THE END OF THE SILK ROAD
Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. As you can see from the map, here is where the branches of the Silk Road came together.
From Dunhuang it was a straight shot through the "Gansu Corridor" between the snow-capped Qilian (Southern) Mountains and the Gobi Desert to the first big city in China, Lanzhou, and on to the capital of ancient China, Chang'an (now called Xian, famous for the Terracotta Army made for the mausoleum of China's first emperor, Chin Shi Wang (259-210 BC) - after whom China is named although Beijing insists his name be spelled Qin).
For the pilgrims, merchants, and traders who brought the exotic goods of the West to the East, here is where the road ended. Finally they were in China. So it seems appropriate that I am here at the end of the fabled Silk Road on the day when the American Road of Freedom came to an end.
This is a day of true historical tragedy, when history's greatest nation of its own free will decided to commit suicide for no good reason whatsoever, an act of inexplicable mass insanity.
Yet this is not a time for bitterness or anger. It is, instead, a time to shrug.