New tour company straddles the line

Borderland Adventures takes a new approach to tourism

FT. QUADRY, Kan. (RWN) - Maj. Ramon Haboob was inspecting the fortifications along the I.S.-Bible Belt line one day last month when he saw something he never thought he'd see: a group of men, casually dressed, strolling along the border fence and hurling insults at Bible Belt sentries across the way.

"I thought 'What the hell is this?'" Haboob said. "This is the border with the Bible Belt, and those flinty-eyes Christians would just as soon shoot you as smile at you."

Out of the group rushed a short man in sunglasses and a bright orange beach shirt.

"Hi Major," the man said sticking out his hand, "I'm Casey Harrison, the owner and tour guide of Borderland Adventures."

"Hi, Mr. Harrison," Haboob replied. "You're about to get shot or arrested, now which is it?"

Harrison tells the story laughing these days, but it wasn't so funny then, after he convinced five clients to go on a fenceline tour.

"A couple of the guys almost crapped themselves," Harrison said. "But afterwards, it was all they could talk about."

Harrison founded Borderlands Adventures three years ago for travelers who were bored with the normal vacation and wanted to see the Bible Belt up close. He had been an importer-exporter in New Mexico, and thought that being a tour guide was a better way of life.

"I look at it as a cultural exchange," he said. "You walk along that line and you see how people are living down there and you think 'Hey, it ain't so bad up in the old IS of A.'"

Since that initial tour - four days on the Kansas-Missouri fortifications - he's expanded his line to other offerings. There's a trip down to the Mexican Empire line in Arizona and Southern California ("We get a lot of people who don't want to travel to Nevada Free State on that one; it's just a step across the border and you're in a land where the women are soft and the liquor don't talk back.").

There's another trip up to the war-torn Vermont-Quebec border, where fighting still breaks out ("That's for your basic adventure jockey. They want to get in the dirt and tell all their friends back in Dubuque 'Hey, I seen some things, Myrtle and Mustafa.'").

For the truly brave, there's the Hot Zone tour of Pittsburgh, the city incinerated to kill the Marburg virus unleashed by Bible Belt forces in 2016 ("I've done that one twice and it scared the daylights out of me; I'll take people, but it costs like $30,000 and I don't guarantee anything.").

Harrison feels like he's made some progress. On the Missouri-Kansas trips, even Maj. Haboob comes out and smiles at him.

"Occasionally," Harrison said. "The man's a tough nut to crack."


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