Today, we left Deming and continued eastbound on I-10. A little over an hour later, we passed through Las Cruces, NM. I-10 turns south at Las Cruces and passes into Texas. Not too far into Texas, the road crosses the city limits of El Paso although the center of the city is still about 25 miles away.
I mostly try to see the beauty and unique qualities of things we see along our trip but I am at a loss to describe El Paso in glowing terms. We are sure there are possibly many attractive sights and fun things to do in this city but we didn’t pass any of them along the interstate highway. Interstate 10 through the sprawling city is a hellish arrangement of tight curves, confusing road signage, erupted paving and a 60 mph speed limit. The air, at least today, was like mud created by mixing some air, agricultural smoke, refinery emissions and whirlwinds of vehicle exhaust from the border crossing to Mexico . Directly on the right of southbound drivers as they drive on I-10 is the longtime murder capital of the world, Juarez, MX. We could tell from the U.S. side that we would prefer to live here and not there, even if we had to live in El Paso. We drove through town for about 30 miles until we reached and entered the maze that needed to be negotiated to find our RV park for the night. The Mission RV Park turned out to be located on property that was probably quite cheap because it located almost directly under an interchange between I-10 and a big beltway road called Loop 375. However, along I-10 the freeway ramps, bridge columns and abutments, deck spans and sound walls are visually attractive, having been designed in various Texas and Southwestern art motifs.
Mission RV park is a gravel area with full hookups, cable TV, a pool in a greenhouse thing, a laundry, an on-site high-bay RV repair facility, wifi and very little space between sites. It only costs $21 with Passport America and, since we are moving again tomorrow, it will do.
Some pix can be seen by clicking here