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locksmithserviceslongmont · 5 years ago

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Locksmith in Greeley, Colorado

Greeley is Colorado’s 12th most populated city, with an estimated population of 107,348 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Greeley, Colorado is located 49 miles north-east of Denver, approximately 25 miles east of the Rocky Mountains and covers an area of 47.92 square miles. It was originally founded in 1869 when it became a Union Colony. Later, in 1886, it was incorporated and named Greeley, after Horace Greeley, an editor of the New-York Tribune. Read more about Greeley, Colorado on Wikipedia and the Greeley, Colorado government website.

Greeley Mobile Locksmiths

Homeowners and businesses in Greeley, Colorado are often in need of a professional lock and key service, typically for services such as lockouts, rekeying, lock installation, and much more. Locksmith Services Longmont is a fully mobile locksmith in Greeley, Colorado that can quickly arrive at your location in 30 minutes or less for fast and affordable solutions. Our technicians are highly trained professionals who have been background checked and who come to you with years of experience. Read more below to see some of the high quality locksmith services that we provide to the businesses and residents of Greeley.

Lockout Specialists in Greeley, Colorado

Vehicle Lockouts — Our Greeley locksmiths are highly adept at opening locked vehicles if keys become locked inside or lost. We can arrive at your locked vehicle in Greeley, Colorado in 30 minutes or less for professional, affordable vehicle opening services that are promptly performed. Because our locksmiths in Greeley, Colorado are professionals, they can open your car or truck door quickly and with no damage whatsoever. Don’t attempt to entry yourself as potential damages could occur, instead, seek the services of a professional lock and key service. We can always help those who require vehicle lockout services in Greeley, Colorado!

Residential Lockouts — We have locksmiths in Greeley, Colorado that are always on hand to open locked residential doors such as front doors, garage doors, interior doors, and so much more. Don’t stay locked out because the keys are still on the counter after accidentally closing a locked doorknob behind you. Call Locksmith Services Longmont or book online for future scheduling and we can get you back into your house, condominium, apartment, mobile home, or other form of residence. Contact us at anytime of the day or night for professional home lockout services in Greeley, Colorado.

Business Lockouts — Our commercial locksmiths in Greeley, Colorado can get owners, employees, and others into a business if they become locked out. Locksmith Services Longmont has extensive experience opening locked doors at businesses like gas stations, storefronts, mall shops, offices, business bathrooms, and so much more. We are available 24/7 for business lockout services in Greeley, Colorado and the surrounding areas.

Storage Unit Lockouts — If you’ve become unlucky enough to find yourself locked out of a storage unit in Greeley, Colorado then we can help with fast and inexpensive storage unit lockout services. We can help those locked out of a storage facility such as Uhaul, Cubesmart, or one of the many other storage providers in Greeley. Our professional technicians have the correct tools required to ensure that no damage is done to the unit, which could leave one with a large repair bill.

Interior Door Lockouts — Our Greeley professional locksmiths can assist with all types of lockout services for interior doors inside residences and businesses. Call or book online, anytime, for quick and low priced interior door lockout services in Greeley, Colorado and the many surrounding areas. Our professional locksmiths in Greeley can get to your location fast in order to open your locked interior door. We can open locked interior doors for: bathrooms, offices, closets, attics, garage doors, pantries, bedrooms, and much more!

Rekeying Specialists In Greeley, Colorado

Residential Rekeying — Locksmith Services Longmont should be your first choice for professional home rekeying services in Greeley, Colorado. Our experienced lock and key technicians know exactly how to rekey existing locks to work with different keys. Our rekeying service will be done promptly and affordably. Rekeying a home is important if keys suddenly become missing or if someone has keys to your home who shouldn’t have. Many take advantage of rekeying services after a move or change in building owners. Homeowners can call for the professional services of Locksmith Services Longmont for all their residential rekeying in Greeley, Colorado.

Business Rekeying — In addition to exceptional home rekeying services in Greeley, our technicians are also highly skilled at performing business lock rekeying solutions. We regularly work with business owners who wish to change their commercial property locks to work with different keys. Business lock rekeying services are widely used by many, especially after a change in management, or after an employee termination.

