Tuesday night, and every motel in this isolated desert place was fully booked. I drove down the strip, to La Siesta, the Copper Sands, and the ambitiously named Marine, 200 miles from the nearest sight of water, in Rocky Point, Mexico. All were flashing No Vacancy. At the Copper Sands, Ken felt sorry for me. […]
Ajo was synonymous with copper mining until the Phelps Dodge Company pulled out in the 1980s. Reeling after the shutdown of the mine, Ajo recast its identity as a destination for part-time winter residents and tourists. The hardening of the U.S.-Mexico border during the 1990s, however, funneled undocumented border crossers from Mexico into the desert […]