Tripometer – 13,333 mi
Gas Gauge – 1002.257 gal
Location – El Paso West RV Park, Anthony, NM
Lodging – $40
Cans of OFF – 4
Our next destination is El Paso, TX. We were desperately hoping to see Beto O’Rourke win the Senate race to beat Ted Cruz yesterday. Beto is from El Paso and we’re sure we would have found some serious partying going on if he had won the election. Sadly, we are both somewhat deflated by the results last night and drove towards El Paso with heavy hearts knowing Ted Cruz is headed back to the hill.
We left Deming this afternoon and headed east through Las Cruces and then South towards El Paso. The selection of places to park our trailer with good cellular reception is extremely limited in this area, so we crossed our fingers and made reservations for two nights at a small RV park between Las Cruces and El Paso shortly after we left Rock Hound S.P. We hadn’t done much research into El Paso tourism but we were fairly sure it wouldn’t take us more than a day to take in the high points. In the early portion of our trip, before we had a chance to stop for a late lunch, we passed an active roadside brushfire that was being tended to by the local FD. The smell of mesquite burning by the roadside can be quite appetizing when you’re hungry… who knew!
Olfactory Karma: Beginning about 10 miles from our RV park we were accosted by the smell of the largest dairy farm that either of us has ever seen. The farm was huge, running for miles and miles along the highway, nothing but cow paddocks, milking facilities and storage equipment. The smell was astonishingly strong. As we approached the RV park we realized with absolute horror that we were due to spend two nights parked within 100 yards of the most awfully smelling place we have ever been.
Thankfully the wind direction kept most of the stench out of the RV park. Yes, the wind direction did change briefly and occasionally, but the amenities of the park ensured that we really had no desire to spend any time outside of the trailer. When we pulled in to our spot for the night our next door neighbor for the evening spouted the following sentence within 3 minutes of us arriving at the campsite: “I’m not racist or anythings, but all of the newspapers here are written in Mexican.” (‘Mexican’, not Spanish.) To more fully paint the picture: This man is sitting in his bathrobe, in a lawn chair, smoking what smells like a dirt-cheap cigar from a gas station in a Texas county bordering Mexico where 82% of the population is primarily Spanish-speaking! We’ve never finished the outdoor setup work so fast. We were in that trailer making dinner in no time flat. Gah!
While checking in this evening Paul asked the front desk group at the RV park where the tourist section of El Paso was located and did they have any information on local ethnic and historic attractions. The short answer was that El Paso was not a tourist destination at all. A short call to John, Paul’s work buddy who spent a few years in El Paso, confirmed the suspicion that we should have done some real research on El Paso before we arrived. The long and short of it is Paul had the impression that El Paso was more than it is and we’re stuck here for two nights. The good news is that Las Cruses has a ton of history and a flourishing artist community in the old town. That sounds like a wonderful way to spend tomorrow evening.
Special Note: Ranger has begun to talk. When Ranger was a pup, we worked for weeks to teach him to make ANY sound when he wanted to go out. His normal practice was to sit by the door and stare at us. Over the course of this trip he has become more and more vocal. At this point he routinely grumbles, moans, whines and snorts to achieve goals such as getting a window opened in the truck or getting us to understand that he would like to go outdoors and be placed on his line so he can watch the world go by. He also now knows how to tell us when he’s bored. Ut-oh.