I spent the night in El Paso on my honeymoon road trip last summer. We had a fantastic Mexican dinner at a place that I unfortunately can’t remember the name of.
You should have breakfast and get your car washed (if you have a car) at the H&H Car Wash & Coffee Shop at 701 E. Yandell Drive. Fantastic, incredibly cheap Tex-Mex breakfast with great, friendly service and a bottomless cup of some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. That was a really cool way to start the day; I’d eat there every day if I lived in El Paso.
El Paso is a very safe city. Dirty, yes. Dusty, yes. Ugly, yes. Violent, no. Juarez, on the other hand – well, let’s just say that all bets are off. Day trips are usually safe, but get thee the heck out before nightfall.
There is, in fact, a big tourist industry built around day trips to Juarez, and there’s some good shopping, especially in the Mercado. But if you go, take the trolley, as others have recommended. You do not want to go driving in Juarez. You also do not want to wander around in an inebriated state.
The area around the airport is a decent section of town, as long as you keep to the north side of I-10. Stray too far south and you end up in the Lower Valley, which isn’t really a bad area, but suffers from its proximity to the refinery.
The weather. We have a saying around here: if you don’t like the weather in El Paso, wait 15 minutes. Even in the dead of winter, it’s rarely cold. But we can go from 40 degrees and drizzly to 75 and bone dry fast enough to make your head spin. So wear layers, topped off with a windbreaker.
The architecture at UT El Paso is Bhutanese, and is the only example of this style to be found in this entire hemisphere. Many years back, there was a fire on campus that destroyed most of the buildings. As the reconstruction was being planned, the wife of the university president found an article in National Geographic that included photos of fortress-like monasteries in Bhutan. She suggested that the campus be rebuilt in that style, and so it was.
The tramway still exists, and is open during the winter (I just checked the website). That’s something you shouldn’t miss. The views really are amazing.
The drive to Las Cruces (if you take Transmountain Road) is very scenic. At least the mountain part is. Hold your nose as you pass the dairy farms. An outing to Old Mesilla (in Cruces) is heavily recommended. It’s a nice little historical area - Billy the Kid spent some time there – and has nice shops and some great restaurants. Get a Sunday brunch sitting at the Double Eagle if you can.
Speaking of food. Good food we have in abundance. If you dig Tex-Mex you’ll be in heaven. Forti’s and Avila’s are excellent, but you’ll find plenty of smaller hole-in-the-wall places that are just as good. Remember – no place that serves crappy Tex-Mex survives long in El Paso. Also recommended (if you can find them) are Kiki’s, L and J’s, G and R, and La Hacienda. I’m not at all partial to Chico’s Tacos, which is a local chain of greasy fast-food eateries, but many of the locals are hospitalized each year for addictions to the stuff. If Tex-Mex isn’t you thing, there are two fabulous places for carnivores. Cattleman’s Steak House is way out in the middle of nowhere, but is not to be missed. If you’ve ever seen Courage Under Fire, all of the scenes that were supposed to be in Iraq were filmed out there. They have hayrides and animal exhibits as well as their restaurant, where you can order a serving a steak that will feed you for a week. Literally. The other spot, much closer to the center of town, is the State Line. Well known for the generous size of its portions.
Our zoo isn’t huge, but it’s nicely put together. And some of the exhibits have just undergone a major facelift, particularly the sea lion habitat. My ex-wife was a volunteer at the zoo so I’ve spent a lot of time there and know a lot of the animals by name.
One local curiosity is San Jacinto Plaza, with its Fountain of the Alligators. Not so many years ago, this plaza, in the middle of downtown El Paso, was adorned with live alligators. The town fathers eventually saw that this was not such a good idea, as gang members would throw live dogs and cats into the fountain, or would climb in at night and stab one of the gators as part of their initiation ritual. So finally the remaining gators were moved to the zoo. But there is now a rather bizarre sculpture now in the middle of the plaza to commemorate the alligators.
Another oddity is that one of our chief tourist attractions is a cemetery. At Concordia, right in the center of town, you can visit Boot Hill and see the grave of John Wesley Hardin, a notorious gunfighter.
That’s all I can think of for now. Enjoy your trip!
Perhaps you missed my post, Post #10. The Rosa’s Cantina reference is to Marty’s song, El Paso. The quoted lyrics are to his El Paso City song which itself was a tale of a traveler visiting El Paso and having a deja vu feeling that he is the cowboy in the first song.