May 2024: No traffic, no litter, no cookie-cutter density. We have clean air, good dirt, potable water and beautiful scenery…nice.
There are locally owned restaurants, lodgings and wineries. The corporate Dollar General store stands out like a sore thumb. Enough people patronize it, but I don’t have to look in that direction. Urban amenities are less than an hour’s drive away, on the other side of the mountains.
Sonoita is not for everybody. It’s windy. June is very hot and dry. Dangerous wildfires. There is no bright light entertainment. Sonoitans have a reputation for being a little too independent, maybe even ornery. It’s a crossroads, not even a town.
I wasn’t here for the homesteading/railroad era, but I like the way they left it—rough and genuine. During the late 1970s and early ‘80s a wave of young people with little kids bought inexpensive land in the area and built their own houses. No building inspectors, no big deal. Organic building materials were popular—adobe, straw bale, even canvas for yurts. Solar energy was highly regarded.
The Crossroads was ‘rustico.’ That was fine. Country rock music delivered the message: ”Going up the country, where the water tastes like wine” (Canned Heat) and there weren’t even any wineries. We smoked mellow, homegrown illegal grass and drank Mexican beer.
Not that we were lazy. We restored crumbling, cracking Crossroads buildings and built a few new ones. We built a Little League field because some of our kids liked to play baseball. We raised good kids. Many of them left for education and jobs, but they have good memories and keep in touch.
We resisted the idea of a stoplight and rejected the offer of a free electronic message board to be placed near the Crossroads. Instead, artist Deborah Fellows created subtle artistic road signs.
A mysterious “Cuisine Tourism Initiative” sounds scary, if not silly and pretentious. I hope Sonoita’s distinctiveness is cherished, not homogenized and commodified like so many other beautiful places.