent at the memorial site there were seven other visitors.

RIP Buddy, Ritchie, Bopper (and Roger).

We are staying in Waterloo, Iowa tonight before heading to Milwaulkee in the morning.

Can anyone guess what is drawing us to Milwaulkee?

*Blog of the Day - 15