El Paso Chronicles

            I started my journey to El Paso by awaking at 5am EDT in Washington, DC. I left my apartment at 6:20am boarding the blue line for national airport.  I boarded United at 7:59am for Houston International.  This is the first of two flights. I arrived at 10:16am CDT laying over for an hour.  I walked to Terminal B but no one told me that B84 was in the basement! I nearly missed my flight fighting with a mobile wireless company over service that wasn’t working only in Terminal B.  Seeing the downward arrow, I unplugged my laptop running downstairs to the commuter plane awaiting me.  The plane flew at 11:28am CDT arriving in El Paso at 12:25 MDT, 2 hours behind Eastern. Peaking out the window, I saw a truck shoveling dust on the road, a sight I never seen in my entire life.  It hit me that this was the desert! There were more surprises to come.  Once I touched down, I saw an army of border patrolmen.  I concluded it was Texas and the state was near the border. Then I saw the mountains and Mexico from across the highway.  I realized that the city was literally on the US-Mexico border.  The whole 7-hour adventure made me thankful that I grew up in Cleveland, a top 40 airport because I could get a direct flight anywhere!

Overall I had a pretty good 3 days here in El Paso.  The atmosphere photos came from right outside my hotel.  I snapped photos of Mexico. You can see the marked prosperity difference between the two countries. When the team returned from Cattleman’s steakhouse at night, the differences were illuminated.  The Mexican side was the dark; whereas, the American was alit in electricity.  Only the green stoplights at the border crossing lit up the Mexican sky.  Speaking of Cattleman’s steakhouse, it housed a zoo replete with a baby buffalo calf. Here are the other photos: