Each of my seven days was spent in the shade of my pup-tent, sleeping away the heat, waiting for the evening coolness to fall across the Death Valley. The hottest times of the day are between ten in the morning and four in the evening.

The times I can only guess at as I didn’t have my pocket watch with me.

My nights and early morning were spent enjoying the solitude of being alone and having plenty of time to reflect. And every night I was allowed to look into the dark skies above me and simply stare at all the stars in this vast universe.

As a lay back and stared at the Milky Way, I couldn’t help but think of Psalm 147:4 which reads, “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.”

That’s like me trying to count each piece of sand I was laying on.

It also caused me to think about Jeremiah 1:5, which says in part: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

It’s overwhelming when you realize that not only does he know each star, He knows you and me too.

The large rock on which I had perched myself overlooked the open basin of the Death Valley. Seated there, I was contemplating life when I saw an older model Volkswagen Bug racing along the gravel roadway below me.

Fortunately, I was far enough away as to not hear the sound the jack rabbit’s head made when it contacted the VW’s left front bumper. The animal cart wheeled wildly as the vehicle continued speeding in what I figured to be a northerly direction.

In the desert, as in any wild environment, nothing goes to waste. So it was no surprise when a murder of five crows quickly arrived to claim the carcass.

Their claim was short-lived as a buzzard swept in to take possession of the dead rabbit. The massive wing span sent the crows scattering to the hot, dry wind.

Immediately, the bird picked up where the crows had left off. However, I could soon tell he was not going to be allowed to enjoy his banquet in peace.

Slinking out of the low scrub and rocks trotted a shaggy, sorry-looking coyote. It was obvious that the wild dog had dealt with the buzzard before and wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the sizable display of wings the bird used as a bluff.

Slowly the coyote circled the bird and the dead rabbit; first to the left, then back to the right, tightening the gap between itself and intended target with each pass. In an opening only seen by the coyote, the mangy looking mutt pounced.

The sudden leap caused the buzzard to spring into the air jus’ out of reach of the coyote’s teeth. Yet, as fast as the bird left the earth, it was back on the ground chasing the coyote away.

Not to be out foxed for its dinner, the coyote wasted no time in knocking the king-of-the-hill buzzard from the rabbit’s body. The pair rolled across the reddened soil, locking in a possible life and death struggle.

Then the buzzard broke free of the wrestling match and with a flap or two of its huge wings, took to the air leaving the coyote the victor. Satisfied, the derelict dog turned to claim it’s hard fought for prize.

Without a warning a hawk came zooming out of the blue to snatch the still warm body from the sand. I wish I knew what in the hell was going through that old canine’s brain as he watched his supper disappear into the morning sky.

Instead, all I could think as I watched the critter turn away was about Saturday morning cartoon’s and the Roadrunner’s ‘Wylie E. Coyote.’

The sky, painted a hue of pomegranate and mystic blue each evening, turned the playa ahead of me into a flat pink alabaster basin. I’ve learned there is a calm that falls over the Death Valley at the precise moment the sun leaves the western sky.

Within minutes it’s as dark as India ink and my camp site is lost to sight. I can understand how a person becomes lost in this changing landscape, so I feel for my flashlight and compass that rest in my backpack.

Devoid of most electronics, save a cell phone for that unexpected emergency like a fall or snake bite, I’m ill equipped by many adventurers’ standards. But then that was my point.

Armed with only the cloths on my back, a note pad, some ink pens, (both of which I neglected all week-long,) my pack filled with trail mix and Vienna sausages, my hiking stick, and two large canteens of water, I abandoned my truck to trek some distance eastward, so that I may find peace and quiet. I discovered everything but those two in the few days I’ve roughed it.

Death Valley’s filled with sounds, both familiar and unnerving. Unusual dragging noises, to a breathy huffing to the lone howl of a distant coyote kept my nerves on edge.

There were strange shadows that danced between my campfire and the earth. They always remained beyond my full sight, flickering in and out of my periphery only to disappear when looked upon.

