Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument: Is nothing Sacred?

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is a UNESCO biosphere reserve right on the border of Mexico in the heart of the largest expanse of protected Sonoran Desert on the planet. . It is the only place in the United States where the organ pipe cactus grows wild and it is sacred to the Tohono O’odham people. The national monument is 96% designated wilderness — the highest degree of protection Congress can bestow upon federal land.

This, however, did not stop the Trump administration from building a 30 foot wall right through Organ Pipe National park.

The first 30-foot (9.1 m) panels of a new Arizona, US-Mexico border wall were installed in August 2019 on a two-mile (3.2 km) stretch of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It is the first of three projects that will add bollard walls along Southern Arizona’s wildlife refuges. The National Park Service issued a report on September 18, 2019, stating that the barrier wall threatens archaeological artifacts representing 16,000 years of human history.

Activists say the 30-foot barrier will block wildlife migration, destroy sacred sites and imperil endangered species. According to Laiken Jordahl, a naturalist at the Organ Pipe National Monument, it will take thousands of years for the land to regenerate from the Dept. of Homeland Security sucking tens of millions of gallons of waster out of the aquifer to mix concrete for the wall.Endangered species at Organ Pipe, such as Quitobaquito pupfish and Sonoyta mud turtles, will perish without water. Both the pupfish and the turtle are found only at Quitobaquito Springs, a sweet, reed-ringed desert oasis just a stone’s throw from the planned course of Trump’s wall. The wall will stop migrating wildlife in their tracks, preventing animals like desert bighorn sheep, Sonoran pronghorn and even cactus ferruginous pygmy owls from finding water, food and mates.

Click here is see more images of the border wall in a Sierra Club article.

February 8, 2020 0

What’s the story of Valentine, Texas?

Since it is February, I would like to tell you the story of Valentine, Texas, which we passed by yesterday. Valentine is the ony incorporated town in Jeff Davis County Texas. It has a waning population: now likely less than 180 people, although the sign boasts a population of 217 . In fact, Valentine looks something like a ghost town. The gas station and the store are boarded up and most of the houses are abandoned.

We saw three Corvaires next to adandoned houses in Valentine.

Valentine was founded in 1882, when a railroad crew had finished laying the tracks to the point where a water and fuel depot would be needed. It was Valentine’s Day, so the story goes, and they named the depot Valentine. The president of Wells Fargo and a major stockholder in the railroad was named John Valentine, which is the less romantic and probably real reason for the name. Valentine is halfway between L.A. and New Orleans, almost exactly 1000 miles each way. . In 1900 Valentine had two saloons, a butcher shop and a general store. Area ranchers shipped cattle out of Valentine but by the 1950s with the increase of trucks being used to haul cattle, Valentine’s railroad depot was closed down. At that point Valentine was no longer a thriving railroad community and the majority of the businesses closed down.

But the town still has heart. Jesus Calderon (who goes by Chuy), has been mayor there for 40 years. In addition to being mayor, he taught in the Valentine Independent School District. The school, K-12, has about 40 students. Some years they only graduate five or six from high school, some years one, but the whole town turns out to celebrate the graduates.

The town isn’t so small that it doesn’t have a post office. This is actually their claim to fame. This time of year they receive thousands of cards to be re-mailed bearing the Valentine postage stamp. The cards come from all over the U.S. and as many as 30 foreign countries.

February 7, 2020 0

More Texas!

We have been facinated with what is going on along the Mexican border, given all that is reported in the news. We noticed that in Lajitas and Terlingua, there is little evidence of Customs and Border Patrol. There are no roads across or official border entry points around here and it is easy to just walk across the border. Then we realized that there is only one road and hundreds of miles of arrid, difficult terrain to cross. Border patrol did have a set up 20 miles up the road, which is probably pretty effective because it would be difficult to survive the walk.

There must be talk of building “the wall” here because we passed this sign: “No wall. Rednecks for Beto and Will Hurd”

We also passed this and discovered that the Tethered Areostat Radar System (TARS) are blimps that watch over the southern border for low flying drug smuggling airplanes. Customs authorities estimated that by the early 1980s, as many as 8,500 illegal flights per year were transporting narcotics directly from the Caribbean, Central or South America into the U.S .

The number of unidentified aircraft flying over the border has dwindled to less than 10 per year. Each blimp can detect planes for 200 miles.

February 7, 2020 0

Big Sky Texas

We spent the day at Big Bend National Park in West Texas. We got a late start waiting for the winter weather to clear and it took the rest of the day to do mostly a driving tour. The park is huge. We have to come back when we have time to hike and explore. Definitely plan on at least three days.

Big Bend has three distinct regions: mountains, desert and river.

Cerro Castellan: volcanic lava flows and ash deposits with layers of gravel and clay from periods of erosion between eruptions.

Rio Grande and Mexico

February 5, 2020 0

Marathon, Texas: Where Big Bend and Dark Skies Meet

We spent the night in Marathon, Texas about 40 miles from Big Bend National Park. The historic Gage Hotel, is the happening place on main street in this tiny town, population 430. However, it does have a library, post office, bank, community center, general store, school, volunteer fire dept and a brewery.

