Eighth Stop - El Paso, TX

El Paso, TX – They say, in El Paso, the sun shines 300 days out of the year. I guess that leaves 65 days where it doesn’t and even fewer where it rains. Well, we got lucky. It rained in El Paso when we were there. But, to be honest, it didn’t really matter much. It is probably one of those towns where the recession truly shows its ugly face with vacant houses, empty store fronts, and “For Sale” signs everywhere.

We had thought about walking across the border to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico to - as they say in the city guide – turn up the volume on our senses, but pretty much everyone, including the guy at the coffee shop and the border agent, told us that the place is “pretty dangerous” because the Mexican government and the drug cartels are in a turf war over there. I guess it might help that, a few days earlier, the Mexican military sent 5,000 soldiers to patrol the streets, but, in the end, we stayed on the safe side.

So, we walked around downtown, headed towards the Mexican border through the “Golden Horseshoe” district, lingered around the border with a bunch of Mexicans, bought three CDs, and went to the bathroom at the border Burger King.

On a positive note, El Paso is as close to Mexico as you will get in the States. We went to see the Mission trail, where Spanish missionaries built three small missions very close to one another.


Very nice. Then we got the hell out of there.