Border checks

Driving down I-10, some fifty miles from the border, we are suddenly greeted by cones narrowing traffic to one lane. This isn't the usual construction bottleneck, this is the Border Patrol slowing all traffic to a stop while they look in each car and truck. We are not crossing a state or national border, there is no hunt for a felon. This is a cursory search of all citizens in a particular area, without warrant, without specific reason, without acquiescence by the searched, as there is in an airport. Nor is the search thorough enough to find any contraband. The patrolman looks in each car, automatic cameras take pictures. No trucks or rv's are searched. All that is achieved is a theft of time from travelers and Border Patrolmen, and one more link in the chain that hampers the free movement of our citizens from place to place. Bit by bit, our freedom is being abridged, and, like the frog in the hot water, we don't notice as the temperature creeps up.

Happy New Year!

We're here on the Gulf Coast, heading west again, after a delightful stay in Florida. We've had wonderful visits with friends and family, we've kayaked in the ponds and spring -fed streams, played with manatees, (who come over to the boat and roll to have their bellies rubbed), and watched the porpoises feeding. Now it is time to head toward Phoenix and our month in the craft studios there. And yes, we were awake to see the sunrise on New Year's Day. Needless to say, we were not awake to celebrate midnight.

Christmas in Florida

We're down with extended family in Boca Raton for the holiday. ---Christmas Eve dinner with delicious specialties from Colombia, and presents at midnight. The picture is of David and Justine waiting for the clock to strike so that they could fulfill their duties as deliverers of the presents. Christmas day at the beach is kind of a surprise to our northern sensibilities, especially when most of the rest of the family is having a rare white Christmas. (and not too pleased about it)

Long Point Park, Florida

This inlet looks serene. Then a whole school of mullet will jump in the air, trying to escape larger fish, a dolphin fin will cut the surface, pelicans, osprey and fish hawk plummet into the water and emerge with catches. A huge white pelican bobs on the water, looking like a carved boat. Everywhere there are birds. Stalking along the ground, like the wood stork in the picture, ( They are supposed to be endangered, but here they are just moochers, waiting for their favorite fishermen to clean their fish and share. I have never seen them hunt.) wading along the shore, like this heron who thought he was hiding in the mangroves, -- sitting in trees dozing. We are used to life in the bays in the northwest, but here the shape of it is a little different. When you hear a huff of breath behind you, the whiskered face belongs to a manatee, placidly munching reeds. The bird that flies overhead might be an ibis. It's beautiful. We are so glad we came.

Ocean Pond, Florida

This is Ocean Pond, a perfectly round pond, about three times the size of Greenlake, in the middle of north Florida. Why they call it Ocean Pond is a mystery. It is gorgeous at sunset, and in the lazy afternoon when the clouds reflect on its tea-dark mirror surface. We paddled down the marshy bank, in and out of the cypress trunks, not a sound anywhere. Then off to the left, we saw two bumps in the water trailing a V of ripples toward us. Now, in the Northwest, this would mean a playful seal or sea otter had come to see what we were up to. But here, ---- We had heard that the way to tell the size of an alligator is to measure the distance from its nostrils to its eyes: every inch equals a foot of length. We decided not to paddle up and measure this fellow, and headed for home. Our next stop wll be on the inland waterway, where some people report being able to paddle with dolphin and manatee. Now that sounds like worth doing!

marching to Georgia

It was already after dark, and we had been traveling for nine hours. The vast parking lot in front of us fairly vibrated with humming trucks, parked on the back lot of the local Flying J. Dwarfed by the two trucks on either side, we slid into a space and put out the slides. The sound from a hundred idling trucks made the fillings in my teeth hum in sympathy. Over the next several hours trucks peeled away from the group and resumed their journeys while others entered the parking lot. When, at 3:30, a large cattle carrier came within inches of our slides, we, too, joined the stream of trucks on the highway. What a different life they lead from us--criss-crossing the nation with the goods we use, sleeping a few hours at a time in waysides before continuing their ways--off time spent in lounges that look like hospital waiting rooms, fried food buffets and rented DVD's for company. --All so that we can buy our imported TV's and clothes, our transported food, our sale items from Walmart and Target. We don't think often of the army of people who transport our goods and make possible the huge quantity and variety that we enjoy.

Study in Contrasts

After several days in Albuquerque to experience election night and visit with Robert, we headed south and east on our way to Thanksgiving in Dallas with Allan, Jamie, Brian, et. al. We walked down into the ground 750 feet to wonder at Carlsbad Caverns, and waited for the bats to fly (they didn't, the consensus was that they had headed out the night before and kept moving south.) and then drove into West Texas (where it wasn't so cold at night that our pipes might freeze) and discovered to our delight that we were near McDonald Astonomical Observatory, so we spent a day on their mountain top looking at the stars and listening to lectures on the research they are doing there. Lovely, all of it. As an added bonus, we are camped at Balmorhea, a humongous aretisian spring that pumps 20 million gallons of water a day out into a huge pool and adjacent wetlands. The water stays at 74 degrees all year long, and is a popular place for scuba divers to test their equipment and skills. The pool itself was built by the CCC and is more than 20 feet deep in spots with little fish and turtles swimming around in it.