Lock Changing Specialists In Greeley, Colorado

Residential Lock Changes — Our Greeley locksmith service specialists can quickly arrive at your home to change out existing locks or perform services like lock upgrades. Changing out a lock is common for those with broken locks due to wear and tear or excessive use. Our technicians are very skilled at all types of lock changing services in Greeley, Colorado and they can always get the job done quickly. Our lock changing services in Greeley come with a warranty, so our customers can have peace of mind knowing their lock hardware is in perfect working condition.

Business Lock Changes — Not only can our experienced Greeley locksmiths perform lock changing services for homes, they can change business locks as well. When commercial door locks start to have issues, it can sometimes impact a customer's experience. Locksmith Services Longmont can come to your work or place of business for professional business lock rekeying services in Greeley, Colorado. We can work on storefront locks such as mortise locks, as well as changing out internal door hardware like Adams-Rite latches, door-closers, and much more. Call us now to find out how our locksmiths in Greeley can help your business or commercial property.

Lock Installation Specialists in Greeley, Colorado

Residential Lock Installation — Our Greeley mobile locksmiths can install new locks such as deadbolts onto your existing home doors. Adding additional locks is a great way to enhance the security of a home, and it’s relatively quick and inexpensive. Locksmith Services Longmont is available 24/7 to install new locks in Greeley, Colorado and the many surrounding areas of Northern Colorado. Call or book online for exceptional lock installation service in Greeley, Longmont, Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, and more.

Summary

No matter what your lock and key requirements in Greeley, Colorado are, Locksmith Services Longmont is there to help with 24/7 services that are always fast, honest, and reasonably priced. Our lock and key specialists in Greeley are always mobile, meaning they can always arrive in just 30 minutes or less for professional locksmith solutions that are handled correctly and professionally the first time. Our dispatching office is open 24/7 at (303) 900-0549, or you can book online for future appointments.

Locksmith Services Longmont should be your first choice for all types of lockouts, rekeying, installations, and key changing services in Greeley, Colorado. Our lock work comes with a free guarantee, so our customers can relax knowing that they are getting the best services possible.

Call Locksmith Services Longmont anytime, day or night. We can help with lockouts, lock rekeying, lock installation, lock changes, and more in the Greeley, Colorado area.

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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On California’s Lost Coast: Sea Lions, Surf and Squiggly Roads

On a deserted beach in Northern California, I mistook a sea lion for driftwood. The Lost Coast is deceiving that way. Wild things appear tame and tame things, like the paved road my family and I took to get here, wild.

In June, seeking immersion in nature, we visited the Lost Coast, the largely roadless shore between the indiscernibly tiny town of Rockport and the Victorian charmer Ferndale, about 100 miles apart by inland roads. Here in Humboldt County, California reaches its westernmost point near a junction of three seismically active tectonic plates. The King Range mountains plunge into the sea, deterring road-builders from continuing State Route 1 along the ocean. Breaking waves strew driftwood along beaches reached by hiking trails that require consulting a tide chart. It’s cold and foggy, even in summer, and just rough enough to keep all but the most intrepid day-trippers away.

“No one comes here without intending to come here,” said Verna Kaai, the manager of the Tides Inn, a homey base in Shelter Cove, the oceanfront gateway to the Lost Coast, when I booked a room for three days amid a weeklong road trip. “We’re only about 20 miles from the highway,” she said of the squiggly access road that connects the town to the nearest thoroughfare, “but it will take you up to an hour to travel.”

That sounded like our speed. And while the coast wasn’t lost to the Native Americans, loggers and cannabis growers who have left their mark here, it appealed to us in another escapist sense: little connectivity. Ms. Kaai assured me I wouldn’t have cellular service, though the hotel had very slow Wi-Fi. In this screen-centric age, a few scenic and relatively unwired places remain in the United States, such as Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona and parts of the Adirondack Mountains in New York. But this slice of California’s coast — only some 225 miles north of San Francisco — seems, well, lost in plain sight.

A harrowing drive

Long before it went missing, the area was populated by Native American Sinkyone and Mattole people, and later, lumberjacks and harvesters of tanoak bark, used to tan leather. The Gold Rush in the mid-19th century brought more settlers, and logging intensified in the race to rebuild the city after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Churning seas tended to wash out piers, which killed most attempts to fish commercially in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1970, after the timber industry had depleted much of the area, and depopulation drew pot growers, the 68,000-acre King Range National Conservation Area, which protects 35 miles of coast and mountains up to 4,088 feet, became the country’s first National Conservation Area.

