Clear Lake, Iowa - Buddy Holly Crash Site

Directions were perfect, but little guitar on the post is gone. I tuned our XM radio to the fifties on the way in. As we made the turn under what would have been the final flight path, the radio played, "That'll Be the Day (When I Die). My wife and I just looked at each other.

Be sure you are wearing good walking shoes (not sandals). [Dave, 11/16/2008]

[RA: The photo of the guitar is from June 2008. The crash site memorial is a fragile thing, not designed to withstand even casual souvenir scavengers. Except for The Curse, of course. Hope they're not flying anywhere with that stolen guitar....]

Visited crash site on 5/24/2008. Excellent directions, however, the wood guitar sign with "crash site" and an arrow pointing to the direction of the memorial has been removed. It was a rough walk negotiating the newly planted corn rows immediately adjacent the hill topped by the barbed wire fence line. No pathway at all to speak of. Walking back to my car I counted about 1,000 paces, so just under 1/2 mile back to the road at 315th St and Gull Ave sounds about right.

It was a emotional experience for me at the memorial and well-worth the trek on foot. [Jerry L. Kellogg, Sr, 06/15/2008]

Directions were perfect and the crash site is as active as ever -- two cars there while we were there. Did take a short cut coming from the north on I-35 to save a few miles on the county road B20. Just takes a few moments as you can still see I-35 traffic from the crash site to the east.

If you are coming from the north on I-35, you can cut off a lot of dirt road dust by heading west on the county road B20. [Les and Janice, 07/09/2007]

The Crash Site Memorial is still in place. There are several new items that have been left, such as: gift cards, beads, wristbands etc.. There is a wood guitar with "crash site" and an arrow pointing to the direction of the memorial along the fence row on a post right after the grain bins.

A small engine plane flew over head as I was there. It gave me goosebumps. [Saundra Entsmiger, 05/16/2007]

There was an eerie calm about our walk along the property line to the memorial. The tall Iowa corn to our left was part of it, I'm sure. It also obscured the landowner's view of the trail - just in case he is not fond of visitors to the memorial. [Eric McGinnis, 09/09/2006]