View outside my camper window

I've arrived just before sunset at my friend's 'homestead' in Cocise because I've spent a good part of the afternoon in the library here.

This is the sunset view outside my camper window.

And this is the sky just before sunset:

One in ten only....

I talked with a man today who actually believes people crossing the river into the u.s. are allowed to keep all their belongs & are granted 5 years during which to apply for asylum.

And he believes they can immediately begin work.

He is white, cowboy-ish with his pointed toe boots and brimmed hat, maybe 50. So I ask him when was the last time he welcomed refugees at the border. He kinda scoffs and claims he's seen the truth in a film.

I tell him his film is wrong, if not lying to him. I've been on the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. He looks doubtfully at me as I pick up a plastic bag that's blowing by our feet.

I flatten it and examine it - then I tell him this bag is about 3" taller and 6" wider than the plastic bag that border patrol gives people to put all their valuables in when they are lined up, waiting to board the van to go to the 'detention' center.

Border patrol then points to the two big dumpsters along the 'wall' and instructs people to toss everything else into that dumpster: backpacks, diaper bags, extra clothes - anything that will not fit into the little clear plastic bag.

The guy, Robert, looks at me with such disbelief until I pull up the pictures of the plastic bag I have on my phone.

More misinformation: asylum seekers can't work for the first 6 months they are here and only ONE in TEN will eventually be sucessful in their bid for asylum. The other nine will be returned to their countries of origin or dumped into Mexico, no matter how dangerous it is for them or their family.

He then points to two small clouds gathering overhead and tells me they are full of chemicals and if I watch them long enough, they will dissipate and send chemicals down on us.

He's a 'government is trying to control us, take away our guns, and leave us vulnerable to the cartel'. Plus everyone is blaming white men now - he feels it.

I ask him where he lives and I'm not thrilled to know it's Cochise - I don't want to run into him there when I make my delivery.

I want him to know that he has mis-information about refugees. He lives he on the border. He has guns. He is white and male. I will not get into his white man pity-party while I'm trying to touch some kind of compassion he might have.

So I tell him I have to leave but I really want him to know the truth about people crossing the border and how we are treating them. I tell him again that I've been there, on both sides of the border and he can believe me.

Oh well, on to Cochise

I'll never cross over again...

I make popcorn, heat up soup, grab a kombucha and head toward Cochise and my delivery from the Bay.

I spend the night at one of my very favorite rest stops along I10 in Arizona, the Texas Canyon rest stop.

I walk along the fence at the far boundary of the rest area, saddened to see both the fence and the barbed wire running along the top of the fence. Are they really trying to keep out refugees or why? Why a fence and why barbed-wire.

I used to stop here frequently when you could hike along a trail going up into the rocks and back down again.

Now there's a very narrow and small cement path paralleling the fence. I see a snagged piece of material on the barbed-wire as I aim my camera up to take a picture of the fading moon. I capture a hawk gliding or maybe a vulture as I wonder if this horrid barbed-wire captured a person’s clothes.

A light-skinned man who has a trace Spanish accent is waiting for me outside the restrooms. He wants to talk but he also warns me that everything we are saying can be heard.

He wants to know what kind of christian I am and when I say I’m not, he says he’s not either. He tells me about his recent experiences trying to re-cross the border into the u.s. He declares with so much hurt in his eyes, that he was born in this country and has lived in Los Angeles all his life. And yet, these past couple years border patrol has made it so difficult to cross back over, he feels like a criminal, like they are telling him he doesn’t belong.

His eyes flash with anger and then hopelessness, as he proclaims he will never, ever try to cross over anymore.

My heart goes out to him as I think about those people trying to come here that don’t have papers and how they are treated.