Now, visitors come to the Lost Coast to hike, fish, beachcomb, bird-watch and scan the ocean for migrating whales in the offshore marine preserve (Ms. Kaai recommended visiting on a weekend, when Shelter Cove’s few restaurants are open). Others come to backpack along the famous Lost Coast Trail-North, a nearly 25-mile beach trek that generally takes three days, requires a permit (free, with a $6 reservation fee) and is subject to tides that periodically make portions impassable.

Like the hiking here, driving to reach the Lost Coast requires a degree of fortitude. The builders of California’s Highway 1, which skirts the Pacific from Orange County more than 600 miles north, gave up the shore plan at the King Range, a topographic accordion we glimpsed in hazy fog and spray before veering inland. It ends at Leggett, about 15 miles from the ocean, funneling drivers onto U.S. 101, which continues north through southern Humboldt County before rejoining the coast near Eureka.

From the U.S. 101 exit at Garberville, 23 miles from Leggett, the route to Shelter Cove turned westward and challenging. For the next 50 minutes of concentrated driving, my husband, Dave, worked hard to maintain 35 miles per hour winding up mountain ridges and through dense fir forests, and downshifting at the continuous switchbacks to avoid overheating the brakes. Past the town limit sign for Shelter Cove, population 809, I finally relinquished my clutch on the Jeep door handle at the ocean panorama of surf-bashed rock islands and mountain-backed beaches.

Shelter Cove, at last

On the southern end of the Lost Coast Trail-North, Shelter Cove is scattered across a largely treeless peninsula that protects the town’s namesake, a south-facing cove. A general store on the access road deals groceries and hardware in the absence of any commercial main street in town. Modest houses dot the shore, leaving plenty of gaps for places with names like Seal Rock and Abalone Point, and views to the sea from most vantage points, including a campground and a lightly used nine-hole golf course. The closest thing to a town square is the community center, which, when we visited, was holding a group garage sale near the landing strip that parallels the coast.

Between the runway and the sea, the location of the eight-room Tides Inn — a three-story cross between a motel and a McMansion that is perched above a cove and hugged by rocky arms — exceeded our expectations. Our suite was thoughtfully furnished with nautical décor in the bedroom, a kitchenette nook with a mini-refrigerator and microwave and a high-top dining table. But the views made you forget about anything indoors. From our third-floor balcony, we could hear sea lions barking each morning and watch sunsets late each evening.

While it remains a destination for lovers of isolation, Shelter Cove has added a few tourist-friendly essentials in the past year, including a brewpub and a Venezuelan restaurant, Mi Mochima. On our first night, we followed the music across a ball field and skirted the unfenced landing strip to find Gyppo Ale Mill, a microbrewery, which takes its name from independent timber crews who came to Northern California to fell big trees (some logging remains, though environmental activists are fighting to preserve one of the region’s remaining old-growth Douglas fir stands, known as Rainbow Ridge). On this Friday night, the local band Planet 4 played funky tributes to Dr. John, who had recently died, and children ran circles around a cornhole-playing field.

Like us, the Gyppo Ale Mill’s co-owner Julie Peacock took one of the dramatic drives to the Lost Coast region and immediately fell in love with it. In 2001, she and her husband, Josh Monschke, whose family has roots in Humboldt County logging, left ski resort jobs in Utah to move to the area to farm marijuana, and he continues to run a nursery. They opened Gyppo last spring and call it “California’s most remote brewery,” because, said Ms. Peacock, “I haven’t found one more remote.”

We felt we’d earned an I.P.A. or two, after the harrowing drive in, but learned that’s not an excuse used by residents.

“Locals think nothing of driving that road to town,” said Katie Wallace-Schmidt, the manager of Gyppo as she delivered falafel burgers and lamb sausage to our table. “In L.A., I could easily be on the highway for 50 minutes to go 10 miles. I’d much rather be here.”

A dose of wilderness therapy

Given the weather, which generally peaks in the 60s in summer, we didn’t consider Shelter Cove a swim destination, though we found hardy bathers dipping into the shallows at Cove Beach on Saturday morning. By afternoon, a dozen SUVs and pickup trucks were parked on the popular beach, a rare safe place to swim along the Lost Coast, which is known for its rip currents and shore-breaking waves.

