#that the closest gas station is about a mile away uphill

[lightningfilledsaber]

Can today fucking be over already

[joannestorm]

I live in a pretty rural area. The closest place that you can exchange money for any type of goods is 3+ miles away. On a two lane blacktop with no sidewalk, sometimes no shoulder, sometimes a sharp dropoff, uphill both ways. It's a gas station. You can probably buy milk there. I have never looked. (They sell sausage biscuits, though.)

The closest Dollar General is 5+ miles in the OPPOSITE direction. Fewer dropoffs on the road, at least. (Do you begin to understand why DG is taking over rural areas?). But, there's a Señor Fajitas across the highway. And a different gas station with food choices. Civilization!

The closest actual grocery store is 6+ miles away, in yet another direction. There are sidewalks once you get about 1/2 a mile from it.

I would have much more interaction with cows along any of those paths than with actual humans. And cows can't call 911 if someone comes around a curve too fast and clips me.

I have lived in more pedestrian friendly places. Or places with public transportation. (The lady at the college information desk could not explain to me how the bus schedule worked. I had to figure it out for myself.).

“America IS walkable, you’re all just lazy” my childhood home was an hour from the nearest hospital (by car)

[pandemicperipatetics]

Big Bend National Park

The Verdict: We loved our trip to Big Bend! The scenery is stunning and otherworldly; we were just waiting for the dinosaurs to show up and reclaim their epic territory. We definitely recommend visiting.

WHAT TO DO (2 DAYS):

Ranked starting with our most favorite (though all were amazing):

Lost Mine Trail (5 miles out and back, moderate)

Santa Elena Canyon (2 miles out and back, easy/moderate)

Emory Peak (10 miles out and back, strenuous)

Windows Trail (5 miles out and back, moderate) & Window View (0.4 mile loop, easy)

Russ Maxwell Scenic Drive (22 miles each way)

Note: We did all of these in one (long-ish) day except Emory Peak, which we did on a second half-day.

Lost Mine Trail (5 miles out and back, moderate)

This is a pretty steep walk up a mountain with incredible panoramic views at the top. It really reminded us of Kauai. It was tiring, but absolutely worth it. Take a windbreaker – the summit is windy! There wasn’t much shade and it was very sunny on the way down; we drank about 2 liters of water each on this hike. It took us just over 2 hours.

Logistics:

Parking: Extremely constrained. Get here early or be prepared to wait for one of the 15-20 spots (when we were there the park had blocked off about 5 spots with traffic cones). The wait wasn’t terrible, though; we ate our lunch in the car while waiting about 25 minutes, during which time 4 cars left the parking lot. The upside of the constrained parking is the trail wasn’t very crowded.

Bathroom: None

Location: Trailhead very close to Chisos Basin Visitor Center, the central area of the park. Closest lodging is Chisos Basin Campground or Chisos Basin Mountain Lodge.

Other: There is a sign at the trailhead that picnicking is not allowed on the trail.

Santa Elena Canyon (2 miles out and back, easy/moderate)

A few miles past the end of Russ Maxwell Scenic Drive, this is one of the park’s most popular attractions. You’ll walk through a stunning high-walled canyon filled with water (at least it was when we went!). Some people even waded in. It’s absolutely worth visiting, but there is a surprising amount of stairs/elevation for a hike marked easy. It was unpleasantly hot (low 80s), sunny, and crowded when we went around 3:30 p.m. It’s worth noting the crowds here were different than the other hikes we did – largely unmasked tourists with poor trail etiquette -- perhaps a cost that comes with doing an “easy” hike. We spent around an hour here.

Logistics

Parking: Somewhat limited; we snagged the last available spot when we got there.

Bathroom: Disgusting. Two unisex hole-in-the-ground type structures that stank morbidly.

Location: Trailhead close to Castolon Visitor Center. Closest lodging is Cottonwood Campground. It was about an hour’s drive from Chisos Basin, the central area of the park.

