Out on the Tail of Texas

The stars at night - are big and bright

Deep in the heart of Texas.

The prairie sky - is wide and high

Deep in the heart of Texas.

I've always liked that song, what with my dad being from Texas and all. But when you look at the map of Texas, you can see that El Paso isn't exactly in the heart...more like on the tail. Thus, the blog title today.

It has its own unique character, unlike any other place in Texas. (Not that I've been everyplace in Texas, but I have been to most of the regions). It has grown on me over the years. Probably a bit of absence making the heart grow fonder.

One thing I've always liked about El Paso is NO MOSQUITOES.  Well guess what? This time, about a week before I arrived, they had torrential rains. While that made my mom's lawn green, it also created a huge mosquito problem. Everyone I spoke to was dealing with it. I had plenty of sunscreen with me, but no mosquito stuff and I got eaten alive. I have bumps on my bumps! Then yesterday as we walked through the parking lot of the airport, we saw lots and lots of grasshoppers. We looked at each other and said, "uh, oh, seven plagues."

At any rate, this will look dry to you if you don't live in El Paso, but if you're familiar with the area, it looks positively lush!  This is my mom's house.

Here's my friend Robert. We went to high school together. I rented a bike on Saturday and we went for a little ride on Sunday. This is in front of his station where he works, and that's his ambulance.  He's just getting into biking so I didn't want to scare him off! It was fun. El Paso has some really nice bike infrastructure, a fact that constantly amazes me. I don't expect it there, and compared to the county I live, they are WAY out front!

Here's some of the bike lane infrastructure:

That's actually a raised, bumpy surface so the cars feel it when they're

drifting into the wrong place!

The road on the right is blocked, but the road to the left is not. So cars

need to stop, but bikes don't. I love this!

And I wish we had this all over the place in bright colors!

And for your listening and viewing pleasure...