If not a traditional beach-lovers’ shore, the Lost Coast is ideal for losing time climbing over craggy rocks and inspecting tide pools. Between hikes in the conservation area, we scrambled around the peninsula’s rough edges, watching whistling oystercatchers, turkey vultures with their wings spread to dry in the sun, and sleepy harbor seals, some of them still pale in their juvenile coats (a notice posted in the Tides Inn window warned visitors from getting close to the pups, which are often alone and mistaken for orphaned while their parents, who may abandon their babies if in the presence of humans, are out fishing).

The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the King Range preserve, allows 60 overnight backpackers per day to depart on the Lost Coast Trail-North between May 15 and Sept. 15 (30 people per day are permitted the rest of the year, when worsening weather notoriously alters and sometimes washes out parts of the trail). Day hikers do not need a permit. On our visit, the Shelter Cove trailhead parking lot was full, with more than two dozen cars, and a nearby street was lined with the overflow, indicating the numbers of hikers somewhere along the coast. Still, we felt we had the trail to ourselves Saturday morning, along with a black bear, possibly, based on the fresh scat we encountered.

From the Shelter Cove trailhead at Black Sands Beach, the going was slow on spongy black sand and tumbled sandstones that were hard to grip as our boots sank inches with each step. The slow pace that beach hiking enforced worked as wilderness therapy. We combed the high-tide line, finding patterned sea urchin shells, sun-bleached sea stars, driftwood sanded by waves and the occasional crab trap. Near the breaking surf, we nearly bumped into a juvenile sea lion we mistook for a log. We took breaks atop 20-foot high boulders that appeared to have tumbled from a mountain peak with an evident rock slide on its oceanfront face (the offshore Mendocino Triple Junction sets off frequent tremblers in an area where the three tectonic plates meet). Massive timbers made sturdy bridges to cross mountain streams that run down the slopes and cut through the sand on their way to the sea.

Venezuelan fare, blind curves and a tiny lighthouse

That night we gorged at Mi Mochima, a sunny new Venezuelan spot with its own boomerang story. The married owners, Blu Graham and Maria Graham Diaz, met in Venezuela where he was a scuba-diving guide. In 2011, after moving back to the coast where he grew up, Mr. Graham opened the neighboring Lost Coast Adventure Tours, which offers guided backpacking trips on the trail. The ocean-view A-frame restaurant, where Ms. Diaz is the chef, is designed to balance out their seasonal business, offering mini fish empanadas, garlic-sautéed prawns and a hearty shredded beef stew known as pabellón criollo. Our waitress, the couple’s adult daughter, Indiana Graham, explained that the coastal town of Mochima, Venezuela, and Shelter Cove are only distant in a geographic sense.

“They both are all about the ocean,” she said.

Getting to the northern trailhead at the Mattole River the following day was the most extreme of our adventure drives. Our innkeepers recommended a paved route largely outside of the conservation area that still turned out to be a hair-raising, one-hour, 40-minute errand on narrow roads that occasionally pinched to one lane, often, it seemed, just as we reached a blind curve (Lost Coast Adventure Tours, also offers shuttle service to the trailhead in 11-passenger vans).

A series of determined roads ascended pine-dense hillsides, undulated over mountain passes of wildflower meadows and tunneled through trees, only to descend and make the climb all over again. The few towns indicated on the map were easy to miss, though the general store in Honeydew, a blink of a town where a few intriguing back roads intersect, was thronged with dirt bikers on a group drive. We passed through sleepy Petrolia, site of the first oil well drilled in California, and took the relatively flat Lighthouse Road that follows the tail end of the Mattole River to reach the Lost Coast Trail at its top end.

In contrast to the pine forests around the southern trailhead at Shelter Cove, grassy woodlands border the northern gateway. Desert wildflowers, including globe-shaped yellow sand verbena, daisylike purple fleabane and violet lupine, bloomed in the dunes. A deer grazed a hillside and sea lions on offshore rocks barked at our approach. At just over three miles in, a colony of elephant seals dozed below the squat, white Punta Gorda Lighthouse, a remote, long-decommissioned beacon anchoring a grassy hillside above the shore.

