El Paso: A Few More Days

Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Fort Bliss RV Park — El Paso, Texas
Temps: Hi 71F (22C) / Lo 45F (7C)

Time’s a-flyin’ … as usual.  We are doing our best to make the most of our time before we leave on Sunday.  El Paso gets short shrift from most RVers, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when we decided to use it as a base for our explorations.  I’m here to tell you there is a lot to keep visitors busy.  I covered some of what we did since arriving at the Fort Bliss RV Park on 28 February in the previous post.  Here’s what has kept us busy these past three days.

March 7 … Seeking Out Pictographs @ Hueco Tanks

On a morning cooled considerably by chilly breezes, we headed off to Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site … 32 miles (52 km) from the RV park.

Hueco means “hollows” in Spanish … mostly referring to depressions in rock faces and boulders that often hold water.

Somewhere in those rocks is a cave with pictographs.  The visitor in blue provides a good size perspective for the rocks.

This is not the easiest state park to visit.  Why?  Because you need a reservation to get in.  Why?  Because the park is home to a sacred desert sanctuary.  It protects fragile rock art left behind by the early travelers of the Chihuahuan Desert … people who sought water, food, and shelter here for over 10,000 years.  Many of these people overused the land, however.  So, a park was established in 1957 to protect it.  But the area within the boundaries remained a tourist destination, and visitors thought nothing of walking off with historic artifacts or defacing precious pictographs.

What’s left of one of the stagecoach stations on the Butterfield Overland Mail Trail.

Eventually a public use plan was implemented, closing off a large part of the park to the general public and making that section accessible only by guided tours.  The North Mountain area was left open with the caveat that only 70 people be allowed to visit at any given time — and only after watching a mandatory video first.  We were unable to book a tour, but we did manage to get reservations for the open area.  On arrival, first we checked in with the ranger at the entrance booth to sign-in and pick up our ticket for the video.  Next we headed to the interpretive center to have the ticket stamped and watch the video — a park history and visitation guidelines documentary.  That done, off we went to explore what we could on our own, seeking out pictographs in caves and pulling ourselves up a slick rock trail in search of huecos.

Having completed his cave exploration, Mui relaxes in a dry Hueco, while …

… I find a comfortable (not!) spot inside the cave to photograph the pictographs.
[You can see some of the pictographs on the left edge of the photo and above me.]

Many of the pictographs in this cave have been heavily damaged but visitors.

Chain Trail … appropriately named for the chains hikers use to pull themselves up the slick rock.

These guys are not carrying mattresses so they can have a soft bed to sleep on; they
need them for a soft “landing” when they go bouldering — a popular activity in the park.

Looking Ahead	Looking Behind

filled with water, these huecos would be an oasis for all forms of life.

We are dwarfed by the boulders all around us.

The afternoon hours found us hiking in search of more pictographs — masks, actually.  The Cave Kiva is accessed by an off-the-beaten-path trail.  Actually, I can’t really call it a trail as you have to forge your own path up and across steep, unmarked slick rock using a written description and a couple of photos that some kind soul put together as a guide.  The ‘map’ is available from the visitor center — you have to ask for it and leave a form of ID behind to secure its use.  We wouldn’t have known to do this if not for new-friends Mimi and Dave preceding us here and writing about it in their blog … so many thanks go to them.

“The Alligator” is one of the landmarks you must find to stay on track  to find Cave Kiva .

Turns out finding the cave was the easy part.  Once we arrived at the cave, we then had to squeeze ourselves through a small opening and into a slit where we had to slide our way deeper into the cave to find the pictographs.  There are a couple of places where you can sit up and one place where you can stand up at the far end … otherwise you’re scooching around on your back most of the time.  Let me tell you, sliding around on the rock was no easy matter, but I found all eight of the masks, so it was worth it!

Left: Mui goes in first to check for critters.
Right: Between a rock and a hard place!

Seven of the eight masks in Cave Kiva.

When I come out of the cave, I find Mui perched on a rock enjoying the views.

We took a roundabout way back to the parking lot … by that I mean that we got lost.  Well, not really lost, but we did ‘misplace’ the non-existent trail we followed up by heading down earlier than we should have.  What can I say, the landmarks on the ‘map’ looked a whole lot different from our perspective going down than they did going up ;-)

[Click here for more photos from Hueco Tanks.]

March 8 … Blow Out!

Mui wanted to get the CR-V’s oil changed, so this was a ‘stay-at-home’ day.  He did accomplish his task at Costco, but ended up making a return trip almost immediately.  The second trip was necessitated by a tire blow-out just as he was exiting the freeway to come home.  Luckily, he was able to pull into a school parking lot, replace the tire with the spare, and limp home to add air to another tire that was showing signs of losing pressure before driving back to Costco.  Good thing we weren’t out exploring in the boonies!

Looks worse than it was … most of the damage seen in the photo is from
driving with the blown tire until Mui could safely get the car off the road.

The CR-V is now sporting a set of new ‘shoes’ from a new line of tires since the model previously installed has been discontinued.

March 9 … Bhutan?  and More

Last week, the docent at the museum in San Elizario suggested that the University of Texas at El Paso was not-to-be-missed.  “The Bhutanese-style buildings are quite interesting,” she told us.

Fast forward to this week when we got lost looking for a park and found ourselves driving by UTEP.  We saw the buildings and went, “Hmmmm, what’s the connection to Bhutan?”  So, today we set out to find out the answer.

