After I finished writing about our Rhode Island adventure, I decided to focus on getting things in order for Texas / New Mexico. I called Skydive El Paso see if they'd be open on Friday evening. Our flight would be arriving around 4:00 PM and the drop zone was less than 30 miles away from the airport. It would be great to get New Mexico out of the way early. I spoke with the owner Bob - they are only open Saturdays and Sundays. 

I sent an email to Skydive West Texas to let Pete know we'd be heading his way soon. I received his reply less than 20 minutes later. It started with: "Terrible timing. The plane is having its annual done now," and ended with "Shude be up and running next week. Sorry." UGH!  

Before I bought the tickets to go to El Paso, I exchanged emails with Pete. It seemed like everything was good to go. Oh well...this isn't the first time things didn't go as planned

We exchanged a few more messages. Pete suggested that I head east to one of the many other DZs in Texas.  Great suggestion, but we were flying into El Paso.  A visit to an eastern DZ would mean a long drive.

It was Tuesday and I had to start over with my Texas research. I found a place called Skydive Eagel's Nest in Odessa, Texas.  I was hopeful when I reached a working answering machine. I left a message and then sent a note to Pete to ask him about the drop zone. Pete told me that they had "burned up the plane" last year and suggested I change my flight and head over to San Antonio.

If we did that, we'd have to drive west to get New Mexico. Either way, we'd probably end up driving. Skydive San Antonio is 547 miles from El Paso - only three hours further than Skydive West Texas. If we got in the car right after we landed in El Paso, we could do the bulk of the drive Friday evening. It wasn't ideal, but it was doable.

After a couple more google searches, I found an airport in Texas called Horizon, I found a Facebook page, but there wasn't much information about it. If they had a flight school, maybe we could find a pilot willing to take us up. I also found a company called Vertical Limit Aviation located at the Santa Teresa airport. If money is no object, they can make your dreams come true. I wondered how much it would cost to get them to fly us over to Texas?