El Paso

We hit El Paso in the early afternoon of December 30. Todd was driving and despite my warnings he went straight into Mexico, or more specifically the no-man's land between Mexico and the U.S. The picture is the last sign we saw. At the last minute before passing the point of no return, he slammed on the brakes and we pulled into a no-parking zone that held about two cars. There was a line of cars that strecthed as far as we could see trying to head into the U.S. through the customs gate. We ran across the interstate to ask a Boarder Patrol guy whether we needed passports and he waved a gun at us and told us to go away. So we stayed there for a bit and tried to communicate in Spanish with a Mexican girl who got dropped off next to us. Eventually another Border Patrol agent pulled up and he warned us not to go--that we would get lost. He neglected the 4000+ murders and even more kidnappings in 2008. We were finished with Texas anyway, so we decided to pull an all-nighter and spend the New Year's in Los Angeles.