land cruise 2015: El Paso TX, Border Patrols and the Wyler Aerial Tram State Park

February 19-20

At the very Western end of Texas lies the large city (pop approximately 675 000) of El Paso. Directly across El Paso from the Rio Grande is the enormous Mexican city, Ciudad Juarez (pop 1,500,000 plus). On the highways nearing the city, there are several Border Patrol checkpoints, where cameras of various sorts are pointed at the vehicles, K-9 units are on view and BP guards inspect your documents. No joking about Mexican passengers here! Dave and I are both interested in border relations and so, chose to tour the Border Patrol Museum which describes the history of the Department and has various displays of methods used to deter illegal entry into the US.

Homemade motorcycles used by Mexican people to cross over

These highly dangerous and risky vehicles speak to the desperation of the people trying to come into the US with dreams of improving their lives...

To complement our visit to the Border Patrol museum and our own brief stops at checkpoints, we bought the film: "Maria del Norte" for a sometimes humorous Mexican perspective on the whole issue. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAQPzi9En-g

One of our main missions in going to a city is to do laundry! As this tends to accumulate while we visit State and National parks, we then need to break down and "camp" at an RV park. Mission RV Park was better than most in the quality and cleanliness of its facilities. However, without our GPS we surely would have never found it among the maze of highways!

Dave was a bit worried that the name of the park would reflect a missionary goal. Not so, the "mission" is a historical reference to the Spanish...

The park dog whom I named Chico because he is small, seemed well fed and cared for but very skittish, accepting food only if thrown from a distance....

The main attraction for us in our very selective and brief tour of El Paso was to take a ride aboard the "Wyler Aerial Tramway". This tram is part of the State Park in the Franklin Mountains which are in the middle of the city. In order to reach the tram, one has to climb a narrow road to an altitude of about 4700'. More switchbacks! With our exquisite planning (or good luck) we were there on one of three days a week the tram is in service.

After arriving early enough to get a parking spot big enough for the rig, we line up to purchase a ticket for $8.00, heed the dire warnings and enjoy the 1000' ride up to the 5632' Ranger Peak. The two gondolas allow a maximum of six passengers and the ride up takes about 5 minutes...

From there, the panoramic view is said to span 7000 square miles, and, of course, you can see Mexico, New Mexico and Texas. We enjoyed both the ride and the view!