Adventure at the Border
This weekend, Steve, Mark and I decided to ride at one of the strangest and most amazing places in Southern California. You’ll find hikers there, rock climbers, campers and occasional jeep parades. With its network of singletrack and jeep track trails that loop around mine shafts and dip in and out of Mexico, it’s both fun and treacherous for recreationists.
Fun: spotting rocks that look like faces.
Treacherous: We spotted a brand new vehicle smashed up on some rocks; it had apparently veered off the trail and met a scary end.
If you’re lucky, you might even spot some wild mustangs.
This is the place we go when it’s raining in San Diego. Usually you can count on the desert to be dry with rideable trails that are not muddy.
After parking at the trailhead, we emerged from the car and gazed over at an interesting scene: A bus, several Border Patrol and other assorted vehicles, and a line of international travelers bundled up against the cold.
As the erstwhile documentarian I am, I shot a few photos and some video clips. One thing that stood out was the amount of garbage - plastic bags, clothing, towels, shoes - that littered the area. I noticed a couple of outhouses there. Good call. But someone should also drop a few garbage bins, too, as this is normally a pristine area.
As Mark, Steve and I set out on our E-assist mountain bikes, one of the first things I spotted was a mound of horse manure. “The mustangs are here!” I shouted out to the guys. That tower of poop would be the first of many.
And so we frolicked and laughed, had a couple of spills off our mountain bikes, continued on, and enjoyed our time in this SoCal wonderland.
It was such a lovely day! It was time to return to the trailhead. But there was one more place Mark wanted to show Steve and me.
“It’s really the oddest thing,” Mark said, pointing at the border wall that snaked along the landscape far to the west.
And then he pointed to where the wall literally comes to an end.
There was a wadded-up snarl of razor wire, rendering the entry passable. More garbage abounded: children’s clothing, jackets, blankets, plastic water bottles, ripped-up paperwork, all strangely cast away.
The three of us rode back to the car and noticed that the line of international travelers had dwindled. But a small crowd remained, and it looked as though they would have to spend the night.As the sun descended behind a mountain, the chill factor rose. Someone in the group had started a fire and seemed to be cooking dinner. An unpleasant odor of propane and Spam floated our way.
As for the mustangs, we had not spotted any. Zip, zero, nada. Until…..
As I photographed the immigrants, I kept on zooming in. Then my camera tilted up. I spotted six mustangs grazing on the mountainside behind the makeshift camp. “Guys,” I said.
The two of them were enjoying their after-ride beers and some peanut-butter pretzels from Costco.
“Mustangs,” I said.
“What? No way!” they both laughed.
“Look.” I pointed at the camera viewfinder.
“What?!!!” said Mark.
Scrolling back to the photos at the start of the day, I zoomed in to see the horses grazing on the mountainside.
“And they’ve been here all day!”
There were six wild horses. One black one, a white one, a red one and three brown ones. One race - the horse race, LOL.
The red one with the white markings on face and leg seemed to be in charge. As soon as he noticed Mark and me taking pictures (we’d ridden our bikes closer for a better photographic angle) - he led the rest of the herd outta there.
And so ended our day full of adventure and intrigue.
As far as the immigrants go, I have never thought of human beings as “aliens” “towel heads,” “gooks,” “Polacks,” “Paddies,” “beaners,” or any of the plethora of insulting terms that people use to dehumanize others. Can you imagine feeling so unsafe in your hometown that you would pick up and travel hundreds of miles to another continent, not knowing what is going to happen to you but placing your faith in the goodness of other human beings?
Instead of looking at it as some sort of a crisis (mainly manufactured by politicians who have no intention of solving it), why not think of it as a blessing in disguise, a gift on a silver platter?
These border-crossers are looking for the American dream. With the number of American retirees skyrocketing, the lack of workers in service industries - including our military, and especially in agriculture where nobody else is willing to rise at 4AM and toil in the fields under scalding sun and poisonous sprays - why not “process” them quickly, assess their skills, and place them wherever they’re needed?
As Jack White sings, “You’re an immigrant, too.”
8.1 billion humans on the planet and so little humanity to be found.