Life in El Paso

One of the things we really like about our parking place at the horse track is watching the trainers exercising the horses each morning.  We've learned a lot about the daily things that go on around a horse track, and it has been a lot of fun having a front row seat to it.

Some of the horses are merely trotting, but others are running full speed.  All of them are beautiful animals!

We love this adventure of living in a motorhome because we like learning how people in other parts of this great country live.  Since we were here 9 days, we got a good taste of what life in El Paso is like.  First of all, we knew we were in for some changes when we first saw the local weather and they have a special section called the "wind-cast."  I think spring is usually the windy season, and we got to experience spring in all its glory.  The 7 day forecast shows winds from 30 to 40 mph every day!  They tend to be lighter in the morning, and usually calm down some during the night.  But we had one "wind event" that was hard to sleep through with those 40 mph winds all night.  This doesn't even count the gusts that are harder and sudden and make you wonder if the motorhome will be swept away.  We have also ushered in unseasonably warm temperatures that have neared record highs some of the days.  So we aren't putting El Paso on our short list of places we would like to live permanently some day.

In the short term, we have learned to hike early in the day, and hunker down in the motorhome in the afternoon.  El Paso boasts being "Sun City", but our morning hike with temperatures in the 60's was feeling hot by 10:00 with the sun beating down on us.

We also looked up the demographics of the area, and found that El Paso's population is 85% hispanic.  We definitely feel in the minority, and there are lots of conversations going on that we can't translate.

We spent our first Easter on the road here in El Paso.  It's always interesting looking for a church to attend.  Mark found one that had good Easter activities and we found it also was in a beautiful location in the mountains when we arrived for church. 

While living in the desert, we have taken lots of hikes, and have come to identify many of the desert plants.  One of the most unusual that we really admire is the ocotillo.  Some of them are huge!





















Starting in Big Bend, we have been watching their buds. We have been impatiently waiting for them to burst into bloom for the last three weeks of our travels.  We finally found one beginning to bloom on a hike yesterday!

We also found out that their lanky stalks sometimes put on tiny green leaves.  We saw that for the first time on a hike here in El Paso.

I guess we can leave the desert now, as we finally saw those flashy blooms on those tall stalks.  There was a shy hummingbird flitting around the blooms too.  The flower structure is perfect for hummingbird food.  The desert is going to be beautiful when thousands of ocotillo explode into red blooms!

All the motorhome repair parts finally came in, so the repairman was back this afternoon to do the installations.  We are happy to be able to move on down the road, and pleased with the service from Double T Repair.  



We found that the positive from this first repair scenario is that the warranty we purchased is good to work with and covered what the contract says it would.  The negative is that we found for the first time it doesn't cover shipping cost of getting parts to your location.  They certainly never mentioned that in the sales pitch.  When our repair company tried to expedite the shipping so we wouldn't have to wait around any longer, it ended up costing us lots of money.  We were horrified to find that 2 day air delivery of an antenna costs $132.  We wouldn't have gone that route, but we live and learn.


But for now, we have steps that actually work, a new antenna, and it is time to head north into New Mexico for more adventures!