Emory Peak (10.6 miles out and back, strenuous)

This hike is a seemingly unending uphill climb that ends in phenomenal 360 degree views. It starts out on the fairly well-shaded Pinnacles Trail (4 miles each way), which is like a forest of low trees and shrubs with increasingly impressive views of mountain canyons. Once you feel you can no longer move your legs, you take the Emory Peak Trail (1.5 miles each way), which starts out deceptively flat, becomes very steep and rocky, and ends as a rock-climbing-for-novices adventure.

I had read on earthtrekkers that the last 25 feet of the hike are a “rock scramble”, which evoked images of something harmlessly diverting, like a breakfast burrito. In reality, getting to the peak is a seemingly impossible straight-uphill climb; we saw an extremely fit-looking young couple do it with obvious trepidation, and a few people rock-scrambled onto a peak a few feet away that looked a couple of feet shorter. Having braved the insane stairmaster of a trail to get there, we couldn’t just leave; we found ourselves in the latter group, and the rock scramble wasn’t as difficult as it looked. The views were, indeed, epic – but if you’re not into rock scrambling, the Lost Mine Trail is a good substitute.

This took us 5 hours, 10 minutes. We were fortunate to have a relatively cloudy day, with some but not a lot of sun exposure. Between the two of us, we drank 7 liters of water.

Logistics:

Parking: Parking is at the Chisos Basin Visitor Center and is decently plentiful, though it does get crowded as it is shared with several other trails.

Bathroom: The bathroom at the parking lot had normal toilets and was pretty clean. There is also a compost toilet at the top of the Pinnacles Trail, but we didn’t check it out. There is a sign up there recommending peeing outdoors and saving the compost toilet for other uses :)

Location: Right by the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, a couple minute drive from the Lost Mine Trail trailhead.

Other: A lot of people brought walking sticks, which may be useful especially for the steep, rocky descent. The trail warns of bears and mountain lions, but all we saw were a few tiny cute mice at the peak.

Note: The South Rim is another popular hike, known for spectacular views of the Chihuahuan desert, and is also accessed via the Pinnacles Trail. Some people hike the South Rim trail instead of Emory Peak (approx. 12 miles roundtrip) or do both (approx. 15 miles total). We didn’t have enough water, time, or confidence to take on both of these strenuous hikes in one day, but this sounds like an interesting option if you are less into rock scrambling or want to do both.

Windows Trail & Window View

The Window View is a 0.4 mile loop to a scenic overlook. It’s very nice and there is a bench right at the overlook that is a nice place to enjoy a snack, if it’s not too crowded.

The Windows Trail is a descent into a canyon where you’ll get closer to “the window.” The scenery along the trail was mostly cacti and desert-looking shrubs, and since you start with a descent, you then have a pretty steep ascent on the way back up. The hike is decent until the last ~10 minutes, which is awesome. We found ourselves in a gorgeous canyon that was stunning to walk through. Finding your foothold can require some dexterity in certain areas, but it wasn’t too tough. The window is a really cool view and has some boulders that look perfect to sit on for a snack with a view, if it isn’t too crowded.

Logistics:

Parking: Same as Emory Peak, parking is at the Chisos Basin Visitor Center and is decently plentiful, though it does get crowded as it is shared with several other trails.

Bathroom: The bathroom at the parking lot had normal toilets and was pretty clean. I’m pretty sure there was also a bathroom just off the trail not long into the hike.

Location: Right by the Chisos Basin Visitor Center, a couple minute drive from the Lost Mine Trail trailhead. The trailhead starts right next to the Pinnacles trailhead for Emory Peak.

 Russ Maxwell Scenic Drive (22 miles each way)

This is a breathtaking drive through a winding canyon that starts around 10 miles from Chisos Basin and extends south to Santa Elena Canyon. There are several hikes along the way; most look flat and unprotected from the sun, so we didn’t try them. This is on the way to Santa Elena Canyon, so if you go there you’ll drive it anyways.

 WHERE TO STAY

Having gotten to know the park a bit, we’d recommend (in ranked order):

Chisos Mountain Lodge – the only non-camping accommodations available inside the park. We didn’t stay here because it was booked out, so can’t comment on how good it is. The location is great because it’s so central and right by several of the hikes that start at Chisos Basin. There is also a visitor center, convenience store, and gas station very closeby.