Leaving the Lost Coast northbound saves one of the best adventure drives for last when, past Petrolia, two-lane Mattole Road links to the coast again and follows an undeveloped stretch. Bushy wild radish plants crowded the road as it climbed inland and, 90 minutes later, abruptly disgorged us in Ferndale, a manicured Victorian-era Mayberry. There, a ukulele ensemble was jamming in a bank parking lot, a comparatively found spot — with cellular service restored — at the border of the lost wilds.

Elaine Glusac is a frequent contributor to the Travel section.

52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Follow our 52 Places traveler, Sebastian Modak, on Instagram as he travels the world, and discover more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you’ll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.

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a-famousbarbarianbouquet-me-blog · 6 years ago

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Interesting Adventure Spots Activities in Dubai

Desert outdoors, skydiving, sea kayaking ... gold-leaf facials and Krug sundowners aren't the main colorful adventures in Dubai. We as a whole know Dubai, isn't that so?

Reckless, high-moving, seven-star - a place to drop heaps of money and stay inside against the warmth.

In any case, Dubai is as of late drawing in adventure explorers. There are so many Adventure Travel Packages Dubai. Between October and April, when the climate cools, Dubai offers endless open doors for activity ashore and sea, or in the air.

Mountain biking

Given mountain bikers who envision Dubai as delicate hills and residue need to insightful up - and bounty as of now has. Inside the Hatta Mountain Safari Dubai is the best option for adventure activities like biking, climbing, there's a maze of big-time trails to handle. An in-your-face association of expat mountain bikers, Hot Cog, has found and kept up 70 kilometers of wild courses through the rocky landscape, joining restricted trails, watercourse beds, and creative ways.

You won't be separated from everyone else: wild jackasses, mountain goats, reptiles, and snakes may all be experienced en route. With soak trips and unpleasant ground, tracks are troublesome and not reasonable for fledglings but rather offer a scrumptious test to experienced riders.

Desert outdoors

There's no should be stuck in a gathered campground around Desert Safari Dubai. Past as far as possible, the emirate's desert is essentially one mammoth campground - though somewhat light on the washroom offices. There are Morning Desert Safari Dubai and Evening Desert Safari Dubai are present.

Dubai local people like nothing superior to toss their apparatus in a 4x4 and set out toward the closest arrangement of hills. Off the Dubai to Hatta street, Shwaib is a decent spot. Inside two or three long periods of leaving the city, you can be set up in the midst of the ridges, prepared for an evening of grilling underneath the star-rich desert night sky. And also most of the tourists enjoy Dinner in Desert Dubai. With channel overnight boardinghouses to investigate, the following day is regularly spent on 4x4 voyages or honing rise sports, for example, sand boarding. You can camp regardless of whether you don't claim the hardware.

Scuba Diving

The Red Sea snatches the features for Middle East diving, yet the Emirates offer great lesser-known submerged encounters. Reefs are meager along Dubai's sandy coastline, yet there is some great wreck plunges a couple of miles seaward. Soaked in 1998, Anchor Barge frames a counterfeit coral-covered reef at a profundity of 25 meters - it's a famous frequent for shading evolving cuttlefish. The Scuba Diving Dubai giving you another feel of your adventure packages.

Adjacent, Mariam Express is a payload send bottomed in 2006. There's substantially more to find in the Gulf of Oman, off the Arabian Peninsula's eastern shores, an hour and a half drive from town and offered as multi-day trip from most Dubai hotels.

Off-roading

Rock fields, sand ridges, and watercourse beds give the surface to off-road vehicles in Dubai's rough terrain adventure landscape.

Nearby administrators take tourists out for stomach-beating rise bashing, with travelers grasping firmly as experienced drivers treat (or subject) those to two or three long periods of tearing up and sliding down soak sands.

Hot Air Balloon Trip

Hot Air Balloon Trip Dubai rides in Dubai are one of those fascinating adventure exercises that one must set out on to acknowledge how awesome they are. Set in the setting of the Dubai horizon, a ride in a hot air balloon gives you the sort of viewpoint a voyager needs when in Dubai.

Taking off a few hundred feet over the ground, you can have an elevated perspective of the city beneath, the sand ridges, the unending Persian Gulf, and obviously, historic point structures, for example, the Burj Khalifa and the Burj Al Arab. It's a smart thought to go for a hot air balloon ride at a young hour in the morning so you can see a staggering perspective of the morning sun alongside feeling the early morning air all over.

