As long as you stay away from the border it's a decent city. It used to be fun to go across the border there and hang out in Mexico for a few days but with the drug/gang violence there, I have been very reluctant to go again.

Las Cruces, NM is interesting as is Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Page 888 to Beijing now departing from gate C-120.

For El Paso, it's pretty nice. Really, it's not bad at all. It's an older Marriott, but the rooms have had a recent renovation and have the latest in Marriott's furniture and bathroom fixtures, as well as the control panel that lets you plug your laptop into the TV, although the TV isn't the LCD HDTV they're installing with most of their refreshes. The concierge lounge was fine, the standard Marriott fare there, but a little small and crowded last night, and HOT. I think their AC must have been out in the lounge.

I would stay there again, and it's probably the best choice of the hotels adjacent to the airport.

I also like the newish Hilton Garden Inn that opened last year adjacent to the UTEP campus. But with a 6:15 AM flight I was determined to stay close to the airport, and you can't get much closer than the Marriott, which is on Airway right at the entrance to the airport.

Nope, far from it. A very nice looking young man and lady were working there. Looked like college students, but extremely friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable.

just wanted to post in this most lucky of pages :cool:

I saw a Whataburger near the Marriott and airport too.

Honestly, you'll be fine either way. The Marriott has a few more amenities and is a heck of a lot more convenient to the airport, but both are in decent areas and the rooms and staff in both are very nice. HGI does have free Internet, though, while Marriott charges $10/day.

My fisrt post of the day in lucky ocho ocho ocho

I guess I never realized White Sands was that close to El Paso. I've been before, but always coming from other points in New Mexico. We stayed in a truly awful Best Western in Alamogordo once when on a family vacation to New Mexico while I was in high school. You know a place is bad when even my father, who back in those days thought of a Red Roof Inn as a "nice" hotel, was complaining.

Did you ever see this thread becoming such a mammoth one? :D

Big Bend is more like a 5-5:30 drive from El Paso. It's close to four hours from El Paso to Alpine, even with the 80 MPH speed limit on I-10 and 75 MPH speed limit on US 90, and from there to the park entrance is almost another 100 miles.

There's also Guadalupe Mountains National Park and the Davis Mountains, which are both stunningly beautiful areas, and both are within a 2-4 hour drive of El Paso.

Oh, no. It's now possible to map out your hotel stays. See here. Could someone drop by Downtown Houston and inject me with some Lithium? Someone please restrain ssullivan to ensure that he doesn't read this post. Donate to your local OCD Charity today, and help stop the madness.

I had a slight suspicion this forum might be full of drunkards and neer-do-wells that had nothing better to do with their time. I just had no idea how bad the problem was. :D

Too late.

With my FT preferences, this isn't page 888. It's page 666. :eek:












(Not that any of that matters to me.)

Heretic!