Ok, I knew it would be a bit difficult to find deep winter jackets and such here.  I mean I live in the desert southwest, but a pair of gloves?  C’mon!  We drove to 3 Wal-Marts, 2 Targets, 2 different Malls (including Macy’s, Dillard’s, Sears, and JC Penny’s) and could not find one pair of decent gloves for either myself or my wife.  We did get lucky enough to find a ski jacket and mittens for my daughter in a Target.  We have been hem-hawing about clothing for Fairbanks for weeks since we have no clue what is actually needed there.  As I said before, I called around up there and jacket-wise we are good till we can get there and get to the store.  However, we do need some decent gloves to get us by in the 20 degree weather we have to look forward to on arrival.

We kept getting the same response everywhere we went, “It’ll be about two weeks till we get any. We don’t have them stocked yet.” There is not even one decent hunting, fishing, outdoor store in all of El Paso to check out either!  Lots of western wear shops which would be great if I were gonna be riding the range, but not one outdoor shop!  I found that strange considering El Paso is supposedly the 10th largest city in the country and there are two

major ski resorts within two hours drive of here.