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jaysonsgatehardwares · 6 years ago

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The Perfect Hinges for Your Door

In all the talk of wood and size and style of doors, certain aspects of the hardware can get left by the wayside. Hinges are one of these, but when you work with the right manufacturer they may surprise you with the perfect choice on their pre-hung doors. In most other cases, they will remind you that you can choose the look and style of the hinges for your door. You can look at choosing hinges as the ability to pick out another great accessory for your door, giving it the final touch to fit perfectly into your home.

Hinges come in all sorts of different finishes, which means you can choose from numerous colors and looks. You can purchase ball-bearing hinges with square corners or straight-pin hinges that have square corners for your door. Many pre-made doors will come with hinges already installed, but will match the door in design and color. Other manufacturers will place hinges on their pre-made doors, but will allow you to choose what finish you want for them. High quality hinges will come from excellent companies such as Emtek, Rocky Mountain Hardware, Hager, and more.

Each door must have hinges that are properly installed and are the right size for the door. The right fit is also important so hinges are installed securely. A good company will see to it that doors are mortised and machined for the ideal fit when hinges are installed.

Your main choice will be what finish you want the hinges to have. There are several that you can choose from, such as a flat black, a bright brass, a dull brass, antique brass, rubbed bronze, satin nickel, an antique nickel, bright chrome, and dull chrome. Each of these has its own unique look and style. Some may look better on your intended door than others. If you aren't sure what to get, consider what your doorknob or handle looks like. Is it a darker color, like wrought iron? Then flat black or antique nickel may be the ideal choice. Are you going for warmer, brighter colors? Bright brass or dull brass will both have the gold color you might be looking for - the only difference is bright brass will have a vibrant shine and dull brass will not.

jaysonsgatehardwares.com provides all type of Adjustable hinges, Farm gate hinges and Adjustable gate hinges service is the best. Call: (+1)6477137252, +91 8872723636

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jonathanbelloblog · 7 years ago

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Exploring the Southern Border in a 2017 Ram Power Wagon: San Diego to Nogales

We see the plume from 10 miles out, the long, white-sand road billowing skyward. There’s barely room for one truck let alone two, and we know we’re in for a stop long before the agent slows his green-and-white truck. There’s no one out here but buzzards, Border Patrol, and us.

We shove the 2017 Ram Power Wagon off the road to make room and drop our windows to give the guy a better view of who and what’s inside. The air-conditioning vanishes immediately, replaced by dust and viciously dry heat.

The agent is in the waning days of his young years. His close-cropped hair is light brown, strands of gray gleaming along his temples in the Arizona sun. The corners of his eyes are creased with constant narrowing. He’s fit. The muscles along his jaw ripple as he chews a piece of gum. He does not introduce himself.

“You guys have a gun?”

The city of Tecate, Mexico, sits against the low, sheetmetal fence. No map can prepare you for how many towns the international line splits in two.

We’re on the burning edge of the United States, halfway across El Camino del Diablo, a 250-mile stretch of Sonoran Desert that’s part of one of the oldest trading routes in North America. It’s the same road that was first heeled by Native Americans a millennium ago. Spaniards from the Coronado Expedition followed in 1540. And now us.

We tell the agent we don’t have any weapons, and his brow shoots up over the gold rims of his glasses.

“Why the hell not? Jesus, you’re two miles from shit-ass Mexico right here. You should at least have a rifle. Hell, two. That truck would make somebody a pretty trophy south of the border. You know what I mean?”

The United States isn’t a country that knows its borders. There’s so much of this place, and it feels like we can go anywhere without the burden of declaring our purpose or submitting ourselves for inspection. Many of us will live our lives without even glimpsing another country. It is an amazing, wonderful, tragic fact of being an American.

Heavy Metal: Normandy-style barriers like these outside of Columbus, New Mexico, make up the vast majority of the border’s physical barrier.

The westernmost border marker sits behind two layers of fence on the American side at Border Field State Park outside of San Diego. We were there two days ago. The primary barrier is 18 feet tall, made of the concrete and rusted steel, and it became the border’s hallmark in 2006 when President George W. Bush’s administration built some 700 miles of it at an average cost of $2.8 million per mile. It wades out into the Pacific Ocean and comes to a stop just this side of the break. The waves have no problem making a mockery of the steel standing there. They halve themselves on the fence as they slide to shore, saltwater foaming and dancing between the slats.

