Tree Lined and Very French Driving around France you are always on straight roads that are lined and shaded by plane trees. But who planted all the trees in France, and why? We have heard a lot of answers that are all wrong. The Romans did it along their straight roads – no, those trees …
Author Archives: colindotpdx
Pyrenees Here’s an idea …. let’s take a motorbike with bonkers horsepower and charge around a couple of thousand kilometers of the most spectacular roads in the French and Spanish Pyrenees and sample some of the local food and wine with a mate I’ve known since I was 4 years old. Yes, I could do …
The Border: Three Problems. No Strategy. Just slogans for Fox News and worse to come. We just completed a 2700 mile ride from the Gulf to the Pacific following the US-Mexico border as closely as legally possible. We met people from across the political spectrum including ranchers, environmentalists, park rangers, border patrol, law enforcement, activists, …
Meeting People at the Fence The final stop on the US-Mexico border is where the fence reaches out into the Pacific between the Tijuana River estuary and the sprawl of Tijuana. There is the International Friendship Park and the final Border Monument where people from both sides can hold hands. Well theoretically. Today there were …
The Border Industrial Congressional Complex in Action In the industrial sprawl on the east side of San Diego within sight of the US-Mexico border is the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Surrounded by huge logistics and warehouse operations is this highly secure razor-wired warehouse for people. If you ere detained at the border by CBP or …
Presidential Solutions – Then and Now Whenever you visit the border anywhere from San Diego to El Paso, the border fence or wall is located exactly at the border line and is backed up by a wide and well maintained laser straight road. This road is called the Roosevelt Reservation after an executive action taken …
Humanitarian Aid – It’s Complicated El Camino del Diablo – the Devil’s Highway – is a dirt road crossing the Sonoran Desert that was originally a Native American footpath but later used by conquistadors, missionaries and miners before the railroad to Yuma was opened in 1870. It is still a very sandy and very difficult …
Border Control – Then and Now Good neighbours make good fences, Maureen De La Ossa was raised on the border in Lochiel, Arizona; once a busy border crossing for trade and workers going back and forth between two agricultural communities, but for years it’s been a closed dead-end that leads to the border fence east …
Real Life in the Borderlands Warner Glenn started the Malpai Borderlands Group twenty five years ago to bring together his fellow ranchers and land owners in Southern Arizona and the Bootheel of New Mexico and to improve communications with the various government agencies where relations were historically tense or completely broken. Through Chris Van Dyke’s …
Fun Then Tragedy at the Border Exploring the so-called Bootheel of New Mexico we found Border Monument Number 40 erected at the point where the border takes a 90 degree turn and heads south. Further east we had seen miles and miles of “Normandy Fence” that is designed to stop vehicle movement but here there …
Colin's Travel Journal 