But I never feared them or the sounds.

God is among the dunes, the sparse hillsides and His cloudless, star-filled heavens. He’s been with me the entire time — I feel His companionship – both of us enjoying His handiwork.

After seven days, my skin’s dried with dust, slightly burnt, and I’m exhausted. Part of me wished for a cool shower to drown the crusty sweat and dirt in, a soft bed with clean sheets and a greasy hamburger and a cold beer.

My wilder half decried the need for such luxuries as I slowly wandered back towards my truck.

This week has been without another human’s voice, so when I turned the key to my truck, a radio preacher’s voice, fading in and out, and shouting about the love of God and man’s sinful nature, seemed foreign to me. I turned the button to off and questioned aloud, “Has he ever spent a week alone in the Death Valley?”

“I bet not,” I concluded as my truck’s headlights sought out the nearest glow of civilization’s existence.

En route from taking a neighbor to the eye doctor, my friend pointed to a local eatery she likes to go to.

“That’s a great place to eat,” she stated.

“Never been there,” he returned.

A few seconds of silence passed before she asked, “So do you eat-out?”

More silence – the awkward kind – before he spoke, “Don’t you think that’s a bit personal?”

And because ‘dirt minds’ think alike — we laughed the entire way home.

It’s an event worthy of coverage from any news station or agency, but  no one is reporting on what happened at a California Inspection Station in Long Valley, California a few miles from the Nevada state line. The California Department of Food and Agriculture operates 16 such agriculture inspection stations that are located along the major highways that enter the state for the stated purpose of “helping the Governor and Legislature ensure delivery of safe food and fiber through responsible environmental stewardship in a fair marketplace for all Californians.”

In a display of government double-speak, disregard for the Constitution, and deflection of personal responsibility by police and other state enforcers, a California family was arrested and their child was placed in care of the state all because they stood up for their right to be secure in their persons and property in August.

In a video posted to social media by Brad Feinman, it shows him and his as they were stopped at a checkpoint on Highway 395. The footage begins with the family making its way through the checkpoint to sounds of a state agricultural officer asking, “Where ya coming from?”

Feinman responds that he and  his family “don’t answer questions” and will be on their way.

“You’re gonna go?” the officer asks. “This is just an agricultural inspection, I’m wondering where you are traveling from?”

Feinman then tells the officer that its “none of his business” where his family was traveling to or from from . The officer next radios a supervisor named Stacy for help.

“If you keep driving, I will contact the authorities and have them bring you back to the facility,” the woman says. “We need to conduct an inspection on the vehicle.”

“Do you have a warrant?” Feinman asks. “Cause you’re not inspecting anything without a warrant. Do you know the Fourth Amendment? I’m free from warrantless searches.”

“I don’t need a warrant, there is no search here,” Stacy answers. “You’re speaking of an Amendment that classifies searches. We are not searching…an inspection. The conveyance needs to be inspected for agricultural hosts.”

“So what part of the vehicle are you planning to inspect?” Feinman asks.

“We need to inspect the vehicle in the back and any ice-chests you may have on board,” Stacy responds.

“Oh, so you mean inside? That’s a search,” Feinman asserts.

Stacy responds again, “It’s not a search, it is an inspection.”

“That’s exactly what a search is,” Feinman says adding, “Don’t you understand the Bill of Rights?”

“I’m not going to engage in this with you, “replies Stacy. “I never said the word search. You’re talking about something other than the Fourth Amendment.”

Feinman then asks Stacy to explain the difference between the words a “search” and “inspection.”

She answers, “I don’t have a definition of a search. I don’t search, I inspect.”

“So you think that word frees you from your obligations to the Constitution?” Feinman asks.

“I’m not really sure what your question is,” Stacy says.

Feinman then reads the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution to her: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Stacy then rebuts, saying that “the initial contact” officers had with the family and with the fact that he had “a number of insects on the front of…vehicle,” indicated that the family may have been coming from some where that might be of concern. Feinman then leaves the checkpoint with Stacy telling him she is going to call the polices and have them bring the family back so she can inspect their vehicle.

