Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Day 10- El Paso

Most people would not choose to go back to El Paso. It’s not that the place is a dump, exactly, but unless you’re really into Mexican border towns there isn’t going to be a lot for you there. I was here in February for the Left Coast Crime conference and, while I had a good time, I didn’t exactly fall in love with the place. But they had an item in the silent auction, two nights in the very nice hotel (the Camino Real) where the conference was held and the bidding only got up to a hundred dollars. So I got it, after all it was on my way and there’s nothing wrong with a nice hotel for fifty dollars a night (I am so stealing the toiletries). I didn’t do anything interesting today- went to the mall, took a bath, read a book- but it was good. For once, I didn’t feel like a tourist, just a person running her errands, and I actually found El Paso kind of interesting. It’s a place where the Anglo and Mexican cultures blur together, not in some cute UNESCO kind of way, but really and practically. Everyone seems to be bilingual, sometimes within the same sentence (at lunch I had fun eavesdropping on the next table over; a father was complaining about the special treatment other children in his daughter’s class were getting, moving seamlessly between Spanish and English as he talked). Tomorrow I start driving (and driving, and driving) across Texas, so I think a day off was something I needed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sounds is if you are starting to develop a rhythm for your trip. I'm really ready to join you in New Orleans! As you know, Dad and I went to the A's game last night. At the last minute he got two more tickets and Matt and Pat joined us--given how the game turned out i'm not sure that this was good. What a disaster!! (At least through the 8th inning which is when we gave up and hiked the miles back to our car) I'm still an A's fan but I think I am a sunny day, good seats only fan then if the game isn't great the experience is still fun.
See you soon!
Love Mom
PS the one question everyone asks is how much are you paying for gas?

Daisy Bateman said...

Yeah, I was kind of glad to have missed that one. Gas in El Paso cost me $2.17 a gallon, which is the cheapest I've seen it, but not by a whole lot (in New Mexico it was $2.19). In general, I seem to be spending about thirty dollars per day of driving.