A little warmer again last night, and clear blue skies this morning. After breakfast we headed out to do some exploring of the local area. To start we headed south back into Texas and then took a road the crossed over the Franklin Mountain Range.
We climbed up to 5,300 ft at the peak, and had a good view over El Paso and Mexico about 5 miles to the south. There was still some snow at the higher elevations.
We went down the other side of the mountain, looking for the Tigau Tribe Indian Cultural Centre. This was a small museum outlining the history of the tribe, in addition there was some native dancing performed by younger members of the tribe.
The Eagle Dance
The Buffalo Dance
Mural on Museum Wall
Following this visit we headed back towards El Paso to another part of the Franklin Mountains State Park. There was an aerial tramway that went up the mountain, this was out destination. Unfortunately, when we got there the tramway was closed due to weather! The temperature was 17°C, calm and sunny. I’ve no idea what weather conditions are required to allow the tramway to run so I asked that question to the Texas State Parks in an e-mail!
It wasn’t really time to head home yet, but we had completed out itinerary. Lyn had a backup, so we headed out to a small botanical gardens, archaeological site and wetlands just on the outside of the city. This is a relatively new area that was discovered by the army corps of engineers about 40 years ago when they were doing some work in the area. The site is believed to that of a 4,000 year old village, probably the oldest sign of civilisation in the US.
Above are a couple of different types of cactus, in the background of the lower picture is part of a stone wall that bordered the area. These walls are quite common around properties down here.