El Paso, NOT White Sands

4/17-18 Our plans were to stop in Las Cruces, New Mexico where we would take a day and tour White sands and then I would take a day and play the NMSU Golf course. Ah the best laid plans…. As you know the refrigerator died, so we stopped in Anthony Texas (just north of El Paso) at the Camping World for repair of the refrigerator. Well I have to say that even if the refrigerator had not failed, our tour of White Sands or my golf would have to be put off for another day. I’ve included the following pictures to prove my point. Picture one was taken on the 17^th and the second picture was taken on the day of our departure.

Mountain? What Mountain.

When I was checking in with the sales person at camping world, he asked what I thought of the weather, little did he know we were experienced in Texas wind. He told me most people reacted to this as wondering if they should worry about a tornado or some other weather phenomenon. The only difference out here was the amount of dust that accompanies the wind.

We decided that while we were here in El Paso, we should do some exploring. I will apologize, that we do not have any supporting photos other than the ones above. There was the Franklin Mountain State Park which borders on Fort Bliss, but because of the high winds, we decided to put that off for another day. Pat and I do like to explore the Missions, so that was our focus this trip. We backtracked through El Paso to reach the first of the Missions. Ysleta Mission & Tiqua Indian Reservation which is an active church and school. We did not find anyone to ask about the history and the store was closed, so off to the second Socorro Mission we went. Here we found a little treasure. Not only did we find someone to talk to, but the lady had grown up there and told us many interesting little factoids about the mission. The one we liked the most was the story of the statue of St. Francis was being transported to another mission. The weather was bad and cart got stuck in the mud so they stopped at this little mission to rest. When they tried to leave with the statue, the door seemed to get further and further away as they tried to carry it out. So, you guessed it, the statue remains to this day. The last mission we went to was the Chapel of San Elizario where again we found a locked church and no information. The last of the missions is the Guadalupe Mission which we did not attempt to go to because, you guessed it, it’s in Mexico. The missions of El Paso did not seem to have the rich history  and older buildings that we found of those in San Antonio, so we were a bit disappointed. Many of these missions had been rebuilt after being washed away by the wild Rio Grande (which is now tamed).

We returned to find that the refrigerator was indeed a lost cause and was replaced. In order to replace it, they needed to remove one of our side windows. And yes, they did a fine job EXCEPT, they put the window in up-side-down. Which of course, we did not realize until we were down the road a piece. That said, we kind of like that the window opens from the forward side, and now gives us a better cross ventilation. Also, the refrigerator is a wee bit skinnier that the previous model, so we need to rearrange the food a bit differently, but it sure works well.

Now, I hope we haven’t put too much negative on El Paso, we did find that there is a wonderful art community, you just have to ferret it out, it’s not just in one location. We’re off to Arizona.