Chisos Basin Campground – the most centrally located camping accommodations. If you want to hit the trails early, this seems ideal. We weren’t able to get a spot here and can’t comment on how nice or not the campground is. We read that it can get pretty cold here at night because it’s in the mountains.

Cottonwood Campground – located by Santa Elena Canyon. If you can’t get a spot at Chisos Basin, this is conveniently closeby to another of the park’s major attractions. Again, we didn’t visit the campground ourselves.

Rio Grande Village Campground – the only other campground inside the park. We got lucky and managed to snag a spot here about 6 weeks before our trip, likely due to a cancellation. This is located at the remote east side of the park and isn’t close to any of the hikes we did; it was about a 45 minute drive one-way to Chisos Basin, and further to Russ Maxwell Scenic Drive/Santa Elena Canyon. There are some attractions here, such as the Boquillas Crossing to Mexico and the Hot Springs, but these were closed when we visited due to COVID-19. There is a gas station, convenience store, and RV campground with electrical hookups. The campground is flat, and part of it has campsites located in clear view of one another. There are other campsites that are more secluded and border what looks like a forest. We had one of the latter, which was lovely due to the privacy from humans, but apparently was VERY well-trafficked by animals. Throughout the night we heard animals walking around, panting, and eating nearby, which we corroborated in the daylight when we found javelina droppings within a few feet of our tent and coyote or fox droppings right by our car! Our neighbors encountered a bobcat by the bathroom in the evening, and we encountered a javelina (which ran off immediately) when we took a late-night bathroom trip. It was quite an experience. Luckily, the bathroom was clean and had drinking water closeby (though it tasted weird).

Terlingua: This seems to be the closest town outside the park and when we checked Airbnb, had the most available accommodations. You can camp, glamp in a teepee, stay in an RV, and I think there were also possibly some homes and hotel accommodations. We drove by and it definitely didn’t look fancy.

Alpine: This was the next big town after Terlingua and was about 90 minutes outside of the park. There are lots of hotels here and we stayed at The Antelope Lodge on the night after we left the park. It was basically a one-room motel room with a fridge and microwave: spare, clean, and met our basic needs. There are plenty of chain restaurants – Pizza Hut, Subway, etc. It seems inconveniently far from Big Bend, so less than ideal to stay here unless on your way out. Alpine also happens to be about a 25 minute drive from the infamous Marfa, TX.

GETTING THERE

If you’re road-tripping, the closest major cities are El Paso or San Antonio/Austin, which are a couple hours away. We took I-20 through Dallas to Abilene and then Midland, which was extremely long, no real views, and the “textured pavement” on I-20 after Abilene was very loud and unpleasant to drive on. We turned south at Midland and the views became gorgeous. When we hit Marathon, TX, we stopped for dinner at Big Bend Pizza. We had about a 20 minute wait and the vegetarian pizza was loaded with veggies and tasted pretty good. We were surprised by how barren Marathon is – we didn’t even realize we were driving through it until we had passed it and had to turn back for pizza – and from there we had a (stunning) 2-hour drive to get to our campsite. We entered the park through Persimmon Gap Visitor Center and barely encountered any hikes until we hit the center of the park, Panther Junction Visitor Center, which is just 3 miles from Chisos Basin.

 OTHER LOGISTICS

Wifi/cellular connectivity: We barely had any connectivity in the park. We got cell reception in the Chisos Basin parking lot, Marathon, and Alpine. In Terlingua, we couldn’t get any reception and had to stop and ask someone to direct us to the closest gas station.

Gas: Fortunately, there were two gas stations inside the park. It is a vast park, so helpful to have such easy access. We never filled up in the park, but assume the gas prices were pretty high, as they were when we filled up on our way out in Terlingua.

