Day 187 and 188

---

---

Note: these days have been combined into one not due to lack of activity in them, but because their was not really a clear deliniation between the two when we were doing them thanks to a rather sleepless night.

Blog day 187 and 188 - Posted by Onaxthiel: I woke up with a face even more swollen than the day before. At the start, my left eye was almost completely swollen shut, and the right eye had begun to puff as well. I also seemed to have developed the same impetigo-like crusting that had characterized Obfuscator's earlier encounter with the reaction. Down to what was, in effect, .75 useful eyes in my head was a bit worrisome, so I called decided that if the problem hadn't started to get better by the next morning, I would go to a doctor. First though, we had a different kind of appointment to get to. Back when we were staying in Seattle, I had heard through the internet that there were a group of Minutemen down around San Diego that took interested people out to watch the borders for a night. Being that there are all sorts of mad rumors about the border, illegal immigration, and the Minutemen, we were a bit leery of heading down, but our curiosity and my wanting to see the situation for myself eventually won out.

We drove down I-5 towards San Diego and made only one stop before the turn west towards the border. The stop was Legoland, CA., an amusement park we hadn't been aware existed before getting there. We drove up and had a look, but didn't bother going in, as we only had an hour to kill, the admission was somewhat steep, and I looked like a plague carrier. If anyone finds time to visit Legoland for themselves when they get to San Diego, please tell us how it was. The hurt look in Obfuscator's eyes when he realized we couldn't stay made me laugh a little inside, and I would like to reopen the old wound at some time in the future. [(Obfuscator adds: Onaxthiel only moved on because he knew he would be embarrassed at how much cooler the pirate exhibits were than the space exhibits. (Onaxthiel adds: Not true. We had someplace to be. And the forces of Blacktron have always been and remain far cooler than crew of the Black Seas Barracuda.)] San Diego looks like a much nicer city than LA. I don't know if my perception on that is accurate or not, being that it's based on a cruise through, but it just looked less rough.

There are only really two routes to the small town of Campo from San Diego. We had initially planned on taking the fast, mostly super highway route to meet the Minuteman I had had a three brief phone calls with, who will be referred to as B. Looking more closely at the map presented a scenic route that would meander a bit. We had the time available to us, so we took this route and were rewarded with a beautiful drive through the backcountry routes near our southern border. We also had a chance to see the border patrols checkpoints all along the road. Rural San Diego county is crawling with border patrol vehicles. They tend to drive large pickups with unusual cabs on the back and very high ground clearance. This is necessitated by the poor condition of the roads along the border and the rough terrain in the mountains. Sounds like a great place to take my Mazda, eh?

