On Sunday we decide to venture up into the mountains again. They are so close and so beautiful that it's tough to resist.
We don't really know our way around but we know where the important things are like Target and the Army post. Sometimes on the weekend we just drive around and explore. Jason starts drinking his Arizona juice and he thinks he is from here or something.
He (we?) got the bright idea to drive up to the border of Mexico. We were in the National Park and the border is just right there so we decided to go take a look. I've been to Mexico before but I've never actually driven across the border so the whole big fence thing is really interesting. And we're curious people.
See that dark brown line across the horizon in the middle of the photo? That's the border. It's less than a mile away in this picture. There is no border crossing area near us and we certainly weren't interested in crossing anyway. We just wanted to see what all the fuss was about!
Turns out that's probably not the best idea when you are driving a 12-passenger van. There was an accident here in town recently where an SUV overturned and 28 illegal immigrants were inside. If they can cram 28 people in an SUV, imagine what they could do with a huge van? So we probably looked a bit suspicious. Oh, and Jason was driving on somebody's grass. Did I mention that you can openly carry a gun in Arizona? I thought we were going to get shot!
As it turns out, we did not get shot. We just got stopped by the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol agent followed us for a few minutes before passing us (and staring) and then pulled off to a side street on the right. Then we passed and he pulled out behind us and followed us for a few more minutes. Jason and I were just waiting for the backup crew to arrive. They probably thought we had 100 people in our van.
Finally the Border Patrol agent pulled us over. He came to my window and I just smiled at him. He was probably all of 20 years old. He made me feel old! He asked if we were citizens and what we were doing back on these dirt roads by the border. Then he asked if he could look in the back of the van. I laughed and told him to go ahead, but to watch for things jumping out at him- like toys, trash, or small children. He took a look in the back and then told us to have a great day.
After our run-in with the law, we decided to go check out the eye in the sky. It's the huge blimp that hovers over the city all day. Probably watching for suspicious people like us.
