Sunset Rides and River Rafting

A Week in Big Bend

I’m writing from the road, so the words will be few and the images many. We’ve retreated to the Big Bend natural area, visited the national park, and enjoyed time in the desert. It has been great.

On Tuesday morning we watched the clouds roll into the Chisos basin.

We walked the Santa Elena trail on Wednesday. That’s Mexico on the left, America on the right, and the Rio Grande in the middle.

Thursday morning we floated the Rio Grande. It rained the night before, so the river was up.

And on Thursday night we went on a sunset ride. I rode a horse named Libby. She was a handful.

Book Notes

I finished David Blight’s Frederick Douglass. I learned a lot from this biography and am glad I read it.

However, Blight fails to adequately understand the biblical and theological world of Douglass, despite occasional efforts to properly frame his life in such terms, and characterizes Douglass according to our moment, rather than his. Blight twists himself in knots trying to reconcile Douglass’ advocacy for personal responsibility, public justice, a healthy, functioning legal system, government action, and widespread liberty (including Douglass’ words suggesting limited government). It might have been better to say that Douglass was a sharp political mind and a populist, not a strict theorist of government, society, and ethics, but a barnstorming abolitionist who said a lot of things, and was not always consistent.

While disparaging modern Republican appropriations of Douglass, Blight does the same thing on behalf of the modern Democratic Party. And, as a historian, Blight tries to fill in missing information about Anna Douglass by citing modern poetic speculations on her life, which would’ve been better addressed by saying, “On Anna Douglass, we have little information, either directly from her or from Frederick Douglass himself (the latter is very notable), and also very limited information from family recollections.”

Sights and Sounds

A lot of Queen’s Greatest Hits. Not much radio down here, and very little streaming. No new movies this week.

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Last Words

Stop in on the blog if you want to see what I’ve written lately. This laptop isn’t conducive to easy linking at the moment.

Before I go, standard copy.

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Be well this week. Bless others.

Best,
BAS

P. S. - All pictures are from the Big Bend area. We stayed in Terlingua, Texas at the Far Flung Outdoor Center. Great spot. This last photo is a vista from the Lost Mine trail. Joy asked me “Is it Lost Mind, or Lost Mine?” Answer: Could be both.