Arriving in Campo, we stopped at one of the two restaurants in town and called B, who had to drive back from the field. About forty minutes later we got a look at the gentleman who would be escorting us to the border for the night. Calling the Minutemen and asking to be taken to the border is like a box of chocolates. You never know who you're going to get. We lucked out with B. He is a tall, well conditioned Vietnam vet who served with the 101st airborne, and if I can't get a former Ranger, 101 infantrymen certainly rank pretty high in the list of alternates. His Chevy is an old Air Force utility truck from which he flies a banner advocating the pardon of two border patrol agents who have been convicted in a shooting incident. Much as I generally don't like LEs on principle, I have heard the story of Ramos and Campion before, and they really did get screwed. After completing introductions, B led us to Shocky Truck road, a well named dirt trail that led to his observation point. Along the way we had to stop a few times to fill in washouts the would have bottomed out the Mazda. B told us that he has to do this pretty routinely, particularly after rains. The ridge line we would be camped on for the night is dominated by high voltage power lines that emit a constant low hum of electromagnetism. It is a testimony to B's dedication to duty that he stays out under these cancer magnets for three or four nights a week, and has been for several years. Once parked, he showed us the lay of the land. A few miles west is the next civilian observer (B tells me they prefer the term Civilian Observer, so henceforth I shall refer to them as such.) position. The area right around his OP is dotted with gullies, draws, spurs and all manner of visual obstruction. As B confided: “there are places a six foot man could walk wearing a top hat, and you wouldn't see him 'till he comes out.” He showed us the footprints running out of one of the draws about three hundred yards from where his truck was parked. This set was from the previous night. Then he showed us to a slightly higher point to the rear of his OP so we could have a better view across the half mile into Mexico. While his Australian sheepdog chased squirrels and birds, he explained the buildings across the wall from us. The large complex on the right was an orphanage for the children of those killed in the civil war to the south. A half mile to the east was an impressive two story home with some outlying buildings. The rumor mill has it that this is a drug house, and B says he occasionally sees people in the yard looking back at him with high powered optics. Perhaps it was my natural paranoia, but I swear I caught a glint of golden light from a set of binos too, but coming from the US side of the border a half mile or so to the west. With the amount of BP agents in the neighborhood, I suspect it was one of their (better camouflaged) OPs taking a look at us on our high point. While we took a tour of some other points of interest in the area, B told us some tales of the odd characters he has encountered on the border. Illegals that have asked him for rides into town, Border Patrol agents who are insulted by the temerity of any civilian that thinks they need help doing their jobs, and overzealous civilian observers prone to confabulation or trying out techniques that are a bit beyond the scope of simply watching the border. Most interesting to me were the leftist activists from the early days. They haven't come around much as of late, but at one time the Minutemen had truckloads of college age protesters to contend with, that tried out all manner of harassment tactics. Considering the political and personal leanings of most Minutemen, it's a small miracle that none of these protesters were injured, and another testament to the restraint of the civilian observers that they didn't do anything so untoward.

After some discussion, we selected a spot for Obfuscator and I to watch for the night and B loaned us an old first generation Starlight scope for use in the darkness. Just after sunset, Obfuscator and I moved out to our OP, about two hundred meters south of B and overlooking the draw that the intruder had used the night before. After about two hours of listening to frogs and coyotes (four legged not two) and taking some star shots, Obfuscator went to bed to start out our shift system for the night. I watched, doing sweeps with the scope every ten to fifteen minutes, until a bit after one. Then I turned in for a few hours of sleep. When I woke up I dragged my bag back down to the OP to sit in. Not being in the Army anymore, I am allowed to pull security in comfort these days, and I decided to take advantage of this fact. I watched the border under the half moon until about six am, when the sun had risen far enough that we decided to take a look at the border fence ourselves. Recently improved by the National Guard, the wall of steel makes no pretense of being able to stop people. It is billed as a vehicle barrier, and as that I suspect it serves its purpose. But the two foot gaps in the bottom and the fact that the easy to climb side of the fence faces Mexico indicated to us that it was a bit insufficient for stopping people. This assessment was punctuated by our discovery of what B called border booties. Large knitted overboots, these coverings are worn to minimize shoe signature in footprints, especially in the critical few yards that BP agents inspect from their trucks as they pass by. Right beyond the vehicle barrier lies a barbed wire fence. With its three strands, it looks like something better for keeping beef corralled than keeping people out, and the way no one even bothers to unwind the sections that have been wrapped over on themselves lends credence to the thought that no one takes this obstacle too seriously. Though we didn't interdict anyone in the night, as B points out, it's about deterrence. In the three years that civilian observers have been covering this section of borders, they have seen a dramatic drop in the number of illegal crossings. It has been easier to go to other, less defended areas than run the risk of being spotted by all the extra eyes. On our way out of the border region for Death Valley, B offered a parable from his life experience that seemed to encapsulate Americas border issue for me quite nicely. In summation, the moral of his story was “The only thing worse than being seen beating up a midget in town square is to be seen being beaten up by a midget in town square.” Until US policy makers embrace this truth, the Minutemen have my thanks for helping keep an eye on the border.

