On the border

All that driving to and around Tucson had me tired out.  And then I couldn't sleep.  At 3am I was still wide awake. The hiking club had a loop hike around OK Notch planned for today, but I simply didn't have the energy to hike far and drive another two hours.  I scrapped plans to join the gang in Gleeson with David and Karen and stayed local.  I didn't even get going until 1:30pm, when I packed the dogs and took off for a jaunt along the border.  I wanted to see the "Crisis" that Trump keeps talking about.

I knew from my last walk here a few weeks ago that no road on BLM land goes down to the border on the west side of the San Pedro River.  I've hiked the river trail to the border several times, but that is a flat and exposed 10-mile trail (RT) on the eastern side that I didn't feel like doing today.  I wanted something short and easy, so I parked the Honda at a BLM fence where there is an opening for hikers.  It's just a mile to the border from this location off Border Monument Road.  One can even see the border fence on a high spot.

The road had a "No Trespassing" sign which I translated as a private road.  I took the dogs through the tumbleweed-infested desert next to the road on BLM land, which I learned I didn't have to, that the road was indeed open to all people.

A lone USBP truck was parked facing the south when I got to the river.  The agent saw us walk by.  He assured me I had a right to be on the road, but that I needed to be careful.

"But you're here watching over me!" I replied, assuring the agent that I do support the US Border Patrol.  Is there a crisis here, I asked him, to which he responded that the activity here (south of Palominas, AZ) is busy as ever, but that they have been a bit "crazy" at times.  The USBP does not publish its operations or detentions, so I didn't want to ask any more questions.  I didn't come down to interrogate the agent.  I just wanted to see the border fence, give the dogs a water break, and return to my Honda.  It was only a 2.4-mile walk.

Another agent, Thad, recognized me from the hiking meetup.  He and I had done some powerwalks in the Bisbee hills early last year.  We also stopped and chatted, but I didn't want to take him from his job.

The border fence on either side of the San Pedro River is iron-wrought fencing.  The west side is designed of long iron beams.  The east side is square links, with a low hedgehog fence across the water.

I walked back the way I came, but this time instead of paralleling the road, I walked on the road to avoid all the bloody tumbleweed.  I had noticed an abandoned city bus parked at the end of a faded road and wondered why that was there.  Was it an old transporter of illegals, or more likely just a barrier to keep smugglers from taking the road?  The mesquite trees around the bus looked like they have been growing around the bus for at least a decade.  The dogs sniffed around the tires but didn't go inside.  The image reminded me of that hiker from New York, Chris McCandless, who gave away all his possessions and moved up to Alaska, where he died in an abandoned bus. He had eaten some poisonous plants and passed on in his sleeping bag.  Hunters found him months later.  Just to reassure my conscience, I stepped inside the bus and found no bodies; just a lot of deer and rodent poop.

Landowners east of Border Monument Road are clearing their land of the mesquites.  A bulldozer blocked part of the road but the workers made way for me to get by.  The road is wide, but riddled with deep ruts.