El Paso (Day 1 and 2)

To begin, I would just like to say that I believe I've gotten much better at just letting things be what they are.  So, with that said, our trip to El Paso was kind of a bust.  I am not going to say it was a total bust because some of the reasons I wanted the trip were a success.  Also, we were going to El Paso, so I admit, I didn't have super high expectations to begin with.  We actually wanted to go the Grand Canyon but it's too cold this time of year so we decided to go somewhere warm that we could get to in a day.  El Paso was somewhere that had places to stay with warm weather in a days drive.  We booked our place and I did a bunch of research before we went.  A few days before leaving we found out about a blizzard heading towards Denver.  Is it weird to admit that I was a little sad to be missing the blizzard?  It ended up being the fourth largest snow storm in Denver's history.  Our neighbors measured 30 inches of snow and 4 ft drifts!  We left on Friday morning and got 30 mins outside of Denver before Mike said we needed to pull over.  The van was vibrating and making weird noises.  We jacked the van up and couldn't see anything wrong.  We drove to Pueblo, which is about 2 hrs south, and after checking with our brother-in-law who is an ex-mechanic, we decided we needed to check the wheels again.  We tried to jack the van up again but discovered the jack was broken.  We drove to a tire shop and they said it would take two hours for them to get to us so we drove to a second one and they kindly did it right then.  At this point we were trying not to be discouraged and let this set the tone for our whole trip but we were also trying to decide if we needed to go back home.  We were concerned about driving too far south and then having to turn around because of van problems and then get stuck in the blizzard.  We needed to make a decision so we could get back into the city before the storm came.  The tire shop said we needed to buy all new tires (which we had just done not too long ago).  We paid over $300 to get them fixed and then decided to keep going.  This delayed our trip by a long time so we ended up in El Paso at 10 PM, grabbed some pizza from Little Ceaser's and went to bed.  

The next day we got groceries and planned on having a slow day of sight-seeing.  We made a plan for the week and decided to go check out the downtown plaza that had been recommended a few times.  It ended up being a non-thing.  There was a weird alligator statue but nothing else.  It was really windy and dusty by this time but we paid for parking and walked down to this Mexican Market a few blocks down.  It also wasn't what we expected but it was still interesting.  We saw weird pants that I can only describe as being skinny jeans with the butt cheeks cut out.  The other weird pants were pants with padded butt cheeks.  So, I guess it's either nothing or extra.  We found a western store where the girls drooled over hats and boots and went into a pawn shop.  At the end of the road we saw the border and cars and cars lined up trying to come into America and many people walking into America.  We all thought that was really interesting.

After the market, we decided to go check out three missions.  We discovered two closed but one was open for another hour.  The sky by now was so dusty it was kind of eerie.  It was so windy and the wind covered out hair and faces and even got in our teeth.  After the mission (and cemetery at the mission) we started going back to the house only to discover my phone missing.  I am not sure how it ended up missing because I never had it in my hand.  I can only guess that it was in my back pocket or on my lap when I got out of the van and didn't notice it fall out.  We dropped the kids off at home and rushed back before the mission closed.  We tracked it on the computer and when we got there called Will to tell us is we were close.  He told us it was driving away from the mission!  Someone picked up my phone and left with it!  They weren't far away so we hurried and called and texted but no one picked up.  We went back defeated.  

Will's birthday was the following day, a Sunday, so we were planning on getting food for his birthday and an ice cream cake.  By the time we got back from the mission it was 6.  We placed our order and wiped my phone and Mike decided to try one last time to reach the people who had my phone.  They finally answered and said they forgot they had my phone and went to dinner.  Mike and I left the kids home and went to meet the "phone thieves" at a gas station half way across town.  After, we went to pick up our order and then waited for an hour!  I was bordering being a Karen and asking to see the manager, which is not my style but I was upset by the day's events by this time.  Finally, we got our food, bought the cake, and went home.  Much of our order was missing but by the time we were eating it was already 8 and we were hungry and frustrated.   

We laughed about how our first two days of vacation were already so far from what we had imagined but were determined to make the rest of the week good.