border worries

click the pics, you know you should.

The old City Hall is still in use.

I was looking around at weather forecasts for different parts of Arizona, and the warmest place I could find for the next ten days was Ajo, Arizona. That's not surprising since Ajo is far enough south that it's somewhat near the border of Mexico and lately has been a big news story because of all the illegals crossing at the border town of Lukeville, Arizona, which is about 40 miles south of Ajo.

I had thought about spending some time in Ajo because I like the area and the town, but I was worried about my safety with all the illegal problems at the border. But because my traveling life largely depends on the weather, and Ajo is generally warm, I decided to give Ajo a second look.

Checking long-range weather forecasts across Arizona, they were all about the same, but Ajo and Yuma were the warmest places. Ajo is a small town of about 3000 people, so they got overrun with illegals pretty quickly, so law enforcement and emergency medical attention were overwhelmed a long time ago.

 So, from what I understand, the border patrol is picking up the thousands of illegals in Lukeville and busing them to other parts of Arizona without stopping in Ajo, so maybe the situation in Ajo is better than it used to be.

Another thing I'm considering is even the government admits that the cartels control where the illegals cross the border, and the border patrol puts all their people at those crossing points that the cartels have chosen to use as crossing points. Then, the cartels send the drugs and the dangerous people who would get arrested at the border to places where the border patrol no longer has the personnel to patrol because they're moved to places like Lukeville to handle the latest crisis there.

So that could mean that by the border patrol busing the illegals through Ajo, the illegals won't be walking through town. It might also mean that the cartels will have moved the drug smugglers and MS13 gang members to another part of the border where there are no border patrol agents  so that might make Ajo safer than it was before.

So, I'm thinking of giving Ajo another look as a place to spend a little time because it looks like it will be warmer there than most other places in Arizona.

Theboondork

Tombstones Christmas tree in the middle of town.

There are several custom leather-working places in town as you might expect with all the holsters, gun belts and vests.

This is the only known photograph of the oldest Earp brother; Wide Earp. Most people think Virgil Earp was the oldest, because Wide Earp was usually too big to fit in a picture, so no one realized he was there. On a good day he stood 5 foot tall and weighed 450 pounds. On a bad day he was shorter than that, and weighed a lot more.

When he would belly up to the bar at the local saloon he would usually order a beer and half a cow, and he could usually finish off the cow before he finished his beer. Wide Earp tried cattle rustling for a while but he often ate them all before he could get them to market.

Wide missed his chance at fame and glory because he didn't get to go to the shootout at the OK corral since he was over at Doc Adams's office having a hoof removed from his throat after losing a bet on how fast he could eat a cow.

But despite his extreme weight, he still managed to live to the ripe old age of 32 when he was shot by a jealous husband after the man came home unexpectedly and caught Wide Earp running out the door with his refrigerator.