Road Trip to El Paso, Texas

Two weekends ago, Chuck and I took a road trip to El Paso, Texas. Chuck took two days off work and we had a long weekend to visit with the family, my in-laws. From San Diego, it is an eleven hour drive through Arizona and New Mexico. A long day of driving, but easier and cheaper than if we were still living in Seattle.

It has been a long time since we've seen John and Virginia, the wedding being the last time we got together. I haven't seen my nephews in a long time and was nice to hang out with them. Actually, I never met Shaun before, Virginia being pregnant the last time I visited El Paso, and Jack was three years younger. What a cute bunch of boys!

Not only did we get to visit the family, but it was Hatch green chile season! We bought thirty pounds of fresh green chiles, roasted and packaged them. Since we have a tiny freezer in our apartment, we took half for ourselves and gave the rest to the parents. So we have 16 quarter bags of frozen green chiles which to make a lot of hot and tasty dishes.

Arizona and its many cacti on the roadside. I didn't realize how tall they can get.

Halfway to El Paso, we had to stop by and eat lunch. Of course, we had to make the pit stop at a brewery. Chuck found Nimbus Brewery via Google maps at Tucson, Arizona. Really cute brewery with good food. Being from the Pacific Northwest and an ultimate beer snob, I thought their beer was just okay. Their flavors seem muddled and was shy of tasting like a stout or an IPA or a red ale, etc, etc.

Fortunately, we were able to hit up High Desert Brewery in Las Cruces, New Mexico again while we were there. Really really tasty beer and it's good to know that they haven't change since the last time I was there in 2005.

Chuck gave me a tour of El Paso and one of the touristy things we did was the Wyler Aerial Tramway. The Wyler Aerial Tramway is in Franklin Mountains State Park. It's a four minute ride up to the top of Ranger Peak where you can get a view of El Paso, New Mexico and Juarez Mexico.

We spent a day in Las Cruces, New Mexico which is just a half hour away west of El Paso. It is where Chuck went to college (New Mexico State University) and has a cute little historic district called La Mesilla. We went to La Posta for lunch for yummy New Mexican food and a margarita.

The next time we'll visit El Paso is for Christmas and hopefully, the weather won't be so hot and unbearable!