Food: The Chisos Basin Mountain Lodge sells food, but when we visited their cafeteria was only open until 4PM. The convenience stores also seemed to close early, and we never checked out the groceries available there. We carried all the food we ate; given the very long drive from our campsite to Terlingua, we never left the park to pick up a meal.

Animals: This seemed like a park where it might be beneficial to pick up bear spray. We didn’t have any, but our campground and many of the hikes warned of bears.

Getting oriented: We stopped by the central Panther Junction Visitor Center on our first morning in Big Bend and picked up a park map, which was perfect for navigating through the park.

[mikemortgage]

Death toll reaches 79 in Mexico fuel pipeline fire horror

TLAHUELILPAN, Mexico — People in the town where a gasoline explosion killed at least 79 people say the section of pipeline that gushed fuel has been a habitual gathering site for thieves, repeatedly damaged and patched like a trusty pair of jeans.

“It was the popular tap,” said Enrique Cerron, 22, who lives near the field. “You could pass by at 11 or 12 in the morning and see people filling up here.”

On Friday, amid countrywide fuel shortages at gas stations as the government attempts to stem widespread fuel theft, this particular section of pipeline came back in service for the first time in nearly four weeks, and somebody punctured the line again. Word quickly spread through the community of 20,000 people that gas was flowing. Come one, come all.

Hundreds showed up at the spigot, carrying plastic jugs and covering their faces with bandanas. A few threw rocks and swung sticks at soldiers who tried to shoo them away. Some fuel collectors brought their children along.

Tlahuelilpan is a largely agrarian community located 90 minutes by car from the capital and just 8 miles (13 kilometres) from the state-run Tula oil refinery. It’s surrounded by verdant alfalfa fields and power plant stacks, and is reasonably affluent by rural Mexican standards. Hidalgo state data shows about half the community lives in moderate poverty, in line with the national average.

At first the gasoline leak was manageable, locals say, emitting a tame fountain of fuel that allowed for filling small buckets at a time. But as the crowd swelled to more than 600, people became impatient.

That’s when a man rammed a piece of rebar into a patch, according to Irma Velasco, who lives near the alfalfa field where the explosion took place, and gasoline shot 20 feet (6 metres) into the air, like water from a geyser.

A carnival atmosphere took over. Giddy adults soaked in gasoline filled jugs and passed them to runners. Families and friends formed human chains and guard posts to stockpile containers with fuel.

For nearly two hours, more than a dozen soldiers stood guard on the outskirts of the field, warning civilians not to go near. Officials say the soldiers were outnumbered and their instructions were to not intervene. Only a week earlier, people in a different town had beaten some soldiers who tried to stop them from gorging on state-owned fuel.

The lure of free fuel was irresistible for many: They came like moths to a flame, parking vehicles on a nearby road.

The smell of gas grew stronger and stronger as thousands of barrels spewed. Those closest to the gusher apparently became delirious, intoxicated by fumes. Townspeople stumbled about. The night filled with an eerie mist, a mixture of cool mountain air and fine particles of gasoline.

Velasco said she rushed to aid a man she saw staggering along the road and away from the gusher. She removed his gas-drenched clothes to help alleviate the overwhelming stench of toxic fuel. Then she helped another young man, who described to her how the geyser had erupted.

Cerron was at the heart of the mayhem when he sensed mounting danger.

He pulled a 70-year-old man out of a ditch where gasoline was pooling; the man had passed out from the vapours. Then Cerron, a student, decided it was time to go home.

“They looked like zombies trying to get all that gasoline out,” says Cerron.

He passed soldiers warning would-be scavengers to stay away. It’s going to explode, they said. And it did. Once home, Cerron turned for one last glance at the gusher. Instead he saw flames.

The fireball that engulfed those scooping up gasoline underscores the dangers of the epidemic of fuel theft that Mexico’s new president has vowed to fight.

By Sunday morning the death toll from Friday’s blaze had risen to 79, with another 81 hospitalized, according to federal Health Minister Jorge Alcocer. Dozens more were missing.

Soldiers formed a perimeter around an area the size of a soccer field where townspeople were incinerated by the fireball, reduced to clumps of ash and bones. Officials suggested Sunday that fields like this, where people were clearly complicit with the crime of fuel theft, could be seized by the government.

