This message is from: st...@carriagehorse.com
Quoting Rose or Murph roseormu...@ywave.com:
I am wondering if anyone is living in the El Paso, TX area? My husband did
a phone interview for a Fed position at FT Bliss in El Paso. Just wanted to
get anyone's opinion good or bad about living there.
To make this Fjord related, how does your Fjord handle the heat? What is
summer riding like, or does it exist when it is that hot?
Although happily not Texans, Cynthia and I are probably the closest to
being in El Paso as anyone here. We are in Las Cruces, New Mexico,
which is just 40 miles up the Rio Grande from the big city. El Paso is
where folks from Cruces go for big city shopping and entertainment if
they're not going to make the trek to Albuquerque.
Although El Paso lies just a usually dry river away from the deadliest
city in the Universe (Juarez, Mexico), it has been designated the
safest city in the US in each of the past several years. Somehow the
drug cartel anarchy of Juarez seems to remain south of the border with
nothing save a few stray bullets making to our side.
That bit of ugliness aside, El Paso is a pleasant city with good
shopping, entertainment, and great restaurants. Ft. Bliss is on its
way to being the largest Army base in the US, but there seems to be
little direct effect on the larger community. That is to say, that as
far as I can see there aren't the strips of GI bars and pawn shops one
finds in most military towns. While I'm sure that the base has a
tremendous economic effect on the city, it seems to me that the
culture is influenced to a far greater extent by the proximity of
Mexico than that of the Army.
In the 2000 census, the Hispanic population of the city pushed 77%,
and currently up closer to 80%. This has the effect of making the city
truly bilingual, however you will be hard pressed to find anywhere
that you need to speak Spanish. One Web site says, El Paso is the
cultural center of the Southwest, enriched for more than four
centuries by contributions from Native Americans, Spanish settlers,
Europeans and Asians. The city?s international flavor is apparent in
the variety of cultural facilities and events, 18 museums, more than
35 art galleries and 28 resident visual artists of national acclaim.
You should be aware that this is not Arizona. Although it is across
the state line, the attitude of El Paso is not typical of Texas
either; it is much closer to laid back culture of mañana we experience
in New Mexico.
As far as Fjords living in the weather here, ours have little problem.
Although hot in the summer, it is nothing like Florida, or even the
Midwest. The temperature can get into the three digits, but there is
almost no humidity to accompany it. The horses stay in the shade
during the hottest times and seem to be comfortable. Although nobody
does much with their horses during the day at the height of summer,
the early mornings and late evenings are generally quite pleasant. And
of course there is the advantage here of having no snow or rain during
the winter months to curtail horse activities.
One thing that is a bit of a problem for keeping Fjords here is that
most of the available hay is alfalfa. Although we have found sources
of good grass hay, it is best to lay in a year's worth at a time to be
assured of access. If you have to board, you will find that nobody
here is willing to listen to advice or demands of proper feeding of a
Fjord, and your horses will be doomed to being FAT.
Please bear in mind that this is the Chihuahuan Desert, so you will
find it nothing like Washington. You will be trading rain forest for
cactus and mesquite, but there is a charm to the latter. Falls and
Winters here are very pleasant, followed by the winds and dust storms
in April. Summer hopefully brings the monsoons when we receive the
bulk of our rainfall.
The Interstate between Las Cruces and El Paso will soon be all six or
eight lanes, so you might consider looking for housing here also.
Right now we can make it from our house to the El Paso airport (same
as Ft. Bliss) in about an hour, and we are twelve miles off the
Interstate.
If you have any questions I've not covered, please feel free to
address them to me or Cynthia off list.
--
Steve
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