Category Archives: illegals

Southern Tier Nostalgia

As usually happens on a long trip, I was up at two, then at four for real, and on the road at 6 AM. I recalled trudging down an icy driveway in the dark with Mary on our last trip – we had parked the rig at the bottom due to snow and ice. Today’s launch was rather easy relative to that. As we’d say in Navy flying, “kick the tire, light the fire.”

Penny and I took our first break at the Fair Haven rest area where this selfie documented my last time in Vermont for a while.

I had been watching the forecasts which called for severe thunderstorms on our route. I considered taking a higher route – the Thruway – but decided to wait a while to decide and then stayed with our original plans.

Getting out of Vermont was easy and the weather and scenery was perfect. The lightly-traveled I-88 was likewise pretty uneventful aside from a lot of one-lane stretches for construction.

Then I got into the westbound flow of Route 17 and memories flowed. The Blue Dolphin diner in Endicott, owe go where Mary was ordained deacon and then priest. The failed race track that is now a casino. The Exit 61 sign for Waverly/Sayre which we took many a time. I thought I could see our old house – probably the nicest we ever had – up on the hill overlooking town.

Then west of Waverly, the highway slides in Pennsylvania for a tiny distance and I recalled paddling both the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers in my canoe racing days.

About Elmira, the rain hit pretty heavy. I had stopped earlier to check the radar and knew that it was likely a short stretch, and so it was. Of course, I’m still learning the van systems and had quite a time finding out how to defog the windshield.

This part of the trip reminded me of the long drive Mary would make each week to finish seminary in Rochester. And as I passed the sign for Elmira Heights, I remembered how the church there stiffed her for the required contributions to the church pension fund and essentially just said “tough luck” afterward. And they’ll know that we are Christians by our love…..

We stopped mid-afternoon, after nine and a half hours enroute, at a big state park near Salamanca called Allegheny State Park. It was 80 degrees and muggy so I opted for an electric site and we have been running the air. The place has a number of families with young children and most are in tents. We are getting a shower as I write and kids are still riding the camp road on their bikes. Well, it’s really coming down now. I feel a bit smug, and snug, in my rig.

Penny and I took a nice walk before supper, hearing and seeing lots of warblers. Lots of redstarts and yellow warblers. I watched a song sparrow use the little brook as his personal bird bath.

Here’s Penny admiring the pretty lake.

Tomorrow is about six hours to Rich and Lydda’s – I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

Are We Secure Yet?

It is still disconcerting, after many trips to the Southwest, to take the dog for a walk and see, up over the tree line, a tethered surveillance balloon. Often it is miles away but I still always am tempted to wave. Here’s one not far from here that was on the ground, probably because of forecast high winds.

We had a presentation this week by a young Border Patrol agent who told us that these came from duty in Iraq, complete with bullet holes, but were very effective, especially at night, for spotting people and drugs. They still are eerie – your binoculars catch them when you look for birds – they are just silent reminders of border issues.

So, during the question period I asked him why, with all the high tech gear (balloons, helps, drones, sensors) why there were still so many agents dragging tires along fence lines like this:

He told that “cutting sign” is still there most effective system because drug traffickers know how to use the blind spots – the washes and arroyos – and it also , by studying footprints in the smoothed-out dirt, gives the BP a good count of “got acrossers.”

The resources deployed here are unbelievable – and that’s just what we can see. I talked about this in a [post last year.](http://www.vtbirder.com/homeland-security/)

Of course, former Governor Perry, after a snit over Federal troops, is responsible for hundreds of State Troopers stationed here. In a forty mile drive, it is not uncommon to see 40 patrol cars, usually parked along the highway, sometimes stopping a vehicle. The troopers have to be bored to tears – it looks like they are sitting in their air-conditioned vehicles playing games on their cell phones. Texans, white ones, think it’s a great program from side conversations that I hear but stay out of.

So, two weeks ago, some friend were down on the river at Salenino, a birding hotspot, when they look about a half mile upriver to see six men with bales of marijuana strapped to their backs, wading the river. John, our neighbor, aimed his big camera at them and got some shots that were amazing. Most of us thought it was rather unwise – it’s not the mules you worry about – it’s the guys on each bank running the operation.

We learned yesterday that unlike lower in the Valley where crystal meth is coming across in all sorts of containers and vehicles, here the main drug smuggled is still marijuana. This is the #1 district for the Border Patrol for narcotics in the country. Last year they seized 393,000 pounds.

It does make one wonder about the cost-benefit of going after a drug that is like alcohol in the Prohibition days. But as our young speaker told us with a grin: “Drugs and illegal immigrants: that’s my job security.”