Hi guys! I am in California for vacation and wanted to have a few guest posts share with you about where they call home at the moment! If you would like to guest post about your duty station or location, please email me at soldierswifecrazylife (at) gmail (dot) com 
My next guest post is from Sarah who blogs at My Life, Army Style.
I have been an Army wife for 5 years now and I definitely view this life as an adventure. I currently live in El Paso/Ft. Bliss, TX with my husband and 3 adorable cats, and my blog is quite a random mixture of food, life updates, opinion pieces, and the military.
Hello from Ft. Bliss!
I’m excited to be participating in this guest series introducing various duty stations, and I will go ahead and announce up front that this review is going to be mostly positive. =)
Ft. Bliss is definitely an Army post that has gotten a pretty bad rap over the years. I got quite a few “Ugh, I’m sorry” responses when I found out we were moving there. I think part of this came from back when it was just a small, old Air Defense post, but it has grown SO MUCH in the past few years.
Last year they finished a brand new PX/commissary/theater/restaurants/shopping plaza called Freedom Crossing, and it is unlike anything on any other military installation at this point in time. Check out the link for it below and prepare to be jealous! The theater is fantastic and shows movies as soon as off-post theaters do. Restaurants currently include Buffalo Wild Wings, an Irish Pub, Dairy Queen, Smashburger, and a sushi place, along with the usual PX food court options, and Texas Roadhouse will be opening a location soon as well. It is always a happening place to be on weekend evenings, reminding me of a mini downtown city center. The gyms are all new or recently remodeled, nicely outfitted, and offer outstanding options for fitness classes and events. None of them offer childcare but there are CDCs nearby. Bliss is very good at planning fun events throughout the year and there is always plenty going on for families to do.
Housing is decent on post. Availability is low right now due to some units being moved here from overseas, but it is beginning to level out. A few neighborhoods are old and need remodeling, and do not seem to be worth BAH from what I have heard. But higher enlisted and officer housing is very nice. An advantage to Bliss is that finding nice, affordable neighborhoods off post is not very difficult. There are many parts of town that are safe and nice-looking, within 15-20 minutes from post. Schools on post and off seem to be rather hit or miss, just like any post or large city, and seem to boil down to individual experiences most of the time. I do not have any kids though so this is an area I’m not very familiar with.
The city of El Paso can be a little difficult to get accustomed to, but if you go into it with an open mind and a determination to appreciate something different, it is very likeable! There is plenty of shopping, including 3 malls and one outlet mall, a thriving downtown area with lots of events and concerts, incredible food (and not just Mexican, although there is certainly plenty of that!), and plenty of outdoor opportunities in the immediate area and within a few hours of driving distance. The city takes safety very seriously and as such there is very little to worry about despite being so close to such a turbulent border city as Juarez. Some people find the scenery here to be ugly and the weather intolerable, but I personally think the mountains and desert views (and the sunsets/sunrises!) to be breathtaking, and the dry heat is so much easier to take than the humid summers elsewhere in the country. And you will certainly never be low in Vitamin D! =)
I hope this gives you a little peek into what it’s like at Ft. Bliss, TX and if you ever get orders here, remember this Army wife has no horror stories to share! =)
Links:
http://www.ftblissfamilyhousing.com
http://freedomcrossingatfortbliss.com/
Thanks so much for the review! We are moving in July from being at Bragg for 9 years, and have heard alot of bad reviews too. So this makes me feel better. I’m going to try to make the best of it no matter what I entail! Thanks again!
Oh bless you for this blog!! We are currently stationed in Hawaii and Ft. Bliss was the last place the we expected to go. I’ve always heard bad things about Bliss, so I’m elated to hear such good reviews! Thank you so much and I definitely plan on going in with an open mind.
I’m glad it has been a positive experience for you. Not so for me. We live in the old rundown housing. It is definitely NOT worth the BAH. I spend most of my days sweeping up sand that blows in through the closed doors & windows during the wind/sand storms. When does the wind NOT blow here? Old housing is a NIGHTMARE. (Toilets don’t flush, cinder block walls, old rickety windows that don’t lock… I could go on & on & on)I don’t really care about freedom crossing or the malls off post. Those things still don’t male me like it here. It’s so brown & desolate. I was desperate to see real trees & real grass. Anything green. Thankfully, my husband found out about cloudcroft New Mexico. If you can bare the 1 1/2 escape through the desert, it is rather refreshing. Other than that, I cannot WAIT to leave this place. I will probably kick my heels up in sheer glee when we get orders to ANYWHERE else.
Same, I miss seeing life and green. I’d give up this dry heat for humidity in a split second. I had nose bleeds and headaches for the first 7 months here in El Paso. I feel like I’m trapped in a sand globe.
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This is a great post, and I’m glad to see Bliss get some positive reputation. We were stationed there for 6 years! Like you said, you have to look at it with an open mind and it could turn out great. In fact, we kept our house there (we rent it out) encase we want to move back when we get off this crazy rollercoaster!
One of the biggest complaints is that it is dry, and I can’t argue with that. But I will say that dry means no humidity, and dry means no allergens in the air. All in all, I have loved on much worse bases. I will also agree that the old on post housing are is really dumpy but they are working on that!
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