But Attorney General Alejandro Gertz ruled out bringing charges against townspeople who merely collected spilled fuel, and in particular those hospitalized for burns. “Look, we are not going to victimize the communities,” he said. “We are going to search for those responsible for the acts that have generated this tragedy.”

The disaster came just three weeks after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched an offensive against fuel theft gangs that had drilled dangerous, illegal taps into pipelines an astounding 12,581 times in the first 10 months of 2018, an average of about 42 per day. The crackdown has led to fuel scarcity at gas stations throughout the country due to shifts in distribution, both licit and illicit.

Officials say pipeline in and around Tlahuelilpan has been perforated 10 times over the past three months.

Lopez Obrador vowed on Sunday to continue the fight against a practice that results in about $3 billion per year in stolen fuel. Legally, that fuel belongs to the Mexican people, with state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, acting as custodian.

But Pemex has long been plagued by corruption. Lopez Obrador described the company on Sunday as “at the service of people without scruples,” saying Pemex had been kidnapped by “a gang of ruffians,” referring to crooked government officials and executives within the company.

Lopez Obrador faces an uphill fight against a practice that has become an economic salve for poor rural areas where pipelines pass, covered by only a foot or two of dirt. Gangs recruit locals who then rally support from the community via gifts or threats of violence.

Storage sheds and warehouses dot the region, with landowners earning extra income from the rent or gifts of fuel.

The president plans a tour next week to several towns outside Mexico City where fuel theft has become entrenched in the local economy. He promises jobs and financial aid as an alternative for communities along pipelines that are somewhat dependent on income from fuel theft rings.

“Mexico needs to end corruption,” Lopez Obrador said Sunday. “This is not negotiable.”

Lopez Obrador launched the offensive against illegal taps soon after taking office Dec. 1, deploying 3,200 marines to guard pipelines and refineries. His administration also shut down pipelines to detect and deter illegal taps, relying more on delivering fuel by tanker truck.

Another pipeline burst into flames Friday in the neighbouring state of Queretaro as a result of another illegal tap. But there were no reported casualties.

In December 2010, authorities blamed thieves for a pipeline explosion in the central Mexico state of Puebla, not far from the capital, that killed 28 people, including 13 children.

——

Associated Press writer Amy Guthrie contributed to this story from Mexico City.

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2FAjJUp via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[krazyclue]

Let me tell you a long story about something that happened to me today. It involves discovering that there are still good people in this world, finding a higher power (namely Goddesses) and running out of gas. I usually tweet these days, but this won't fit on there, and if you think of this as a story rather than a post you might enjoy it. Or think I'm a dork or possibly both.

These past two weeks have been unusually awful. Not Aleppo awful of course, but really terrible, leaving me feeling depleted and robbed of the confidence I'd been experiencing lately. As usual on Friday before the direct deposit hits, I am broke and low on gas. But I have a very important appointment in Palos Verdes, so with the needle on empty, I decide to gamble and go for it. I think I should have just enough gas to get there and back. Wrong.

I run out somewhere on North Palos Verdes Boulevard right in front of someone's driveway – who coincidentally pulls up behind me about 30 seconds later. They are not pleased. I am frantically trying to get the car to start again. I'm pleading, talking to myself in the car--"Just give me 5 more feet!" I couldn't push it because this is happening on an incline. Fortunately, after a few minutes, the car sputters to life and I get out of the way before it dies again. Phew.

The closest gas station is more than 2 miles away. I grab the gas can and start walking. On the way I'm ruminating on various things – why Miranda Lambert is such a badass, why I would never live in Palos Verdes even if I could afford it and somehow my thoughts turn to the idea of a higher power. It takes awhile for me to get there, but after considering different options, I decide to throw my lot in with the Goddesses. I looked at the Gods model first, but I figure the Goddesses probably tell them what to do anyway ("Zeus, stop sitting on your fat ass watching football and go forge that river, I've been asking you all week.") I like women much more than men anyway, and who knows, maybe the Goddesses get better gas mileage, something I could really use right now.

