Tucson to El Paso

Click here for today's route

Again, we successfully woke up at 6 AM, but were much more efficient this time. Packing, breakfast, check out and flight planning were done by 7:15 AM and by 8 we were taking off from Marana Regional. Straight out departure, talk to Tucson air traffic control and we were on our way to El Paso.

Remember, when I said there was a lot of nothing between Palm Springs and Tucson? There is a lot more of it between Tucson and El Paso. Here is what the New Mexico nothing looks like:

Midway through the flight we encountered a new and fascinating weather phenomenon, clouds. Never having encountered those things before we were wary and approached them in a timorous way. They were few and friendly and let us by without a problem. We decided to take a picture with them and this is what they looked like:

Eventually we got to parallel the US-Mexico border, flying just a couple of miles away from it. Seeing another country was fun, even though that part of Mexico looks a lot like its northen neighbor, New Mexico! We even got to see the border fence everyone talks about, though we needed binoculars to make sure it was actually a fence. Without binoculars, this is what it looks like:


By the way, it's in the upper part of the picture. The lower line is, I believe, route 10.

And that is it for the flight itself. The adventure really started after we landed. Our original plan was to land, check the weather ahead and possibly go on to Amarillo. The AOPA airport guide describes Horizon (the airport where we landed) as having "courtesy car/van, internet access wireless, pilot supplies, refreshments (vending), rental car, rest rooms." I expected the airport to be big and bustling (after all, it has a runway almost as big as San Jose's) but it looked like this:


Still, the people there were very helpful and courteous. By the way, did I mention that the runway makes a curve?

Anyway, seeing the clouds building up along the route we intended to take, we decided to call it a day, rent a car and try Amarillo the next day. Renting a car involved calling Enterprise and managing to be lucky enough to find the only store in town that still had a car available, thanks to a last minute cancellation. They did pick us up, but not without first being surprised that there was an airport in Horizon and getting lost on the way there.

Still, we got our car, made it to a hotel, went sightseeing around suburban El Paso, relaxed in our room and are now enjoying the thunderstorms and lightning in the horizon. On to tomorrow!