Week Eight in El Paso-Wind, Rain and Beto

As I ended my eighth week in El Paso, I started to realize that my time here is really growing short. As I write this, I am only two weeks away from packing up my car and heading back north to my home in Ohio.

I looked at the weather forecast for Stow this morning and saw temperatures will be mostly in the 40s this week. So, I hope winter will be gone by the time I return, although, it’s not unusual for us to have some snow in Northeast Ohio early April.

The weather here this past week was cooler than normal with some rain, although, the rain here is not heavy like in spring storms in the north and east. The biggest weather issue here in the spring is the wind and the havoc it can cause.

For example, on Tuesday, the morning was sunny so I was able to walk in the park. That afternoon, I went to the coffee shop to do some writing. While I was there the skies darkened and we had another dust storm for about an hour. Then, we had the hardest rain I’ve seen here and that lasted about an hour. But, the strong winds continued to howl for the next two days.

While I was at Kinley's writing a story that involved rain, I felt a drop on my arm and then another. The 20-something guy who was at the next table said he thought the roof was leaking and it was. It was just ironic to be writing about rain and feeling water from a leak in the roof dripping on my arm.

The week began on Sunday with a drive to Alamogordo, NM, which is a little more than an hour and a half northeast of El Paso to visit the International Space Hall of Fame. It is an impressive looking gold colored four-story glass building on a hill overlooking the town.

The museum displays were interesting with artifacts from previous missile tests and space missions. The US government’s White Sands Missile range in not too far from here, so rockets and space travel are of great interest in this area.

One of the most interesting things I saw was a stunning six-foot in diameter model of the Moon that was used on the set for CBS anchor Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the manned moon missions of the late 60s and early 70s.

The other interesting thing was the display about Ham, America’s first “astrochimp.” He was the first live passenger to go into space in the Mercury capsule that later carried John Glenn into orbit. Ham’s space suit is on display and in front of the museum is a monument and his gravesite.

Unfortunately, parts of the museum seemed dated and several display galleries were closed for renovation.

On the way home I encountered some wind and rain, and that was a precursor of the weather this week. During a dust storm two days later, hurricane force winds caused the cancellation of all flights at the El Paso International Airport and wind gusts of more than 100 m.p.h. were recorded in the mountains, causing a couple of trucks to be blown over on area freeways.

On Monday, I had my last Borderland class and happened to ride the campus shuttle to the parking lot with the professor and his wife after class. They were intrigued to hear about my coming to El Paso and about Pam and me adopting Brian, who was born in Honduras. Dr. Oscar Martinez taught a very interesting class that helped me understand the unique character of this area.

The big news story in El Paso this week was the announcement by former Congressman Beto O’Rourke that he is running for the Democratic Party nomination for President. One of the local TV stations broke the story late Wednesday afternoon and it was all over the national media on Thursday.

O’Rourke is an El Paso native and his father Pat was once a county commissioner and county judge of El Paso County. In the 2018 election, Beto nearly defeated incumbent U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and has received national attention since. The younger O’Rourke served on city council and served three terms in Congress before making his effort to unseat Cruz.

I finished the week working on a couple of chapters of the novel and watching some of the college basketball conference tournaments. It’s a little bit of an adjustment getting used to watching games in the late morning because I am on Mountain Time, two hours behind the East Coast and Ohio.

On Saturday, I watched Kentucky and Tennessee battle in the SEC semifinal and it was an incredible game for about 35 minutes. Then, there were several video reviews by officials in the last five minutes that completely disrupted the flow of the game. Unfortunately, UK lost and that probably cost them a number one seed in the tournament.

Later that afternoon, I received an email that Pam’s flight here on Wednesday evening had been cancelled. After an exchange of emails and her phone call to Southwest, she will be coming down on Thursday afternoon instead. So, I will still have the opportunity to show her around the area.

I will be back with more next week.