For decades, a barbed-wire fence stretched between the two countries. Border Patrol erected the first physical barriers in 1990, starting with around 14 miles of fence between San Diego and Tijuana. Twenty-seven years later, the barrier between the two nations is far from homogeneous. It changes with the terrain and the demands faced by Border Patrol. A few miles east, it withers to a lower structure of stacked corrugated metal plate, each rusting section marked with a three- or four-digit code for easy identification.

There are hundreds of remote miles along the line, inaccessible by anything other than helicopter or hiking boots. Hundreds more require a capable vehicle—one with ground clearance, four-wheel drive, and plenty of range. It also must have enough cargo room for additional fuel and water plus all the spares and recovery gear you might need when you’re the only person for four hours in any direction. Enter the Power Wagon.

The Power Wagon is at home everywhere we go, perfectly camouflaged, as appropriate for meetings with federal agents as with reclusive ranchers. Perfectly American.

It has not deviated from its work-horse mandate since Ram resurrected it in 2005. With its body on a boxed frame and three-quarter-ton stick axles front and rear, its only real concession to automotive evolution is a set of coil springs. There’s a brawling 6.4-liter V-8 up front, an unflappable six-speed automatic transmission bolted behind it, and a manual-shift, two-speed transfer case lurking ahead of the rear driveshaft. It is the last of the truck world’s old guard, unapologetic in ancestry and execution.

There are more modern pickups that are more comfortable or more capable off road but none quite so well-suited to run its fingers down the full length of the U.S. border. To explore the forgotten line. The truck is massive, giving us a clear view of everyone’s roof rails as we lumber an hour east out of San Diego to Tecate, the next closest port of entry.

The Mexican town of the same name is pressed so close to the border we could smell a hundred suppers cooking from our position on the dusty northern access road. We heard children laughing and playing, nothing between us but 30 feet and a few sheets of steel. Anyone with even an ounce of determination could be over the low fence quickly. It wasn’t until the border began climbing its way through the rocky desert that it switched back to the more formidable version of itself. We wound our big truck up the rutted and twisting forest road that runs to a mountain known as Tecate Peak just in time for the first low wisps of marine layer to scrape their bellies on the hills around us.

It’s so strange to see the fence slink its way over the horizon, baffling to grasp the meaning of it. That we are allowed here but not there. It only gets more bizarre a few hours east, where the line slips its way through the Algodones Dunes.

Authorities have found 110 tunnels since 1990. the most recent discovery began in Nogales, Mexico, and stretched 43 feet into u.s. territory.

They make up the largest dune ecosystem in the U.S., looming 300 feet above the desert floor in places. The dunes are home to the impossible fence, one of the triumphs of the second Bush administration’s barrier.

It isn’t fixed to the earth beneath it because there is no earth to fix it to. The yellow sands move and wander with the desert wind, consuming or shifting otherwise stationary objects. Instead, the fence floats on top of the sand. It’s made of 16-foot-tall, concrete-filled steel tubes attached to wide, triangular steel bases. The sections are chained together, rocking and swaying.

The Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area can flood with 200,000 visitors at a time, all of them packed against the border. Fleets of buggies and full-size trucks, ATVs, and motorcycles roam America’s Sahara on a busy weekend, but we found only one RV at the Buttercup Ranger Station when we arrived there midweek. Just three guys on quads taking a break from work to play in the sand. We lowered our tire pressure, they gestured in the general direction of the fence, and we set off.

The big Ram floated along, up one dune and down the next, our windshield filling with a rotating view of sky and sand. When we ran out of valley, we had a decision to make: Retrace our steps or push farther into the dunes.

It was late afternoon. The sun had already begun to long for the low horizon to the west, and although it was still miserably hot, the truck’s shadow grew at our feet. Without a map or a clear indication of how to navigate the sand, we should have turned back. We didn’t. We idled our way farther south, climbing the long slope of a massive dune before coming to the crest to find a sprawling bowl on the other side.

“I think it’s a big solution. Talk to Border Patrol. They’re all for it. They can’t handle their job. They need help. A wall will help them. They also need more guys. You can still get over a wall.”

