One Week in El Paso, Texas: Friendship, Cowboy Boots and the America I Wanted to See

Texas was the main reason I travelled to the United States.

Not Las Vegas. Not Los Angeles. Not even New York.

Texas.

More specifically, El Paso — because that is where my friend Magda lives. We met at secondary school in Poland more than thirty years ago, and although she had visited Poland many times, I had never seen her American life.

This is our honest account of one week in El Paso: family life, murals, desert roads, White Sands, the Fourth of July, cowboy boots and several plans that worked better than others.

Welcome to Texas — Here Is a Stagecoach

After our small Houston airport adventure — the kind involving a closed gate, several moments of panic and one very kind airport employee — we finally landed in El Paso at two in the morning.

We were exhausted. Magda was tired. Everybody looked slightly unfinished.

And still, seeing her there was one of the best moments of the entire trip.

The first thing we saw at El Paso International Airport was an old stagecoach displayed beneath a sign for the Western Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Of course it was.

We had been in Texas for approximately three minutes, and Texas had already produced a horse-drawn carriage. It felt less like an airport arrival and more like the opening scene of a Western.

Then came the real welcome: finally hugging Magda in her country and in the life I had heard about for years. We had met many times since she moved to America, but always in Poland. This time, I had arrived on her side of the story.

We Did Not Stay in a Hotel. We Lived With an American Family

The best part of our week in Texas was not one particular attraction.

It was the fact that we did not stay in a hotel.

We were not travelling with an organised tour designed for Polish visitors, and nobody was presenting America to us through a carefully polished tourist programme. We stayed with an actual American family and, for one week, stepped into their everyday life.

We woke up in their house. We drove where they drove. We ate together, made plans together and changed those plans when the day had other ideas.

We went to a petrol station in the morning to buy coffee because, apparently, that was where the better coffee was. In Poland, a petrol station is usually somewhere you stop because you need fuel. In Texas, it can also be part of the morning ritual.

These were tiny things, but they were exactly what made the trip special. Attractions show you what a place has. Everyday life shows you what a place feels like.

Even walking the dogs became an introduction to El Paso.

One of the first things that surprised me was the grass. Almost every house seemed to have an artificial lawn. Magda explained why. El Paso is hot and dry, and keeping natural grass alive can become an expensive full-time occupation.

Once she pointed it out, I began inspecting every front garden we passed. Artificial grass. Artificial grass. More artificial grass.

We may have seen two real lawns during the entire week. To be fair, neither of them looked particularly pleased with its life choices.

Thirty Years of Friendship — Now With Our Children

We spent our first day together at Wet ’N’ Wild Waterworld in Anthony, Texas, with our children. Magda and I had met at school, long before either of us knew where we would live or who our children would become. More than thirty years later, there we were in Texas, having a picnic and going down water slides with them.

My son is already an adult. Magda’s children are younger, although no longer small. It did not matter. Everybody joined in.

There was food, water, slides, laughter and the easy disorder of a family day out. Nobody was posing for a perfect travel story. We were simply together.

Mammoth Rock: The View That Made Texas Feel Real

Later, Magda took us into the Franklin Mountains to see Mammoth Rock, also known locally as Elephant Rock because of its unmistakable outline.

That was where my first proper Texas photograph was taken.

Until then, Texas had been the airport, Magda’s house and roads seen through a car window. From that viewpoint, it suddenly opened up in front of me: dry mountains, enormous skies and a landscape that looked nothing like home.

It was the America I had imagined — wide, sun-baked and slightly cinematic.

El Paso Murals and Mexico on the Other Side

The next day, we explored more of El Paso with the children.

We went looking for the city’s murals and stopped at Old Sheepdog Brewery at 3900 Rosa Avenue, near Lincoln Park. There we found Tino Ortega’s I ❤️ EP mural and his Selena “Como La Flor” mural, alongside the black-and-white Old Sheepdogs artwork.

They are not small decorative pictures placed neatly for tourists. Many cover entire walls and buildings. They are colourful, political, personal and impossible to separate from the character of the city.

El Paso does not hide the fact that it stands between cultures. It paints that fact across its walls.

From there, we drove to Scenic Drive Overlook. Below us was El Paso, and beyond it was Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

Seeing an international border from above felt strange. On a map, countries are separated by a clear line. From the mountain, life continued on both sides: roads, buildings, lights and neighbourhoods stretching into the distance.

