Day 17: Que paso'? El Paso!

The trip from San Antonio to El Paso is over 500 miles, so we got an earlier than usual start for us - 9AM. It was raining for the first hour or so, then overcast for about half of the trip. But as we got into desert the clouds gradually disappeared and gave way to a clear blue sunny sky. It also warmed up nicely. We even turned on the AC in the car.

Driving 500 miles is no fun, but I-10 is fairly quiet and straight. And the changing landscape from the trees and rolling hills of central Texas to the mesas and desert of the southwest gave us great visual entertainment. Dry creek beds and yucca plants, along with cedar bushes and other plant life that thrive in desert climes were abundant. Cattle and horse ranches were plenty, along with some sheep, too. Wind mills on the ranches pump water up from the wells. As we got closer to El Paso we got into Texas oil country and oil wells.

But was most interesting were the hundreds of giant wind mills generating electric power. They were spread out over miles, on top of the mesas. Must be T. Boone Pickens at work.

El Paso is in the extreme SW corner of this gigantic state where Texas, Mexico and New Mexico meet. Across the Rio Grande is Ciudad Juarez. When I was 15 my family made the trip from VA to CA and we stayed in El Paso and spent a day across the river in Mexico. But if you've kept up with the news you know that Juarez is a battleground for Mexican drug cartels and not a safe place. So we'll forego a trip south of the border.

Tomorrow we'll attend Cielo Vista Church, then head west through New Mexico into Arizona.

Since most of the trip was spent in the car, the pics are of some of the scenery. By the way, the speed limit on I-10 for most of the way was 80 MPH! It made for a speedy delivery.