The Big River

Last week the Dallas Morning News delivered a series on the Rio Grande, including this story about the river as it nears the Gulf of Mexico:

... The Rio Grande, which springs forth so gloriously from the mountains of Colorado, carried a stigma in South Texas that made it off-limits. Among the warnings ... "It's not clean. There's smugglers. There's illegal aliens. There's Border Patrol."

... people still relate to the river in ways sculpted largely from their personal experiences. For some it represents our country's protection from illegal immigrants, while for others, it is a vast source of wildlife and natural habitat too often ignored. For others still, the river means survival.

The DMN also offers a feature about the Los Ebanos ferry, the only hand-pulled ferry at any U.S. border crossing.