travel notes

2/7

james and i wandered around el paso today. we took the vw vanagon up scenic drive and stopped to take a look out over the city below. el paso seemed so small compared to the endless stretch of juarez across the border.

we pressed on to take a walk in downtown. there was an amazing sunset that day that set the sky on fire. bright orange clouds loomed menacingly low in the sky against mountains in the distance. we got on the roof of the union station parking garage to get a great view.

after the sun set, we wandered around the UTEP campus, concentrating on the fine arts buildings, finding our way into a ballet studio, a painting studio, several music practice rooms, and two theatres. we got to the catwalk of the first theatre, but didn't get much further as there was a show going on the stage below. the second theatre was empty and we were able to climb some dizzying ladders to the top of the stage.

afterwards, we killed some time in a coffee house talking about lao tzu, waiting for the bars to open. we did a pub crawl stopping at several places, ending up in the middle of a hip hop show, which turned out to be pretty good. in the depths of myspace, there's an embarassing picture of me at the show dancing, with the toothbrush i bought earlier in the night sticking out of my back pocket. upstairs, there was a rock show going on with a band that was pretty good as well. james tried to start a mosh pit by throwing me at some people standing nearby. fortunately, i was able to control myself and avoid flying into them.

2/9

our plans to head to albuquerque have been delayed again. there's a storm in new mexico so we decided to wait it out. with no good ideas, we headed to the casino to try to raise some funds for the rest of the week. i won $70 in less than ten minutes at the slot machines, which has never happened before. we left while we were ahead.