Adventures of David and Paul: March 2023

Our last day and a half of our Texas / New Mexico road trip was spent exploring El Paso. The El Paso metro area is just shy of 1,000,000 people, and Ciudad Juárez across the border has 1.8 million. Despite this large population, the area feels quite isolated since the next closest big cities are Albuquerque (4 hours north), Tucson (5 hours west), and San Antonio (8 hours east). We were excited to check out this city that we don't hear much about.

Driving in from Las Cruces on a rainy day, we stopped at Aurellia's brewery, which was an oddly futuristic brewery in a suburban strip mall. We had some food and beer, and continued south toward the city. We made a quick stop at the University of Texas El Paso to see their football stadium, then had some ice cream at the nearby La Michoacana Snacks and Ice Cream before heading in to downtown. Our room was not quite ready when we got to the Plaza Hotel, so they gave us some vouchers for free drinks at Ambar. When the rain let up a bit, we wrapped up the night by taking a short walk around downtown. Downtown El Paso has some nice historic buildings, but is incredibly quiet and devoid of people. There are no residential buildings in the core of downtown, which really hurts the streetlife. Still, the main plaza is nice, and our hotel was great.

Tacos at Aurellia's Brewery in El Paso.

The stadium on a rainy day.

Free fancy cocktail!

Our room was great. This was our splurge hotel of the trip.

Plant man art in the hotel.

Downtown El Paso at night.

A cool old building.

This street downtown looked nice - maybe it gets busier when the weather is nicer?

Our full day in El Paso was hampered slightly by the fact that it was a Monday, and a federal holiday on top of that. Some of the top rated attractions were closed, including the El Paso Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, and several historic sites. But we still found enough things to do to fill the day. We started with breakfast at Chilabox, which was in the "Union Plaza" area of El Paso a short walk from our hotel. Chilaquiles are delicious, and this quick service restaurant concept was great - essentially like a Chipotle or Subway for building your own chilaquiles. The area around it was neat, with a couple of old warehouses that has been converted into offices and restaurants.

Morning view from our hotel room.

A bike/ped section of the street over the railroad tracks.

Chilaquiles time!

The streets of the Union Depot area. Quiet on a Monday morning.

Next we drove over to the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) to check out a couple of attractions. The university has very interesting architecture, with a southwestern motif that almost looks like adobe temples. Speaking of temples, our first stop was the Bhutanese temple. Quite odd seeing this is the desert Southwest! Near by was the Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens. This was a small museum but had some interesting exhibits, especially a temporary exhibit on the Social Justice and Inequalities in the Borderlands.

The unique architecture of UTEPs campus.

The Bhutanese temple.

The temple was covered with intricate paintings and carvings.

A mural in the museum.

An exhibit room in the museum.

Cool beaded jaguar.

From the University we headed for the mountains. Or, more accurately, for the big hill overlooking the city. In 1920, a 1.82 mile scenic drive was built, and it's still open today. We had some nice views of downtown and Ciudad Juárez. From there we made a couple of stops in the northeast outskirts of the city - first the bizarre Casa de Azucar, a private home that is completely covered in blue and pink decorations, then a quick stop at a video game store in a strip mall.

El Paso, with Mexico in the background.

The phrase "tone it down" didn't occur to this person =)

For the main part of the day, we drove the El Paso Mission Trail, which connects three Spanish colonial missions spanning nine miles of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail. This is just one tiny portion of a historic trail that stretches about 1500 miles from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo (formerly San Juan Pueblo) in Northern New Mexico down to Mexico City. The trail also encompasses Mesilla Plaza that we had visited the previous day, and historic sites in Santa Fe and Albuquerque that we visited in 2021. The furthest north mission, and our first stop, was Ysleta Mission. Since it's the closest to the El Paso, it's kind of in a suburban sprawl area, but the building itself is picturesque. Much of the church today is from the early 1900s, due to various floods and fires in the 1700s and 1800s destroying or damaging previous versions. There's also a small but excellent gift shop with locally made items.

Ysleta Mission.

The interior of Ysleta Mission.

Some hipster priests?

Heading further southeast, the next mission was Socorro Mission. This was our favorite of the three missions, as it's the oldest building and has ceiling beams re-used from even older missions. We had a nice conversation with the woman running the gift shop, who was part of the local indigenous community.

The façade of Socorro Mission.

The beautiful interior.

Close up of the ceiling.

The wall lighting is cool too.

Our final stop along the trail was the San Elizario Presidio Chapel, which unfortunately is closed on Mondays. It was still impressive to see this 1877 building from the outside. The surrounding area had a historic square and a (closed) museum.

Very classic looking mission.

The area around the mission.

It's an old city!

By now we had worked up an appetite, so we drove back toward El Paso and stopped for a late lunch at L&J Cafe. This is the grandmother of all El Paso restaurants, and continuously showed up as pretty much the one restaurant you have to go to. Even at 2PM on a Monday we had a short wait for a table. It's in a weird area 3 miles northeast of downtown, across from a cemetery. It was solid texmex and we recommend it even if it is touristy.

David doesn't look too thrilled about "love and tacos" as we wait for a table.

Paul is excited about some chips!

That's better! We were hungry!

We drove back to downtown and had some Howdy ice cream and walked around for a bit before settling in at the hotel. We had a 6AM flight the next morning so we ended the day early by packing up and eating our leftovers from L&J for dinner.

A cool piece of art... on a parking deck.

Yay, ice cream!

Cookie monster ice cream, with eyes!

Crocodile statue in the square.

Goodbye El Paso!

El Paso is an interesting city. Maybe not on the top of a travel list, but it has a unique culture and some interesting sights. The main draw is the nearby national parks, and it serves as a great starting point for a roadtrip.

The third day of our holiday weekend was a rainy overcast day where we visited a couple of towns on the leisurely drive from Alamogordo to El Paso. We had to pass by White Sands National Park again, so we stopped by the visitor's center. It's a nice little center, but is not equipped to handle national park level crowds. White Sands was formerly a national monument, and became an official national park in 2019. Yearly visitor numbers increased greatly, with record numbers in 2021 and 2022. Even early on a Sunday morning it was very quickly swamped, with long lines in the gift shop, and the video was standing room only. But great to see so many people enjoying our national parks! We also were really glad we made the decision the day before to see the dunes at sunset, since it was a dreary morning.

The sign still says "monument."

Next we drove to Las Cruces, which was less than an hour away. We started on Main street in downtown, which is a cute little strip with some shops and restaurants. It was a little rainy and most shops didn't open until noon, so we sat for a bit at Ice Box Brewing Boneyard Cantina and had a little snack and drink. Shortly after noon we walked to Zia Comics, a huge comic, video game, and fantasy store. David picked up a couple of Final Fantasy items. Our next stop was a block down main street: the COAS Bookstore, a giant local bookstore. After getting our fill of the small downtown, we made a quick trip to a video game store in the mall, and then a stop by the world's largest chili pepper, which is in front of a run down hotel. It is indeed a large pepper!

Welcome to Las Cruces!

It was a little quiet because it was a rainy Sunday morning, but downtown had some cute spaces.

A lil rabbit and cactus mural.

Breakfast beer?

Flasher gremlin in Zia Comics.

Downtown Las Cruces.

Giant chili pepper!

Next we went to Mesilla Plaza, about three miles away from downtown Las Cruces. Mesilla was a Mexican town founded in the 1850s, and the small downtown is now a national historic landmark. It has a cute little square surrounded by buildings with a couple of shops and restaurants, and the Basilica of San Albino dominating one end. An older woman gave us a long rambling history of the church, which may or may not have been factual.