El Paso, Border Town and So Much More

Greetings from the Leiter’s and a Holt in Las Cruces! We have really been enjoying the desert climate. Dry air with warm days and cool nights. Monday it rained almost the entire day which is very unusual for here this time of year. This also suppose to be the windy season. We get some gust upwards of 20 MPH to 30 MPH in the afternoon, but nothing what normally happens this time of year. Many of the HAM operators keep talking about by now the area should have had a few dust storms. We, of course are thankful for the slack windy season this year.

Last Sunday Bradley, Dianne, and myself gave talks at church. We enjoyed the opportunity to share something from the gospel and share our testimonies. Bradley had his Board of Review for Life Scout on Sunday. He has exactly 6 months to get Eagle. We shall see….

Mid-March we went to El Paso to visit the El Paso Zoo and The Border Patrol Museum. The Zoo is like two blocks from the border crossing between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The contrast between the American Side and The Mexican Side is like night and day. You can see the poverty in the structures. The building standards in Mexico are obviously much more lenient than America. Ciudad Juarez is off-limits to Military Personal. The gang and drug cartel violence is extremely high. And then factor in corrupt police agencies and you can see why it is off-limits. Americans are high dollar targets and kidnappings do occur. We stopped at a Wal-Mart about 1/2 mile from the border. It was amazing how little English I heard. Many of the cars in the parking lot were from Mexico. And the stuff they were buying in large quantities ramen, fresh produce, rice just to name a few. The dangers and issues on the border are everything they say they are.

The El Paso Zoo was really cool. They have 3 areas Americas, Asia, and Africa. They had all kinds of animals to see.

We had a great time. I never took Brad to the zoo before. So like a good dad I bought him a stuffed wolf. He was so happy!!!

After the Zoo we went to the Border Patrol Museum. A little background, the Border Patrol was created in El Paso, Texas. Many agents have lost their lives in securing our border with Mexico. There are over, I believe, 4000 total agents. only 300 agents cover the entire northern border. The balance of agents are on the Southern Border. And they cannot keep up.