The footage then cuts the Feinmans being pulled over by what appears to be officers with the Nevada County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol. Feinman continues to assert his rights as officers issue him a citation, threaten to pull him out of his vehicle and to have his children placed in Child Protective Services.

Feinman asks what law he’s broken and one officer replies that he is in violation of the “California Food and Agriculture Code.”

He’s then instructed to exit his vehicle so they can write him a ticket.

“But I live in California,” Feinman says. “Does the Agriculture code trump the U.S. Constitution? I’m a free citizen. Did you guys take an oath to defend the Constitution?”

“So you’re a Constitutionalist is what you’re saying?” another officer asks after telling Feinman he is being unreasonable.

“Yes, yes I am,” Feinman boldly asserts. “What are you?”

The officer responds by saying, “We’ve had problems with this before!”

Feinman asks the officer again if he took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the cop tells the man not to sidetrack the conversation. In response, both LEO’s then walk away as Feinman starts read them the Fourth Amendment. Moments later, an officer identifying himself as an “off-duty” California Highway Patrol Sergeant informs the Feinman that, “all…want to do is write…a ticket and if…can’t do that then…are going to have to break the window and get in and take…out.”

That Sergeant also claims Feinmans behavior is “totally unnecessary” and says “this is your choice right now…we have given you ever opportunity we can,” before an officer smashes out the back window of the vehicle and arrest the occupants.

“This is a complete violation of my rights,” Feinman yells.

The video comes to an end as officers begin yanking and pulling on Feinman, exclaiming, “Quit resisting arrest.”

“I’m not,” Feinman insists, ‘My seatbelt is still buckled.”

Eventually, the Feinman’s were released, but not until after a lengthy interrogation, threats to have their juvenile son taken away and placed in foster care and to seperate the husband and wife by transporting them other ‘detention facilities.’ Oddly, the media is quiet about this and it appears all records of the incident are being withheld because ‘of the ongoing investigation.’

Welcome to California. It’s a whole other country.

While researching another story that involved Del Norte County Sheriff Harold Scott, indicted by a grand jury in 1957 for operating a brothel, I ran across a name I knew all to well — my fathers. Admittedly, my heart skipped a beat to think he’d be involved in prostitution, but I pressed on to uncover a story my old man never shared about helping to recover four bodies from the ocean in mid-August 1955.

It began on a Saturday when the four disappeared while salmon fishing in a heavy fog off the mouth of the Klamath River. A test tube washed ashore containing an unsigned note which read: “Boat is drifting toward shore three quarter miles north of Wilson Creek.”

Eventually the rented skiff was found overturned on an isolated beach below a 2,000 foot cliff. Sheriff Scott and Deputy William Bowen got to the body of one of the victims by horseback at six o’clock that Monday evening.

They put the body on the horse and started up the sheer bluffs some four miles south of Crescent City. However the horse became exhausted and the sheriff and Bowen were forced to leave the body behind and finish the trip on foot.

They arrived in Crescent City at 10 o’clock and promptly pressed a helicopter into service. The attempt to recover the body by helicopter failed when the 32-foot span of the craft’s blades proved too wide for the narrow, cliff-surrounded inlet.

The sheriff and Coroner Norman Weir stood by in a boat as a safety precaution because of the close quarters in which the aircraft had to operate.  Scott then tried to take the boat into the inlet, but he shied away because “the beach shoreline is strewn with boulders.”

Searchers, including my dad, finally retrieved the body of Dr. Fred W. Holmes, late Tuesday. Other members of the group included Glen Willhite, Jerry White, an Airman Lee and Airman J.C. Messick from the Requa Air Force Station in Klamath.

A positive identification of the body was made by Dr. Howard Holmes, the victim’s brother. Dr. Fred G. Holmes, the father of Howard, and Howard’s two sons, Fred Jr., 10, and eight-year-old Stephen, also drown.