Mexico did not feel like an abstract destination. It was right there.

Golf, More or Less

Afterwards, we went to Topgolf El Paso.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, Topgolf is not a traditional golf course. You stand in a covered bay and hit balls towards large targets on an outfield. The system counts points and gives the activity the appearance of an organised sport.

Our performance did not support that appearance.

We hit some balls. We missed others. We laughed much more than we scored.

Fortunately, nobody in our group had arrived with ambitions of beginning a professional golf career. The important thing was that we were together, trying something new and being equally unimpressive at it.

Some family memories are built around significant moments. Others are built around several adults failing to hit a golf ball properly. Both kinds count.

Shooting Cans in the Desert

The following day, Magda had to work, but her husband took us out into the desert.

This was one of those experiences that felt very far from everyday life in Poland. We drove into an open, empty landscape and tried target shooting with someone who knew the place and what he was doing.

We shot at cans and other small targets.

I am not presenting this as a universal Texas travel recommendation or suggesting that visitors should simply drive into the desert with a gun. This was part of the life of the people we were staying with, organised by them and done with their local knowledge.

For us, it was unusual, exciting and undeniably Texan.

There is something about standing in a landscape with almost nothing around you that makes every sound feel larger. The desert seemed endless, and for a moment our trip looked exactly like the version of America I had seen in films.

Except that I was now in it.

Carlsbad Caverns We Never Reached and the Cornudas Burger We Did

On another day, we planned to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.

We left too late.

This could have become one of those disappointing travel stories about poor planning and a wasted day. Instead, it became one of my favourite drives.

For the first time, I understood how much space America contains.

There was a road, a vast empty landscape and very little else. We drove past the famous rural mailboxes that appear in American films — standing beside the road with no house visible anywhere nearby.

Somewhere, presumably, there was a home attached to each mailbox.

Possibly in another time zone.

We did not reach Carlsbad Caverns, but in the middle of this enormous nothing, we stopped at May’s Café — now known as Cornudas Café — in the tiny community of Cornudas, Texas.

I ordered one.

It was so good that I forgot to take a photograph. By the time I remembered, half of it had disappeared.

This may be the most reliable restaurant review I can offer: if somebody remembers the photograph only after eating half the food, the food was probably excellent.

We missed our intended destination, but the drive gave us something else — empty roads, impossible distances, roadside mailboxes and a Cornudas Burger that became one of the best hamburgers of my life.

Sometimes the destination is not the most important part.

Sometimes it is the red hut you were never looking for.

Eighteen Years Waiting for Cowboy Boots

Then came the day I had been talking about for years.

Shopping day.

When Magda first moved to the United States — and especially after she settled in Texas — I told her: “One day, I will come to Texas and buy cowboy boots.”

That “one day” took eighteen years.

Walking into Cavender’s Boot City felt like entering a toy shop designed specifically for me. Rows and rows of cowboy boots. Different colours, different leathers, different stitching and more Western clothes and accessories than I had ever seen together in one place.

I wanted to look at everything. Then I wanted to try on everything. Then I needed to look at everything again in case the perfect pair had appeared while I was not watching.

We spent hours choosing them.

Some people visit Texas for history, landscapes or food. I respect all of those reasons. But after waiting eighteen years, I was leaving with boots.

Dreams come true.

No.

We make them come true.

Sometimes through courage and persistence. Sometimes through buying a plane ticket and spending several hours in a cowboy shop with your oldest friend.

A Six O’Clock Hike — Because Apparently We Cannot Simply Rest

Magda and I are both active, so naturally we decided that a holiday morning should begin at six o’clock with a hike.

Hello. I was on holiday.

Still, it was one of the best decisions we made.

We went into the mountains for a walk that lasted about two hours. The early start protected us from the worst of the Texas heat, but more importantly, it gave us time alone.

We walked, talked, admired the views and became pleasantly tired.

After more than thirty years of friendship, there is never a shortage of things to discuss. Some conversations continue for decades. You simply change the scenery occasionally.

That morning, our scenery happened to be the mountains of West Texas.

I would go back tomorrow.

The Fourth of July: New Year’s Eve in Shorts

The hike took place on the Fourth of July.

Even before the holiday itself, I had noticed how many houses were decorated. American flags, red-white-and-blue details and patriotic decorations appeared across the neighbourhood.