I broke the one golden rule of sand travel in a big, heavy, full-size truck: Do not stop. All 6,996 pounds of Power Wagon sank immediately. This is not a machine without a few tricks up its sleeve. What it lacks in intelligent crawl mode, it makes up for in hardware, including locking differentials in both axles. With the truck in 4WD Low, lockers engaged, and traction control off, I tried to ease the Ram out of the situation I had put it in. We only sank deeper. We had to push the sand back to open the doors.

The Power Wagon holds fast to its three-quarter-ton duties. It can tow nearly 10,000 pounds, almost two tons more than the Ford Raptor. It uses the same electronic sway-bar disconnect system as found on the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, and the clever Articulink knuckle in the three-link suspension design up front allows for an impressive amount of articulation, but it’s a work truck first and a toy second. That tow rating is a product of stiff springs, and old damper technology does nothing to sweeten the ride. The Power Wagon still uses Bilstein 4600 shocks, likely in an attempt to keep operating costs low, but in an age when Fox external bypass units are common sights on production off-road rigs, the dampers show their age.

Line in the Sand: Tecate Peak gave us our first view of a pattern we’d see repeated again and again: a thriving Mexican town pressed against the line.

Likewise, the Power Wagon sits on Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac tires that don’t do much to help the big, heavy truck off road. They’re aggressive and loud, and while they’re fine in mud, they lack the versatility of other all-terrain options. They’re also small, measuring out to around 33 inches tall and 11.5 inches wide. By comparison, the Raptor’s stock tires are a full 2.0 inches taller and 1.5 inches wider.

None of that explains why I buried the truck in the sand less than a mile from the Mexican border, but I had plenty of time to think about it as I shoveled. It was quiet and hot, my nostrils full of the rare and unmistakable smell of silica, my sweat-slicked skin gritty with grains of California.

We hadn’t been at it long when the three guys from the parking lot showed up, ripping up the big dune on paddle tires like it was nothing. After a communal acknowledgment of just how stuck we were, they introduced themselves and began digging.

The Algodones Dunes, the largest dune ecosystem in the U.S., gave the Power Wagon its only trouble. The sand is powder fine, and one loose nut behind the steering wheel had us buried to the frame.

Chandler Macomber, Dutch Conner, and Joey Soto all live in Tucson. Soto’s from Nogales, Arizona, originally, the even cadence and pronunciation of the local dialect clear on his lips. He spent some time as an Army engineer in Afghanistan before catching some shrapnel in his back and being sent home to his family, he said. He showed us the scars, deep purple pocks and gouges in his tan skin.

We took turns with the shovel. It looked bleak until a Border Patrol agent rode up on a quad. He said he wasn’t supposed to help out in situations like this, but he went and found a fellow officer with an F-150 EcoBoost anyhow.

The Power Wagon comes with a 12,000-pound Warn winch, and with the Ford as an anchor, the truck clawed its way out of the hole I’d dug. Our savior agents were kind enough to keep their amusement to low smirks as they waved and rode off. It was getting dark, and our headlights played over the sand as we worked our way back to the parking lot, the quads racing up one dune face then another as we went.

The guys set about getting a grill hot for dinner while we aired up the truck’s tires. I asked them what it’s like living in Tucson, a little more than an hour from the border.

“It affects our lives, you know, in so many ways,” Conner said. “They come over [from Mexico] and take jobs. There’s a lot of competition. They’ll come and do it for a cheaper price, and they’re not licensed.”

Macomber nodded.

“A lot of Mexican families have been here for 20, 30 years. I encourage them to do it right,” he said. “But these criminals need to leave.”

Is a complete border wall the solution?

“I think it’s a big solution,” Macomber said. “Talk to Border Patrol. They’re all for it. They can’t handle their job. They need help. A wall will help them. They also need more guys. You can still get over a wall.

Conner nodded. Soto kept quiet. I asked him if he agreed.

“There’s never going to be a permanent solution,” he said. “Somebody’s going to build a wall, somebody’s going to fortify it, but there’s always going to be a way around it. Just like in Nogales. Nogales is full of tunnels. They say if there was ever an earthquake in Nogales, the whole town would fall.”

Authorities have found 110 tunnels in the city since 1990. The most recent discovery began in the Nogales, Mexico, cemetery and stretched 43 feet into U.S. territory.

We’d be through there in a few days, we said, but only if we got moving. We couldn’t say thank you enough for from Performance Junk Blogger Feed 4 http://ift.tt/2AbxK40 via IFTTT

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jesusvasser · 7 years ago