Next Time We’ll Pass on El Paso

by Dez · Published February 12, 2023 · Updated April 3, 2023

FORT STOCKTON, TX

After Austin we stopped in Fort Stockton for a night on our way to El Paso. We stayed in a parking lot that was open for free overnight parking. We used our Campendium app which shows spots you can stay anywhere across the US. It seems to be pretty useful when you just can’t find anything else in the area and don’t want to spend money on a spot just to sleep and get back on the road.

Coincidently, we have Fork Stockton on the schedule for our trip back to Detroit this year (Feb 2023). They now have a Harvest Host spot that we are going to stop at — much better than just a parking lot!

EL PASO

Mike and I will go anywhere. We’ll try any city at least once. Well, three nights was plenty for us to stay in El Paso.

El Paso just didn’t have a lot to offer us. We did find a few things interesting though..

While here we learned that the Rio Grande River is actually not so grand in Texas. South of New Mexico, the river is now dry much of the year… and it’s getting dryer and dryer up north too.

We tried Whataburger for the first time. It was pretty good, but really just another fast food burger and fries. Being a condiment freak, I did appreciate the multiple types of ketchup!

I was working on getting back to running still at this point (at the time I’m finally writing this, I’ve fallen back out of this healthy habit, unfortunately). I found a park in El Paso with a little trail to run on and some scenery.

They had this cute heart up for Valentine’s Day and some heart rocks around the park… although I never did find one myself.

One place that I really liked in El Paso was Blazing Tree Brewery. It had a lot of my types of beers (sweet, different flavors added, and not hoppy at all!) and they rim the glasses to match the beer. Mike didn’t find beer for him here, but I loved it.

Usually we find tons of IPAs for him and not much for me, so it was a nice change — for me!