I admired how openly people celebrated. The holiday was not confined to an official ceremony or an evening event. You could see it everywhere.

Later, we went with Magda’s husband to buy fireworks.

I was not prepared for the scale of the operation.

The Fourth of July in America felt like New Year’s Eve in Poland — except it was warm, we were wearing shorts and nobody was trying to protect a glass of champagne from freezing.

For someone who loves heat and considers winter a personal insult, this was ideal.

Fireworks in shorts.

Finally, civilisation had solved New Year’s Eve.

But beneath the noise and excitement was something much more important. I was celebrating the Fourth of July in Texas with one of the closest friends of my life.

We had known each other as schoolgirls in Poland. Now we were watching fireworks with our families in America.

That was the real celebration.

Mexican Food in El Paso — And My Emergency Chips

You cannot write honestly about El Paso without mentioning its Mexican influence.

The city sits directly on the border, and Mexican culture is visible in its language, murals, neighbourhoods and, of course, food. There are Mexican restaurants everywhere.

My son was delighted.

He loves Mexican food and approached every meal with the enthusiasm of someone conducting important cultural research.

I mostly ate chips.

Mexican cuisine and I did not immediately form the profound relationship my son had hoped for. I tried, but apparently my contribution to cross-cultural understanding was going to involve potatoes.

Not every travel experience needs to be heroic.

My son discovered flavours he loved. I discovered that chips are available in almost every culture. Everybody returned home satisfied.

White Sands: A Perfect Beach With No Water

Near the end of our stay, we took a day trip to White Sands National Park in neighbouring New Mexico.

The landscape is extraordinary. White gypsum dunes stretch in every direction, so bright that the entire place looks almost unreal.

My first thought was that it resembled a magnificent beach.

My second thought was that somebody had forgotten the sea.

We walked across the dunes, took photographs and played like children. Our actual children — whom we continued to call “the children” despite their increasingly adult dimensions — enjoyed it just as much.

After White Sands, we drove to Ruidoso Winter Park and found another way to behave like children: summer tubing. We climbed on, pushed off and laughed our way down the slope with the rest of the family.

White Sands already has its own story on our blog because a place that looks like snow, feels like sand and behaves like a giant playground deserves more than one paragraph.

One Week in El Paso: What Worked and What We Would Do Differently

Our week was shaped by family life rather than a strict sightseeing schedule, but a few practical lessons may help if you are planning your own El Paso trip.

• Having a car made the trip much easier. El Paso and the surrounding landscapes are spread out, and several of our favourite experiences involved driving well beyond the city centre.
• Plan outdoor activities early. Our six o’clock hike suddenly seemed very sensible once the Texas heat arrived.
• Check opening and last-entry times before a long drive. We learned this after leaving too late for Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The excellent Cornudas Burger softened the disappointment, but it did not open the caves.
• Allow a full day for White Sands. It is in neighbouring New Mexico, not El Paso, and the drive is part of the experience. Check current park conditions before setting off.
• Leave room for ordinary life. Murals, viewpoints and day trips were wonderful, but petrol-station coffee, dog walks and meals around the family table showed us a side of Texas no ticketed attraction could reproduce.
• Do not ask us for an El Paso hotel review. We stayed with friends, and pretending otherwise would rather spoil the point of this story.

Leaving Texas — and the America I Had Wanted to See

Magda’s family had welcomed us into their home, fed us, driven us across the region and shown us a Texas we could never have experienced from a hotel. We got the real version: petrol-station coffee, dog walks, artificial lawns, family meals, changed plans and laughter around the table.

On the way to the airport, I saw a group of people working beside the road in striped uniforms. For a second, they looked exactly like the Dalton brothers from Lucky Luke. I do not know who they were, so I will not turn them into prisoners for the sake of a better ending — but visually, it was magnificent.

Texas had welcomed me with a stagecoach and said goodbye with what appeared to be a frame from a Western cartoon.

I had come to see Magda’s American life, spend time with our families and finally buy the cowboy boots I had promised myself eighteen years earlier. Somewhere between Mammoth Rock, Scenic Drive Overlook, the murals at Old Sheepdog Brewery, the desert, the Cornudas Burger and the Fourth of July fireworks, I also found the America I had always wanted to see: not a polished version prepared for tourists, but the warm, enormous and wonderfully imperfect everyday one.

And honestly, I could go back tomorrow.