Military Checkpoints

Military checkpoints are in place every couple of hundred miles along the highway. The idea, I believe, is that a physical check of every vehicle using the only paved North-South road will lend itself to less distribution of drugs and guns, both of which are illegal. The reality may differ somewhat, but you gotta hand it to the military for at least trying.
The whole checkpoint process, which we found to be quite humorous, goes something like this:
Coming over a hill out in the middle of nowhere, you notice a plywood cutout of a soldier (usually leaning at some obtuse angle) holding a flag indicating to slow down for the upcoming checkpoint. A few more leaning visages later is a speedbump or two, constructed of heavy rope or an old tire that’s been cut and unrolled. Right about there is also a sandbag bunker with a soldier and his gun peeking over the top. At some point in their training, the section on proper firearm handling must have conflicted with siesta time, so as a result you’re looking right down the barrel as you drive by.
If you are heading South, you get to just drive up to the Alto sign, wait for the wave and then continue on your merry way. I guess they figure you’ll be back eventually anyway. When heading North, after a few minutes (or more depending on how many locals are in front of you) of waiting in line you are approached by a trim young man that asks the standard questions….”Usted habla espanol?”…shake your head and act dumb…”No espanol”…switching to English now…”Ok, where are you coming?”…”Where you going?”….”For sport feeshing?”…Yes Sir….”No druugas, no guns?”…ohhhh, No Sir!!. “Can I search?”…..of course amigo!!...and his buddies move in.
So you get out and try to keep a close eye on the proceedings while avoiding direct linear alignment with the barrel of any errant automatic weapons. We would usually split up and one would watch the truck search and one would watch the boat search. The search process seems to vary wildly from a simple poking around to full-on tap tapping around floorboards for false compartments and disassembling something silly like a flashlight and inspecting every little spring and battery. Inevitably they lose interest before getting to the really good stuff buried deep in the front center of the bed (we had bins that never got inspected, even at the US Border) because that would just be way too much work for a couple of sport feeshermen from Idaho.
Eventually we get the go-ahead and roll out of the inspection area with boat in tow and over a few more makeshift speed bumps. The last item is a little rope across the road that, when examined carefully, you notice one end is draped over the sandbags of the Welcome Bunker for the oncoming traffic on the left and the other end is connected to a collapsible spike strip in a box on the right. An interesting little touch that leaves you wondering if they really do get some action every now and then.