Mexico!

This year has not been a good year to go to Juarez, Mexico. We had been debating going anyway. While checking the map, we saw another entry in New Mexico with a small town called Palomas, Mexico. We asked about it and were told it was probably a safer bet. We decided today woudl be a good day to do that.

We headed out after church. The drive was only about an hour. There are huge expanses of sky and desert and mountains all around in the distance. There are cattle, hawks, roadrunners, and rain :)

There are also some odd rock sculptures. We can't figure them out. Random rocks piled on top of other rocks, fence posts and old dead trees. We made up lots of stories- from Dean's somone had a flat and the others were bored to JoyAnna and I figuring out elaborate schemes of illegal aliens and sneaking across the border (sort of the like the underground railroad stories).

We got to Columbus, NM and there is not a lot there. Ther is the entry to Mexico. Still a little concerned, I asked the border patrol guys if they would go in. They responded no way. Part of it is they are not very popular. Part was there were some murders there earlier in the year. We could see the store we had heard about just across the border. After talking to a couple of bikers, we decided to give it a try.

Walking across the border is literally like walking into a different world. There are beggers and vendors on the street. We made our way to the pink store and fell promptly in love. http://www.thepinkstoremexico.com/ This store is so much fun. They have some of everything that you think of as Mexican. The prices are wonderful. They offerd free drinks while you walked around to shop. We bought 2 really cool candle holders and JoyAnna bought a carved scorprian. She has decided since she lives here she will collect these carved animals. This one was really different. The prices were so much better than the ones she had purchased as gifts earlier.

After we did our shopping there, we visited a few other small shops very close to the border crossing. We bought a vase for 11.00.

When we had been to Mexico on Mission trips, we had purchased Kinder eggs. They are chocolate eggs with a toy inside. When Darlene moved to Germany, we started getting them from Germany. JoyAnna was delighted to find Kinder an hour from El Paso. Thankfully, it is an hour away, so we won't be tempted to go every day .

To get back into the good ol' USA, we just handed them our passports and walked back in.

We decided next time we will try for a Saturday so maybe it will be busier and we can sort of follow the crowd. The owner of the Pink Store said that summers are not nearly as busy. They were very nice.

Overall, it was a rally nice day.