So I start this little prayer. I don't say it out loud, I'm not crazy for Goddesses sake. But I tell them I'm going to believe in them and keep trying to be a better person as a symbol of that devotion. I am half-joking, but I figure why not, here I am, this loser walking up a hill with a gas can in his hand. Might as well call on the power of the Goddesses. Maybe Artemis will take a liking to me – I hear she's very attractive. I ask for nothing in return.

Literally less than five minutes later a truck pulls up next to me. The driver has seen the gas can and asks me if I need a ride to the station, still at least twenty minutes away uphill. I am wary that he might be an axe murderer, so I stop at the door of the truck and scrutinize him for a moment. I instinctively sense that he is okay, so I hop in the truck and off we go.

He was driving the opposite way down the hill, but decided to turn around and stop because he could see I could use some help. Better yet, he offers to drive me back to my car – saving me anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes of my time. He is a contractor on his way to visit a client, and he had the time to spare anyway.

I thank him and tell him he deserves good karma, if such a thing exists. Of course it exists, he says. We start a conversation about the lousy state of the world, and how much better it could be if we all stopped being so selfish, but instead looked to help each other out. Maybe developed a sense of community instead of just all this me me me self absorption (those are not the exact words, but I wasn't taking notes, so that's pretty much the gist of it.) I tell him that I intend to pay his act forward. I think the Goddesses might get mad at me if I don't, although I don't mention that to him. Let's just call it karma. He says that when he finally gets to heaven, he wants to be the guy that would have given someone the shirt off his back if they needed it.

This mundane encounter really helped me at a critical moment. The past few weeks have been exhausting, stressful and I've been experiencing some sleepless nights and heart palpitations. Creative projects are not going well right now. I have a history of not completing them and I often feel like a failure and a fraud. But unlike how I would have handled this in the past, I am not laying on the floor bemoaning my fate. I am getting through it, already thinking of solutions because the forward momentum I've felt for the past year has been so amazing and I won't let it go.

I can't believe sometimes that I've gotten so far from the days when I wanted to hurt myself or go out of this world. I felt like I was submerged under about fifteen feet of water, but I could still see the rest of the world up there around the pool, living their lives, celebrating their accomplishments and regretting their mistakes, but living, while I was totally isolated under all that water, barely capable of even observing what was going on. I do not feel this way anymore. There are moments, but now instead of plunging into a deep depression that might last several weeks, it's now more a matter of hours. And I'm getting things done, discovering talents and powers I didn't know I had.

What happened this morning wasn't exactly like Moses parting the Red Sea, but it renewed my faith and helped me regain some of the strength I need to get these thoughts, images and stories out of my head and onto film, paper or the stage. I am definitely not short of ideas, but I do need to find the focus to complete two or three of them while the others wait their turn in line. This encounter showed that there are really some good people left in this world, which might strike some as a corny cliche, but it's true, and we need to believe in that right now. We need it more than ever, because things are falling apart, and it's up to us – not some savior on a white horse – to put it all back together again. With a little assistance from the Goddesses of course.

I must also tell you the name of the man who helped me. His name is Rich DiMassa and he owns a company called Dents Out. He does everything out of his truck – dent, windshield and wheel repair. So if you're in the South Bay area, you should call him if someone side swipes your car at the supermarket or throws a rock at your windshield. I know, it's a plug, and it might seem a little tacky, but it's just one way to thank him. You can find him at 310-523-9455 or 800-437-0777. Please send him business. And that is not even the most important thing I need to do to repay him – the second reason is what I talked about earlier – pay it forward, treat others with kindness and help make the world a little, tiny fraction better. And I better not forget about the Goddesses either cause I definitely don't want them upset at me. Maybe a few of you can also consider doing this, whether you believe in a higher power or not.

In conclusion, I must state that any grammatical or spelling errors in this piece are my own. The Goddesses (and spell check) can only do so much. They give you a hint or two, but then you have to do the rest.