A Long Day

Yesterday was a very long day. I was up at 3:00am to ride to El Paso with Jenny and Nathan. Nathan is being deployed for two weeks. His flight was at 6:00am at the El Paso Airport 90 miles away. We left by 3:30am and got to El Paso at 5:00am. I was very surprised when I walked into the airport and it was packed. I figure the airport would be quiet at 5:00am on a Sunday morning. I was wrong! There were Army and Air Force uniforms everywhere! It was deployment day for the troops. The Army troops were being deployed to Iraq. This should be the last time the troops from Ft. Bliss (in El Paso,TX) will go to Iraq. The lines moved quickly until Nathan got his turn. His orders got screwed up and he was not listed on the 6:00am flight. He had to make several phone calls to correct the issue but he did but the next flight out was 11:00am. What do you do to pass 5 hours in El Paso on an early Sunday morning? Go to breakfast!
After breakfast we drove around El Paso for a little while then went back to the airport to hang around until Nate's departure.
We did find the El Equestrian Statue. The largest equestrian statue in the world. Also known as the Controversial Conquistador. The statue is the Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Onate. A proposal to erect the statue in the 1990's was made in honor of him because he actually celebrated the first Thanksgiving in El Paso and the U.S. 20 years before the Pilgrims did. However while the statue was being built some research was done and it was found that Don Juan was not as nice as he was made out to be. For instance, if the local indians did not obey his orders (like not celebrating Thanksgiving) he had their feet cut off. The statue went from being the Conquistador to El Equestrian. It was unveiled in 2007 in front of the El Paso International Airport. Which lead to another controversy; instead of an honorable statue it is now just a guy on a horse.
Jenny and I headed back to Alamogordo around 10:00 am and when we got back "home" we had lunch then went grocery shopping. The day seemed to drag on because we were both up so early. Tim came over to Jenny's house and we had dinner and watched a movie. By 8:00pm we were all pretty exhausted. Tim left to go back to the RV and I stayed at Jenny's so she would not be alone. There were terrible storms all around Alamogordo but for some reason the storms never reached the base. Tim on the other hand got to experience every one and at one point was a littel scared the RV would be blown over. Jenny and I were headed to bed around 9:00 when we noticed there was a fire burning in the mountains above Alamogordo. Lighning had started the fire. It kept getting bigger and bigger. It was not threatening the city of Alamogordo or Holloman AFB when we did go to bed. The good news, the fire is out this morning. Most of the fires in the New Mexico area are out or contained and the smoke is no longer an issue. There has been rain here everyday since we arrived. We have brought the rain that this area needed so desperately. It was a long day but a good day! Today I will start the challenge of finding the odd things here in Alamogordo and there are a few!

P.S. I have included a slideshow of the Cascade Caverns we visited last week.