Rene at Champeño

Interlude

They wave me in. Put a beer in my hand. And feed me to the birds.

[River birding below Falcon Dam nets: Harris Hawk, Bald Eagle (2), Altamira Oriole, thrashers, Red-winged blackbirds, and the "usual birdseed suspects": pidgeons and grackles. Oh, yeah, and a shotgun boat with a dozen river crossers dashing into the brush about [...]

Blame Game

I rolled into Laredo from the longest, darkest street I’ve hit yet. Coming down 83, you’re pulled a good 30 miles from the River. Crossing the Camino Columbia tollway (and almost as quickly, U.S. I-35), can be like spilling into a pinball field, falling into a land of giants.
The semis pull around all sides of [...]

Retirement Sport

Like the archetypal Irish beat cop patroling the New York City boroughs with a rolled up newspaper, John Stockley’s father rode up and down the river protecting U.S. cattle herds as a tick inspector half a century ago. He didn’t carry a gun, telling those who asked simply, “I can ride faster without one.”
(Wise words. [...]

Mexican Sunset

First there was the mandated double fence with floodlights and roadway. Post Hutchison ammendment, Chertoff started signing off on “discrete” portions of single-line fencing. Now we hear the Czar scaling back again…

There are moments of irrepressible assurance. Yeah, confidence is against my nature — maybe against the nature of all inkscratchers — so when we [...]

Shaving Del Rio

I’ve been in Del Rio three times and never seen downtown. I’ve driven along the strip mall lanes of highways 90 and 277 and wondered. This time I enter with purpose, I want a coffee shop and wireless. It’s deadline day for my first installment of Muro. And it is Sunday.
While I didn’t quite catch [...]

Nuevas Fronteras

My cherished steering-wheel waves are a thing of the past. I got a couple three-finger salutes heading west out of Marthon (where a Border Parol helicopter turned in circles beside the roadway), but past Sanderson the rural greeting of passing motorists is history.
I keep popping my fingers out there, hoping for a response, waiting to [...]

Ghost Town Grievances

The anger, frustration, and despair are evident in Terlingua after several immigration sweeps and increased surveillance activities tossed this foundational corner of the Big Bend and former quicksilver mining town into turbulence recently.
The restaurant I ate at tonight just lost its kitchen staff in a raid. Some legal residents left voluntarily to be with unpapered [...]

‘Unfriendly Gesture’

I can’t cross. Actually, let’s get this straight: I can cross, into Mexico. Once on the other side however, I run into problems. With my current collection of identification cards I would not be let back into my country. I have a driver’s license, my social security card, and my voter’s registration. It’s not enough. [...]

This Desert Quiet

Maybe in El Paso. That’s the greatest allowance any River resident I’ve met so far has made for the Homeland Security concept: these proposed miles of “discrete” border fencing (y tactical infrastructure, tambien) on either side of Presidio and upstream at Neely’s Crossing. Maybe in El Paso.