Mesilla and on To El Paso

Friday in New Mexico - another glorious morning - not a cloud in the sky - a light breeze keeping the temperature to bearable - somewhere around what we guess to be 30C.

First stop today was the beautiful little village of Mesilla - just a few miles from our overnight stay, and right on the banks of the Rio Grande.  The river is completely dry at the moment - it is dammed in winter and the water from the thawing snow will be released at the end of  April in time for the summer.

In Mesilla we found a true to life New Mexican village complete with authentic adobe dwellings, shops, restaurants and more.  We found a great courtyard cafe for morning snacks, then wandered the streets looking at shops, stalls and artefacts, and conversing with the locals.  The girls found some beautiful sterling silver jewellery to buy, and the guys just hung around and paid for the purchases.  After a great couple of hours, we headed for El Paso.

To say that the freeways and road network in El Paso can be confusing is a complete understatement. The freeway system is like spaghetti, and completely congested with trucks of all shapes and sizes, and thanks to the GPS system and some good navigating by co-pilot Brian, Rod managed to untangle the web and find the RV park.  It is quite near one of the biggest freeway knots we have ever seen, and there are still 2 more sections to be built. When Marty Robins sang about El Paso, I am sure it was a quaint Mexican border town.  It ain't that no more.  On the US side there are almost 1 million people, and on the Mexican side of the Rio Grand in Cuidad Juaraz there are about 2.5 million.

We called a taxi to take us to a shopping centre and somewhere we could get a really cold beer.  The driver was a genius, and he dropped us at a brand new "pub" called Twin Peaks.  As the name suggests, it is somewhat like Hooters - a real man cave, and as promised, the beers were extremely cold - served at 29F, just below freezing point.  They were in fact ice slushies, and we lapped them up.

Just across the way we also found a western outfitters, and Rod bought some new shirt.  We looked through the vast array of cowboy boots, and tried on a few cowboy hats just for the fun of a few photo.

After that we headed further into the shopping centre - we could hear a band somewhere close, and we followed the sounds to the promenande level of the shops.  There we struck GOLD.

It turned out that Mini El Paso - the car Mini that is - was having a huge launch of the new model, and we managed to gate crash what was the hottest ticket in town. There was entertainment, beautiful gourmet food, and free drinks - we loaded up on mini burgers, fish and chips served in little glasses, beautiful beef dishes, goats cheese and cranberries and chocolate and pina colada mousse desserts. We love America.

We managed to spend a few hours rubbing shoulders with the A list of El Paso, enjoying the food and particularly the Marguaritas, made there in front of us - they were served icy cold in cups the size of wine glasses - until the Marguarita girls decided they liked Aussies, and the upsized us to cups the size of milkshake containers.

Eventually we called the same cab driver to take us back to our RV.  He was a funny guy, and we learned that he was originally from New Mexico, lived for much of his life in New York, came back after being divorced, owned the cab, lived over the border in Mexico, was 67 years old and had a 26 year old girlfriend.

We have retired to the RV for the evening - very tired, but satisfied that our trip is right on traack.  There could be a slight problem tomorrow, with gale force winds and dust storms predicted, and travel in high profile vehicles (such as RV's) not recommended.  It looks like we will have to stay in El Paso another day.

I wonder what product launch we can find tomorrrow night.

Cheers.