The Nevada Health Co-Op, created as part of ObamaCare, is closing down at the end of the year because of high costs. Participants will be covered through the end of 2015, but will have to choose another insurance provider when open enrollment begins in November.

Co-ops around the country are struggling. Regulators shut down one covering Iowa and Nebraska, while another in Louisiana says it plans to shutdown too.

This is classic Progressivism. You get what you pay for — and when you don’t pay for anything, but others do — you get nothing in return.

Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t.
It’s okay to fall apart for a little while.
You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well.
You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears.
The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.

We came across a small curving stream at a point where the water ran into a heavily jungled ravine. It was the perfect spot for an ambush – only the enemy had gotten there first.

The stream was about seven feet wide and our point man crossed it by leaping to a rock in the middle then to the far bank. As his feet hit the far side, he froze, his eyes searching the thick undergrowth.

Seeing this, our Staff Sergeant, who was the second man in the column, signaled the rest of us to halt and to watch our flanks. Then crossing the stream himself, he located the trip-wire that ran along the bank.

The rest of the squad began descending into the ravine, quickly but cautiously. No sooner had they set up to begin crossing, than one of the Marines spotted an enemy soldier kneeling behind a bush near the upper edge of the ravine.

The man was facing away from our position, unaware that we were behind him. It didn’t stop the unnerved new guy from dumping an entire magazine into the unsuspecting man.

In turn, at least six enemy-fighters hidden further up the draw fired on the FNG. The Marine was hit in the legs and the side, falling instantly.

Rushing to his side, I dragged him back to the cover of several large rocks where I immediately went to work on his wounds. The raking tore up both legs, while the wound to his side was a simple laceration.

The other members of the squad hit the ground, but failed to lay down suppression fire. The Staff Sergeant took a round to the head, having been zeroed in on by a sniper.

I sprinted to where he lay, only to confirm what I already knew – he was beyond medical aid.

As this occurred, the squad suffered another casualty — the M-79 gunner who’d been hit in the head, but not killed. The other ‘Thumper’ operator was pinned down in the open and could not fire effectively.

This was the reason I had taken the Hospital Corpsman’s oath. Gulping a deep breath, I jumped up and raced to the gunner, jus’ as a couple of Gyrene’s brought their M-240 machine gun into action, firing it from behind a small mound of earth.

As the weapon opened up, we came under even more intense fire from grenade launchers and AK-47’s.

Grabbing the gunner’s webbing I began tugging him towards a fallen tree. Seeing my struggle, the Marine, who had been pinned down jus’ seconds before joined me and together we got the unconscious man to cover.

Across from us, another Grunt, having spotting a pair of communist machine guns in the processes of being set up, leveled his rifle and squeezed the trigger. It was at that moment he discovered he had forgotten to change magazines in the heat of first contact.

Thinking fast, he pulled a hand grenade from his webbing, popped the spoon, and giving it a two-count, lobbed it underhanded, as he grabbed dirt. The oblong piece of metal arched up, and exploded a foot or so over the men.

Both communist’s should have died, but one tried to crawl away. Seeing this, the Jarhead exploded from concealment and pounced on the man with his K-Bar.

Then like that – it was over. The enemy seemingly melted into the jungle leaving us to collect our dead Staff Sergeant and two wounded Leatherneck’s while finding 41 dead enemies and to search for any usable intelligence.

ABC News’ Tom Llamas tried lecturing Donald Trump.

“Are you aware that the term ‘anchor baby’ — that’s an offensive term?”

“You mean it’s not politically correct and yet everybody uses it? So you know what? Give me a different term — give me a different term on what you would like to say.”

“How about an ‘American-born child of undocumented immigrants?’”

“So you want me to say that — okay. I’ll use the word ‘anchor baby.’ Excuse me — I’ll use the word ‘anchor baby.’”

These same reporters won’t use the term “baby” to describe who Planned Parenthood is murdering.