Day
8
To Las Cruces NM
January 10
Tuesday
Texans love their state. Check out the map made by the waffle iron in the picture above on the right. They’ve got sheep farmers out in the middle of nowhere. Trailer living in the desert. Silhouette statues at Ft. Stockton. Even their picnic areas are fancy. See those tepees?
John Wesley Hardin was one bad hombre. He killed lots of people in his day…lots! He only proved the old axiom: “Those that live by the gun die by the gun.”
He was shot in the head at the card table and is buried in El Paso. Years later his relatives tried to retrieve the body for a reburial but the El Pasoans filed a law suit and won. Hence, his burial site is sealed in a cage to protect it from robbers. He’ll be behind bars for a long time. Click here for a more complete rendering of his life as a killer.
A memorial to the Buffalo Soldier is in the same cemetery. The memorial is encased in concrete. They’re not going anywhere either! Click here to learn more about these brave men.
From Interstate 10 one can look south and see Juarez, Mexico. We went to Scenic Drive Park. You can see the panoramic shot we took of El Paso and Juarez. BTW, Marty Robbins referred to Rosa’s Cantina in his song, “El Paso.” Yes, it is true. While driving by one day he noticed the cantina and placed it in his song. Wow! You can revisit the song by clicking here.
We spent a lot of time looking for the world’s biggest man-made star in El Paso and could not locate it. We tried our best. It seems that the area is under construction and the star is in the way. So, sometimes it is lit and sometimes it is not. Or, where is it anyway? We’ve read that it may be back permanently in April.
This picture at the right is from the internet. Yes the star looks bigger but Roanoke VA has something going for it that this one does not. The star at Roanoke is a standing star and does not lie on the mountain side as this one does.
