When we left Big Bend we made the relatively short drive to El Paso to see Rick's brother, Mark. El Paso is as far west as you can get in Texas. It is close enough to Juarez, Mexico to walk in. But nobody walks into Juarez anymore since the violence from the drug cartels is completely out of control. But according to Mark and Carmen, very little of that violence spills over into El Paso.
Mark retired from the Marine Corps in 2011. He currently works for a defense contractor in El Paso. He met and married a lovely woman named Carmen and they recently bought a nice house in El Paso near the army base where he works.
We spent 3 nights parked outside of Mark and Carmen's house. Since we were parked on the street in his neighborhood, we couldn't extend the main slide-out for the RV. This made it a challenge to live in it since a good bit of living space was unavailable to us. For example, it was impossible for me to open my dresser drawers. But the price was right and it was great to "stay" with relatives without having to significantly impose on them.
Carmen and Mark showed us a good time. Carmen cooked us a delicious enchilada dinner one night and we went out to eat at several local restaurants serving Tex-Mex and Texas barbeque. We spent a nice afternoon in nearby Las Cruces, NM where we shopped in the local boutiques and had a great Tex-Mex lunch at a local restaurant called La Posta.
When we learned that Santa Fe, NM was "only" a 5 hour drive away we decided to keep heading west.
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