donna-sue and martin's amazing adventure (aka: ds & m see America)

As we were leaving UTEP in El Paso, one of the helpful docents who was explaining the connection between UTEP and Bhutan, commented on the weather. He said we had nice weather, but it was going to get bad over the week plus. I naively asked, "What constitutes "bad" weather? Was it cold temps, storms?" He shook his head and said, "Wind."  I, still naive, thought to myself, wind? Surely wind alone is not enough to make the weather "bad". I had much to learn… The state park was nestled in against the Sacramento mountains and I saw pictures of the area, especially the mountains, looking beautiful, but to be truthful, it really wasn't while we were there. It was windy, it was cloudy, it was cold (mostly in the 40s with a 15-20 mi/hr wind).  There was a bit of sun, but not much. So we tried to make do. No biking, too windy. One hike up to a spring on the mountainside. Exploring the namesake ranch. Visiting Pistachioland,  a pistachio orchard with t

Hueco Tanks State Park, El Paso, TX was our next stop on our winter and spring of the desert tour. When Martin first started talking about it and really right up until we were practically there he would talk about "Waco" Tanks, which I assumed was in Waco Texas, and he'd sound quite excited. I couldn't really think of any reason to be so excited about going to Waco. My only connotation with Waco was the FBI siege and shootout with the extremist religious group, the Branch Davidians, and I really didn't want to go even if it was a national historic monument or something. As it turns out, it is the 30 year anniversary of that awful event that caused increased tensions in our political landscape,  further galvanized and even caused increased domestic terrorism by the extreme right. Timothy McVeigh, for one, lists it as an influence in his decision making re: the Oklahoma City bombing. Now, not to disparage Waco … but that was all that I could think of.  I