Our long drive to Death Valley started at about 9. Initially we were in winding mountain roads, but soon enough we emerged into the deserts of eastern California. In the night the swelling in my eyes had gone down, and I was now letting Obfuscator drive more out of exhaustion from the previous night than an inability to see. The first section of desert was along highway 78, and was the sort of desert one thinks of when the term is used. Sand dunes and small rocks with very little vegetation dominate the area, and there seemed to be some kind of dune buggy and off road vehicle rally going on as we blasted through the area. Then we turned north and paralleled a lake called the Salton Sea. The name really tells you what the large body of water is. It is the second lowest point in the US, and as such has filled up with all the sodium from the surrounding area that could be drawn in when the region flooded in 1905. It was the creation of this lake that really gave the impetus to construction of the Hoover dam to controll the Colorado river. We made one stop at the lake, in a small town called Salton Shores. It looks like something that someone had hoped to make into a resort town, until the investors realized that no one wanted to live in a stinking hot desert next to a high salinity lake more dead than the desert around it.

Next we passed Palm Springs and its windmill farm. I have seen windmills for power before, but this place has taken this renewable energy source to a new extreme. Row after row of windmills stretched from one side of the canyon we drove through to the other, as far as the eye could see. Certainly many hundreds, perhaps thousands. They went for miles. Finally we turned towards Twenty-Nine Palms, home of the Marine air/ground training center. After a few miles of this route, Obfuscator confided that the terrain reminded him of the stereotypical terrain for slasher films involving road trippers. Thankfully, we don't have a hot coed traveling with us, nor do we try to insult the locals with our big city attitudes, so appear to be insulated from death by cliché. Twenty-Nine Palms does seem to be a pretty small town though, only a few blocks in each direction off the main drag from what we could see. They did provide us with our last opportunity for reasonably priced gas in the state and our last cell reception for hours, so for these things they should be commended. After that there really are just a series of massive, flat plains between mountain ranges for many miles. It creates many illusions to be in these gaps. On the other side of the valley you can see a town. It looks like it must be only a few miles away, and at 70 MPH you think you will be there in no time. Fifteen minutes later you still think you must be almost there, and you are now somewhat closer to right. Driving towards the virtually non-existent town of Amboy, we watched a whole freight train pass from entering our view to just about out before we even made it to the tracks.

We stopped along I-15 for gas before continuing North into the Mojave desert. Whenever I envision deserts, something significantly sandier and more desolate comes to mind. Maybe it was just the season. The park's information center, located in a small, old rail stop called Kelso, explained to visitors that spring is the time to see the Mojaye, due to the flowers and acceptable temperatures. Our last stop before heading into Death Valley was in the tiny town of Shoshone. Because of their strategic position 100 miles from nowhere, Shoshone is not a place at which you want to buy gas. It was fully 80 cents over our fill-up price on I-15 and almost a dollar over prices in Twenty-Nine Palms. There is a very nice cafe in town that has pretty reasonable food though, so that might be worth the stop. From that point onward, our drive was in the dark, so I can't really tell you much else. You can enter the park after Death Valley Junction in neutral for much of the drive, as you go from a few thousand feet up to beneath sea level over the course of several miles. The camp sites are rather RV centric, so don't be surprised at the gravel you're sleeping on in a tent. Lastly, because of the lack of clouds in the Canyon, the view of the stars at night is stunning.

---

Photos

A broken old lamp found in the bushes.
Just because we are there for something else, doesn't mean we stop exploring, no?

Border Booties!
found in the rocks not to far from our OP

The wires.
each one has a number. Thats how people navigate along the border.

Mexican side of the border.
Obfuscator went under the fence for a shot. Notice the easy handholds built in the fence if you wanted to go over the top instead of under.

The barbed wire beyond the fence
now with convienient access points!

The large, unwalled gap
People can't climb on ridges anyway, right?

Onaxthiel and B in front of the gap.
Also, B.'s exceptionaly cute Australian sheep dog.

The Salton Sea.
Born from an overflow of the colorado river in 1905, it led to the construction of the Hoover dam.

Once, the mighty windmill roamed the land for as far as the eye can see!
Now such vistas are found only near Palm Springs.

Dust devil!
Somewhere near Amboy.

Roys motel and dinner.
A landmark in it's own right. Now one of about three structures in the town.

Mojave National Monuments visitor center
Kelso, CA