3-7-07
The WALL, Chinese, Tom/Ernie

What a nice day yesterday was. I worked on the bench in the morning and hopped in the saddle before noon and made a run down south to Douglas, AZ. I parked the bike and wandered across the border to a pharmacy store and picked up some Lomotil which is the drug I took when I got the shits down in Central and South America last year. I might have used it the year before, I don’t remember for sure but I think that is what I used then too. It is cheap and WORKS at least for me unless I got that really bad, bad, bad stuff I got down in Cuzsco which took some more higher power stuff. I actually haven’t needed anything since I came back to the states but, ‘just in case’ it is nice to have something handy.

I took off out of Douglas and headed toward Bisbee. As I rode along I came to the Cochise College and remembered stopping in there before to check my email several years ago. I did it again this time as well. As I was walking out I happened to notice (not sure why I didn’t see them on the way in) big display cases just filled with ancient Chinese art. There was a man who worked for the YMCA and somehow he was in China between 1945 and 1947. It sounds like he has some difficulty there as he was tossed in prison for a while but somehow he was able to collect an amazing collection of ancient art. I will post a few here. The quality of this old stuff is amazing.

Dog and pups?    Porcelain

 This is carved out of ivory. The detail is fantastic. 

There is a lot of wonderful things to look at and it is really worth the trip just to look at this collection. This little college is VERY fortunate to have this collection.

I be damned, I just killed the first mosquito of the year. Spring is definitely on its way……

I pulled off on the ‘border road’ that follows along the border for a short ways. As it so happened there was some sort of confrontation or I don’t know what the hell was going on but when I got to this place where there was a crew building the famous WALL to keep out the illegals out, a large bunch of people were just approaching the border from the Mexican side.

I didn’t go on up to see what was happening. I could see some of the Mexicans had cameras and one had a video camera and was filming the deal. It didn’t appear that these folks were going to try to cross the border but were instead coming to talk with this border guard. There were little kids maybe two years old and old folks and none had any back packs or traveling gear.

This is the new border fence I guess that I have been hearing about on the radio that is costing zillions of dollars and lots of controversy over it. Well, here it is being built with rented Hertz forklifts and I think these guys are some of the National Guard guys that were sent to help ‘protect’ the border. It is weird to see then in jungle outfits here in the desert. It seems like we could at least supply them with desert style rags.

They have cut up the railroad tracks that were running along the border for some of the material.

These guys didn’t want to talk with me AT ALL and split when I got my camera out and pointed it at them. At least they were not armed and dangerous. It sure has to be better duty than over in Iraq and having to wear bullet proof gear and get shot at and bombed.

This is the border now and as you can see it isn’t that hard to get over to the USA.

This guy had a cool little shack with some nice signs on it. There are a few ranches and some houses along the border area.

I made it on down to Naco where I rode over to the fence. I think this is an older version and you can see how wonderful it looks. Shit, they used a bunch of used rusty metal and even attached a section of screened wire panels along the top. I hope it looks better on the other side. I mean this looks really crappy. In the distance you can see a border patrol pickup that is watching for the ones that climb it and come on over. You might see the line of glare lights on the other side of the road too.

And if they get over, there is this eye on the post that will see them.

I finally made it on to Bisbee where I rode up the ‘High Road’ to Tom and Helens house that they rent out for tourists. I think the website is www.highroadhouse.com . It is an older house that Tom has done a lot of work on. I just love the roof work and coupla on this place.

Inside the house. Makes you want to rent it for a few days eh?

Bisbee is the city of ten thousand steps and this is the ‘street stairs’ down from this house to downtown.

How’s your heart? By the time you climb those stairs from a night at the saloon, you probably will sleep well.

Tom has his workshop in the basement of this house. I caught him at work.

Made out of Ironwood. This is amazing heavy hard and gorgeous wood.

These are bookends.

This one is made out of Red Mesquite.

We walked on down to Noah’s house (Toms son) and met Ernie down there. Ernie is from Canada and comes down to help Tom in the winter.

Tom was scheduled to take care of his first grandson. Ernie is an amazing craftsman and cant just make regular doorways and is always looking to do something different. It is wonderful to meet and see the work of such a talented man..

Ernie was just building a new gate to keep the little one in.

The ‘crew’ talking cement mixers.

See what I mean by needing gates?

He is pretty cute all right.

I got to talking with Ernie about what kind of buildings he was doing up in Canada. It turns out that he has done several hay bale houses and I started picking his brain. There is a lot in there and I only made a scratch of it before I figured I had better hit the road to make it back to camp before dark. As it was I made it home just past sundown so it was a perfect trip. The weather down here is getting really nice and I suppose it was in the high seventies or so. It is supposed to be in the eighties for a few days now.

Oh, I almost forgot to add the pictures of flowers for those in the need for Spring flowers. This one is in Tom’s yard, not that big rose, cant you see the darn weeds down low?

OK, here are some California poppies just getting started where I parked the Fatdog.

I just hung around in the sun today and made a few trips into town to get my mail, which finally did come, and another trip to get an ice-cream bar. Ahh, spring!!!