Plans subject to change without notice

Before Connie and I retired, we talked a LOT about taking a long trip out west to see the rugged mountains and desert terrain that southwest USA had to offer. But darn it seems like things always came up to push that trip into "maybe next year" status. Closest we got was almost 3 years ago when I ordered a Jeep Wrangler from a dealer in Houston, TX, with the intention of renting a car to drive from Florida to Houston, pick up the Jeep there, and then continue on to points unknown, but further west until we felt like turning around to head back home. That all fell apart when that Jeep got stuck in a rail yard in Houston for over three weeks, and I finally got fed up enough over it to cancel the order. I did find a similar Jeep from a dealer in south Georgia, but by that time the thoughts of our trip out west pretty much went out the window. In hindsight, maybe it was just an omen.

Then another attempt just this past May when Connie and I had made arrangements to hook up with a guided tour outfit (RoadScholar.org) and go to SW Colorado. Well let me back up a bit. We originally had planned on making that trip back in the Fall, but when I checked out the area, I discovered that Colorado has having severe problems with forest fires. So that seemed to put a damper on that idea, and we changed the trip timing to last month (May) instead. The plan had been to leave REAL early (like a couple of weeks early) and drive through southern Texas, maybe even Big Bend, and then angle northward to be in Colorado to meet up with our scheduled tour. No sense getting into all the details of "why" but we wound up cancelling out the trip altogether. Which actually turned out to be a good thing, since I checked the weather radar for that week in southwestern Colorado and they had rain and snow the entire time we would have been out there. With highs just barely getting to 50 degrees, suffice it to say it would not have been a fun trip in the mountains.

So Connie, remaining somewhat hopeful we could actually take that trip out west, has been browsing websites and subsequently came upon this one recently:

https://medium.com/writers-guild/big...e-1c912f6426a8

Yeah, the guy is writing about an incident 15 years ago, I believe. But do you think things are any better NOW? Perhaps even worse with all the contention going on concerning illegal immigration? The thought crosses my mind that there are an awful lot of desperate people coming across the border into the USA, and quite likely the concentration of them would likely be higher the closer to the border we would happen to be. How smart would it be of us just driving around lonely and pretty much deserted roads in Big Bend right now? Heck the reason we got the Jeep was to go a bit offroad with it, but would that really be smart to do being out in the middle of nowhere with REAL desperadoes roaming around? Seems to be much of that area is without cell coverage too, so calling for help would be "iffy" at best.

I dunno, but I'm thinking we just might have missed the boat on our planned trip out west. Yeah, I know, both Connie and I have CCW permits which are reciprocal in the states we would be in (except on Indian land, and that is another big can of worms), but what sort of international incident would that spark if we actually had to defend ourselves with deadly force? What a grand trip that would be winding up in jail during an investigation concerning justifiable homicide as a result of a (hopefully) legally legitimate defensive action! At the very least, we would be stuck where ever we were during any sort of investigation, hoping we don't have to deal with some off the charts district attorney trying to get his or her name in the news media defending the poor "undocumented aliens". Truth be known, the best defense is to just avoid an area or situation where you actually may need to defend yourself in the first place. Seems that prudence dictates that this might be the wisest path to take for the foreseeable future.

So has much of the west moved into a status of being a total "bad lands" concerning visitors and vacationers? Has the "wild west" just become a whole lot wilder? More "wild" than I certainly want to experience? Or am I just being overly cautious to the point of being silly about it?

Yeah, I know, not everyone coming across the border illegally has intentions of continuing illegal activities, particularly violent ones, upon the natives of the land they are invading. But my personal opinion is that since they have already displayed an obvious flaunting of the laws of the USA by crossing over the border illegally, where exactly will they now draw the line? Obviously in their mind they have decided that the ends of getting to the USA by hook or by crook are justified by the means of whatever it takes to get here. Might be paranoia on my part, but I sure as heck don't want to wind up as some statistic just because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time and became some illegal immigrants means to their "end" of getting transportation and money.

So for now, I think shelving any ideas of going into southwest USA is prudent. That being said, Connie and I actually got our passports a year or two ago, so maybe we need to consider something quite different from our original plans. Not sure yet what exactly that might be, but surely there is some sort of PLAN B that would be worthwhile for us to consider. Connie actually mentioned that she would like to go to New Zealand. So who knows? The window for us to take a once in a lifetime trip is not as wide as it used to be. We are at the age where we are likely one bad news trip to the doctor's office puts an end to any thought of traveling.

Anyway, just thinking out loud. Connie forwarded the link to that article mentioned about, and it just got me thinking, I guess. Maybe I should start drinking alcohol so I won't think so much.