The main drag in front of the Gage Hotel

Historic Gage Hotel, established in 1926

One of Marathon’s claims to fame is astronomy. It is really dark here at night. Marathon measures a CLASS 1 on the Bortle Light Pollution Scale, which means it is as dark as it gets on earth! Unfortunately, it was snowing last night, yes snowing for the first time in two years. Hopefully we will have clear a sky tonight so we can see the stars.

Marathon Independent School has 55 students, K-12. The two seniors graduated last year with a college associates degrees they earned in high school. The school is well funded by local ranchers; all graduates can go to college for free.

February 5, 2020 0

Day 9: Austin, Texas

We arrived in Austin last night and hung out with our nephew, Jim, who moved here two weeks ago. It was nice to see him in his new digs.

This afternoon we went to to the Lyndon B Johnson Library and Museum on the UT campus. The Vietnam War really tarnished LBJ’s reputation and he is not remembered fondly. Today we were reminded of how much legislation he got passed that really made a difference in the lives of Americans including: civil rights act, voters rights act, medicaid and medicare, fair housing act, and immigration reform.

Tonight we went to the Skylark Lounge

The club certainly does not look like much, but it it is a great place for those who loves blues and soul music.

February 4, 2020 0

Where the Louisiana Crawfish Sing

Today we drove through Atchafalaya Basin along Rt. 10 to Houston. This is a prime crawfish farming area. I learned that they say “crawfish”, not “crawdad”or “crayfish” below the 38th parallel. Wild crawfish have provided sustenance for Native Americans in the region for centuries. European settlers did not start harvesting crawfish from bayous and swamps until the 1880’s.

Today, crawfish farming is a major industry in Louisiana, producing 100 million pounds of crawfish annually. In addition to farming wild crawfish, it is farmed in ponds that are flooded and drained. Ninety percent of U.S crawfish production is in Louisiana.

Some farmers grow crawfish and rice in the same fields.

There is an art to eating crawfish, a hands on experience. A crawfish boil seems to me to be rather like a traditional New England clam steam, only messier. We did not have an opportunity to participate in a crawfish boil, but it was described to me. A big platter of crawfish, corn on the cob and boiled potatoes is brought out along with an empty pan for the refuse. Then the eating commences with everyone digging in with gusto. The proper way to eat a crawfish is to pinch the butt, break off the head and suck. I saw a t-shirt that said “it won’t suck itself”, which I assume was referring to a crawfish.

February 2, 2020 0

New Orleans: A Study in Contrasts

In the morning we visited our friend, Michelle at their beautiful home in the West Bank area of New Orleans.

Instead of staying in New Orleans for the parade tonight, we drove to Lafayette, Louisiana and danced to some great Zydeco music at the Blue Moon Saloon. We made six new friends who had grown up in the area- southern hospitality is really a thing it turns out, but….. earlier in the evening before the band even started playing there was a scuffle and a two guys were thrown out by the bartender. Haven’t seen that in a while. A great time was had by all but the guys who were thrown out.

Dancing at the Blue Moon Saloon to Terry and the Zydeco Bad Boys.

February 2, 2020 1

New Orleans: King Cake and other things Mardi Gras

Today we learned that King Cake, a blend of coffee cake and cinnamon roll, is only eaten during Carnival that starts January 6 and ends on Mardi Gras. The name King Cake is a biblical reference to the three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. There is a surprise inside every cake- a baby! Whoever gets the baby in their slice gets to buy the next King Cake to keep the party going.

This afternoon we arrived on Arabella Street in New Orleans at our friends Eileen and Dusk’s beautiful home. We went to a neighborhood restaurant, Frankie and Johnnies, and had poboys, gumbo, red beans & rice and some delicious char-grilled oysters.

We learned that Mardi Gras is preceeded by 21 days of parades in New Orleans. We look forward to the first parade of Carnival tomorrow night.

January 31, 2020 0

The Moses of Ripley

Today we went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is well worth a visit. We’ll have to go back a second day next trip to take it all in.

Standing on the banks of the Ohio River, the unknowing can appreciate the power and majesty of the river, but there is so much more. I am in awe of the the significance of river, which seperates Ohio (was a free state) from Kentucky (was a slave state). Crossing this river meant freedom to countless enslaved people. Here is the poem, Eliza Crossing the River by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Many of us read Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and learned that most conductors on the underground railroad were White. Today we leaned that more often than not, it was Black folk, both free and enslaved, who risked their lives helping people to freedom. While many Quakers did settle in Southern Ohio and many White people of all faiths did help freedom seekers, this is not the whole story. Today we learned about John Parker, a formerly enslaved person, who helped hundreds of people cross the Ohio River. You can read more about John Parker here. The Freedom Center featured an excellent dramatization of the work of John Parker and Rev. John Rankin in a film called “Brothers of the Borderland”.

And a final thought very relevant to today:

That is all.

January 28, 2020 1