Are we in Bhutan or are we in Texas?                                                       

We planned to visit the on-campus museum as well, so when we arrived, we acquired a permit slip from the lobby guard to leave our car in the small parking lot behind the building, and headed over to Centennial Plaza.  The buildings rimming the circular space indeed have a Bhutanese ambiance, but not nearly as much as the buildings in other sections of the campus.  (I couldn’t find a good vantage point for those photos, hence the collage of photos from the UTEP website.)  I suppose we might have asked for some guidance re: photo ops, but before we could do that our attention was captured by a Bhutanese Lhakhang [temple].

Centennial Plaza with a Bhutanese Lhakhang on the left side.

A plaque by the door explains that the lhakhang was entrusted to UTEP in 2008 by
the Kingdom of Bhutan and is a symbol of friendship between the two countries.

My jaw just about dropped when we stepped inside to find every inch of the lhakhang covered with incredible murals … all hand-painted, I later learned.  Kaye, the docent who welcomed us at the door, told us that the building is not really a temple, but a cultural exhibit.  She went on to explain that following a proper ceremony by Buddhist priests, the temple was ‘retired’ so that anyone could visit at anytime without having to observe the rather strict visitation rules that are associated with actual lhakhangs.

Exterior detail … just wait until you see the inside.

Turns out the lhakhang was built specifically for the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival held in Washington, DC.  We used to make a point of going to the festival when we lived in Virginia, so I can only guess that we must have been out of town that year to miss seeing the temple then.  Of course, there would have been people swarming all over it during the festival … our experience today was quite the opposite.  Since we were the only ones at the lhakhang, Kaye regaled us with all kinds of tidbits about how the structure was disassembled after the festival and brought here where it fits in beautifully with the ambiance of the campus.

It was from Kaye that we learned about the connection between UTEP and Bhutan.  The inspiration apparently came from Kathleen Worrell, wife of the first dean of the university … back when the school was known as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy.  After the first building was destroyed by fire, she convinced her husband to choose the current UTEP location and rebuild in the manner of the Bhutanese temples she had read about in a 1914 National Geographic article entitled “Castles in the Air.”  I found the article, but have yet to read it.

I have to say it was very difficult to pull myself away from the lhakhang — so many murals … so many details to photograph.  But I did.  We wandered around the campus a bit more, checked out the Sun Bowl Stadium, and then headed to the museum.

Even the exterior of the 30,000-seat Sun Bowl Stadium pays homage to Bhutan.

We spent quite a bit more time at The Centennial Museum and Gardens than I anticipated.  The gardens, which were dedicated in 1999, felt like they might be a work-in-progress … not many flowers in bloom; tools and such lying around dry or empty flower beds.  Perhaps the landscaping is being restored, or we happened to be visiting too early in the season.

The Mexican Golden Poppies are about the only color we see in the Centennial Garden.

The permanent exhibits at the museum, which was established in 1936, “focus on the natural and cultural history of the Chihuahuan Desert region.”  We started on the third floor where the geology and paleontology exhibits are housed, along with displays of the animals and plants of the desert.  Artifacts from the various cultures that once called this region home were here as well.  We wrapped up with an interesting temporary exhibit entitled “The Emerald Abyss” … featuring the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  A small sign explained that a UTEP associate professor went to the DRC and neighboring countries, where for nine years he studies the amphibians, reptiles and associated parasites of Congo’s lowland forests.”

Desert Rose	Kritosaurus Femur

Casas Grandes Pottery	Huichol Beadwork

Mural by Salvador Lopez	Mask from the DRC

[Additional photos from our UTEP visit are in this online gallery.]

When we left the museum, we decided we had time to make one more stop.  But first we needed to satisfy our growling tummies.  Mui programmed the GPS to take us to L&J Café, billed as “The Old Place by the Graveyard” … and highly recommended for “authentic border Mexican food.”  Despite the late hour — it was about 2:30p — the place was hopping … almost always a good sign … definitely the case today.  Oh my was the food good — we definitely add our hearty endorsement to stop here for a meal if you’re in El Paso … Mui’s even willing to detour to eat here again if we are in the vicinity ;-)

Clockwise from top left: deshebrada (slow-cooked shredded beef) burrito; flautas;
a single sopapilla; and tres leche cake … the yummiest Mexican food we’ve had in a long time.

Our last stop was the Concordia Cemetery … across the street from L&J.  It is a Texas State Historical Cemetery that is billed as “El Paso’s Boot Hill.”  Amongst the 60,000 or so buried here are many famed gunslingers and Texas Rangers.  There are also several ethnic sections that were purchased by various groups … such as the Chinese, the Masons, the Jesuits, and more.  We had planned to wander around to see what we could see, but the sun was quite brutal, so we decided to take a pass this time.

Known as Concordia during the 1840’s, this area was the home of Chihuahua traders Hugh & Juana
Stephenson.   The cemetery was established in 1856 when Juana was buried here.  By the 1880’s it
had gained widespread use by El Pasoans who drove three miles to bury their dead at Concordia.

We didn’t want to leave, however, without paying our respects at the Buffalo Soldiers Memorial, which is on the grounds of the cemetery.  For those who are not familiar with them, these soldiers were members of a regiment of African American cavalry that was authorized by Congress after slavery was abolished in 1866.  They were given the nickname by the Cheyenne, who considered the buffalo a sacred animal.

Through the gate and to the right is the …

… Memorial to the Buffalo Soldiers of the Ninth and Tenth United States Cavalry.

And thus we ended our day of sightseeing and returned to the Phaeton.  Tomorrow we head off on a day-trip to New Mexico to visit a national monument that’s been on our must-see list for quite some time now.

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