As many of you know, with this move we won the Texas Military Triple Crown. Like a few other places I've lived, karma brought me to El Paso. I've driven through a couple of times, been unimpressed and made some rude comments, and God decided to have a good laugh while teaching me a lesson. I've been pretty open that El Paso is not my forever place, but I'm also a firm believer that a place is largely what you make of it. I'm also a very, very big fan of keeping busy.
In addition to the Important List (renovating my house) and Big Adventures (Carlsbad, Texas Renaissance Faire, and White Sands, among others, which will get their own posts) I tried to dive into El Paso. In my experience, if you look hard enough (and are willing to drive) you can always find something worth a stop. Some you just stumble on, others come through recommendations from strangers you randomly accost in the checkout line. You can't go wrong asking locals about their favorites--restaurants, attractions, events. Sometimes they're duds (looking at you, Chico's Tacos), but there are always a couple of gems, too.
My hands-down favorite thing about El Paso is that I finally got to live near family again. I've been lucky enough over the years to live near various members of the family, and now we get to *finally* be stationed by Erik and Amy. Amy is the best lunch date and it's been amazing getting to hang with her and her crew--and eat her cooking.
As a family, our very first adventure was to the Desert Botanical Gardens, which are hella far away over the mountains in west-side El Paso. Acres of mesquite, cholla, creosote, lots of dirt, a few brief lessons about El Paso history and the indigenous people. It was a solid Meh, especially with the long drive factored in.
The oddities of a place are what make it memorable. Nobody remembers individual Targets or Walmarts, but you do remember the weirdos. Whoopee Bowl Antiques is a strange, Texas-sized hybrid of a junkyard and consignment shop. Outside the dilapidated building are rows of alien and mermaid statues, vintage cars, antique stoves and dry-rotted wooden boats. Inside are multiple floors of all sorts of treasures, trash, and everything in between. My particular favorites are the reclaimed stained glass windows and a handmade rocking llama covered in manky shag carpeting, though my preserved piranha Jeff is a close third.
In Alaska, I've developed a preference for gift stores that sell locally flavored items that don't have the place's name splashed across them. El Paso isn't exactly a tourist destination; ergo, there is a decided lack of gift shops. I did a little sleuthing, though, and I did manage to find a couple of winners, one on either side of town: El Paso Connection in the east and El Paso Trading Post in the west. Shelves of striped blankets, punched tin, stone jewelry, cheap keychains, wooden alebrijes, leather goods, and all the florid floral pottery you could want...Just saying, I know a guy. Or two. Still looking for the scorpion suckers.
One of the perks of being someplace warm is that gardening is suddenly a viable option. Rick, who comes from a line of well-known (and successful) farmers and gardeners was particularly happy about this. He spearheaded the renovation and greening of the backyard, planting trees and rigging a home-made grey-water system to make the desert bloom. Our efforts brought friends.
I also got some mid-summer peonies, straight from Interior Alaska. Because treat yo' self. Responsibly. And unapologetically.
My nerdy kids' favorite store is Game Vault, which is the local RPG and boardgame store. It hosts multiple games during the week and has a pretty decent pizza and dessert cafe. Best of all, though, are the people--they remember your name and are always willing to talk nerdy with you.
The El Paso Municipal Rose Garden is a four acre plot of roses in the middle of downtown. The roses were pretty. Some of them smelled good. There were a couple of shy hummingbirds and all of the shade structures were lovingly colonized by wasps. If it wasn't so far away, I'd consider going again. However, like everything here, the length of the drive and the size of the parking lot must be weighed against the experience, especially when you're driving a Bertha.
Since May through September El Paso is basically the suburbs of Hell, there is a plethora of waterparks and splashpads to help us all survive. Even though my kids aren't exactly great swimmers, we still got summer passes and tried it out. The experience helped me remember exactly why I hate taking small children to the pool. They had fun, though, so I guess that's something.
The Zoo is small, but a win. My kids didn't miss much about cities, but they did miss having a zoo. Before Alaska we always had a membership to the local zoo, and the girls were happy to start that tradition again. It's worth the drive. Also, they give away kittens. Seriously. In the Asian part of the zoo is an adoption center. It's tied with the flash flood feature in the Chihuahuan Desert Experience for the best part of the zoo.
A 30+ minute drive to the base of the Franklin Mountains will land you at the Archaeology Museum, a small building that is full of lifesize dioramas and pottery displays. I give it a solid B for educational value, and there are several meandering trails that spiral out around it.
Old Fort Bliss is a historic recreation of the original Fort Bliss, with a store, barracks, corral, blacksmith, and other old timey buildings. It's been an interesting place to volunteer, though Covid has restricted a lot of the cosplay and immersive education that the director intends to introduce.
One of my favorite things so far has been visiting the salt flats between El Paso and Carlsbad. They're usually not that impressive--generally just a flatter part of the surrounding desert--but after the summer monsoons passed through they flooded. It was amazing. The girls promptly drenched themselves in the salty, salty water--a decision they regretted as they dried on the two hour drive home. But only a little.
The right side of the road--how they usually look.
The opposite side of the highway.
We also had our first string of birthdays. The highlight was Rick's brother Nick and his wife Brittany and their super-cool family coming for a visit and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle birthday party their sister threw. Joe, Joey, and Christie made it out from Arizona, too, and it was a blast. It was the first time we'd gotten together in nearly five years. It was a great couple of days, and good to remember how much I liked all of these people.
Keeping with the family theme, some of our best friends that we knew up north had moved to Yuma, one of our old stomping grounds, and naturally we had to visit them. So what if it was a 10 hour drive? Hearing the girls' excited squeals and getting to catch up with my own friend were worth every mile. It was fun showing the girls where we lived so many years ago. It's unusual for us that we were able to revisit a place from our past, and I'm grateful that we were able to do so. I also loved getting to visit another hilarious friend and her sweet family in Tucson on the way home. Seriously, cat-friends* are the coolest.
*In my experience, there are two main types of friends--dog friends and cat friends. Dog friends are fun and high energy and make life exciting, but need a lot of interaction to keep the relationship going. Cat friends are harder to make, but they are the kind of people who you can go 6 months (or more) without talking to and then call them up and it's like you were never apart. I'll write a book about it eventually.*
And, of course, some of the best things about a new place are the most random. Adult novelty stores are no surprise to anyone over 25, especially if they've ever lived in a military town. An Adult Film drive in theater, however, is definitely new. Frankly, it's not my cup of tea, but even if it were, it seems like a sketchy and unsanitary business premise. And yet, just 10 minutes from my house...I found it when I was looking up the OTHER, non-sketchy drive in theater that had been recommended to me by my sister in law. It still sounds sketchy and unsanitary, but it makes me laugh every time I drive by it.
There's so much left to do. It might not be my place, but Texas will definitely be interesting. The trick is being willing to look.
