El Paso

I am finding that it is best to write as soon as I can following an experience, when it is still raw and my memory and emotions are most vivid in my mind. But, we have been so busy this past week I just haven’t had a chance. Some days, we pass in and out of connection with the world (literally and figuratively) and just tumble into doing what we’re doing. But, now we are in far southern Arizona, quite close to the border, and have set up for a few days so I hope to chill and call forth my memories.

We left Ian on Monday morning and drove north through the Davis Mountains, the most extensive mountain range in Texas. The area is more forested than the desert it rises up from, and its chroma changes from sage to a deeper evergreen. This is where Ian comes to get wood for his wood stove. We stopped at the McDonald Observatory which sits under some of the darkest skies in the country. Next time we visit Ian we need to come back here for some star gazing. And in Marfa – for that slow-cooked barbecue we missed out on at Convenience West because the line was so long.

But, we were headed for El Paso and needed to be there in time for the March and to hear Beto speak. It was so lucky for us to be visiting El Paso just when all of this was happening. Our first stop was at the H & H Car Wash where we had the best Mexican food ever! Get your car washed and sit at the counter in the diner for friendly service and scrumptious food. I recommend the enchiladas! The CNN reporter, Kaitlan Collins, was sitting at the counter with us and told us how to avoid the road closures on our way to the Bowie High School. On the way out the door, the owner, sitting outside watching the world go by, thanked us for coming in.

We set Elvis up in Franklin Mountains State Park, high above the city with a view downtown and beyond to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We drove into town and arrived at the high school amongst a group of people, mostly local it seemed, hoisting signs and chanting for Beto. We were among a mixed group of Anglos and Latinos, and even people carrying Canadian flags – making Mike so proud. Once Beto gave the crowd a send off we began the mile walk to the baseball field where we were greeted with a Mariachi Band. Eventually, everyone was chanting for their hometown hero again and Beto came out to address the crowd. I don’t know yet if he is the right person to run against Trump, but I do know he has a message this country needs to hear.

As Beto points out, and as far as Mike and I could see, El Paso is a model community proving that two nations can live and work together while sharing their different cultures and histories. As he belted out, fist pointing skyward, El Paso lives by respect for others and is a safe city not because of walls but in spite of walls. And when he spoke in Spanish the crowd cheered even louder. As we left the park, we walked back to our car by way of a different route, and soon heard Trump’s voice. We had come up against a crowd gathered around a jumbotron projecting the Trump rally at the Coliseum. Here we were, many of us just from the park, walking through a crowd of Trump supporters. Wanting to get the hell out of there, but curious about who would be there, we witnessed everyone peacefully moving forward – a true testament to the story of El Paso and its citizens. I couldn’t help but wonder who was paid to be there.

Our night ended with a bit of a fiasco. We drove back up to the Franklin Mountains ready to unlock the gate to the park only to find we couldn’t undo the locks. I knew we had the right combination – my favorite number 49 doubled (my home address number growing up in Durham), but the locks wouldn’t budge. We left the car at the base thinking we would just need to head up the mountain another half a mile with our dinner in our brown bags. Well, turned out to be more like a mile and a half in the dark when we were tired and hungry. The only other camper passed us by, but we figured he just didn’t want to deal with some scruffy looking people with their possessions in paper bags. Ah, life on the road.

The next day we tried to get into the Art Museum of El Paso but it was closed for maintenance. Instead, we got our art fix checking out the dazzling murals adorning the streets and a made-to-order boot shop, Rocketbuster, filled with shelves of arresting tapestries adorning leather. This is where you’ll find photos of Mitt Romney and his wife, along with other people of note, tacked to the wall showing off their purchased hand-crafted pieces of art. The owner was a firecracker herself and filled us in on her business of boots and her knowledge of vintage campers. I asked her about the Trump rally the night before and she agreed that it was NOT indicative of how people in El Paso feel about the wall, and she reconfirmed my suspicions about who was paying who to be there.