If you have lived in El Paso for a while one of the things you may have noticed on the westside is the bridge to nowhere.  It’s right before the Sunland Park exit and there appears to be no reason for it.

There was once a purpose but when the drainage dam was built the road to it got severed leaving only the entrance from the neighborhood in Buena Vista.  That side is fenced off.

The bridge taunts you from behind the gate

I have always wondered if it was possible to get to it so today I set off to try. I looked at the area from above on Google and found a dirt road that entered the drainage area from the side of the Westside Recreation Center. There is a gate but today it was open.

Looks all flat and easy from here.

Once in I drove to a wash area where some taggers had hit some concrete walls.

From there I drove along the top ridge and then down the side of the dam.  That proved to be a dumb move as once I got to the bottom I was greeted by 3 foot boulders blocking my way. After trying unsuccessfully in 4low to get back up the only way I found around was by skirting the bottom of the dam sideways next to the boulders. It was a long 1o minutes of sideways slip and sliding.

Easy does it

I won’t lie and say I wasn’t sweating bullets.  The rocky substrate kept sending me towards the boulders, I had to fight the urge to gas it and just let myself creep along.  The end of the boulder line drops you right at the entrance to the bridge so all in all it worked out.

Success!

I wasn’t going to be able to go back the way I came so I traveled down a rocky and rutted hill which put me right next to I-10, before the Sunland exit.  For future reference, it may be possible to go this route instead of the tricky way i went.   I think its time to look into winches.

Full Flickr set here: Bridge to Nowhere

What to do, what to do. Three day weekends are a tricky, there is a ton of things do but trying to find that balance of activities that are fun and sandwiching it all between lunch and dinner can be a challenge with kids. We started the festivities on Saturday with a trip to the farmers market, bowling on Sunday and the El Paso Zoo on Monday. The Zoo has several new additions including zebras, giraffes , lions and a very lively sea lion. To accommodate all these new animals the zoo expanded into the area where the old Dudley field once was, home of the Diablos.

Oh Hi there!

We ended the day with a walk by the river. The boys dig walking along the jogging path and with it being so close to the house there is no excuse not to do it.

Big tree at sunset

We went to the first farmers market at Ardovino’s Desert Crossing.  There is a ton of nifty stuff to look at there.  This is one of the residents of the compound, an old GMC truck:

Old GMC Truck

The full set can be viewed on Flickr here: Old GMC Truck .  I also took some pics of the Dessert Crossing grounds:

Windmill and Water Tower

Full Ardovino’s set here: Ardovino’s Dessert Crossing

I saw Alexandre Farto’s work on Gizmodo today.  For some of his works he uses a subtractive process, removing material to create his imagery on walls and billboards:

These works add an interesting wrinkle to the graffiti art debate.  “Normal” graffiti art done with paint or markers is removable, this is a bit more destructive.  Judging by the care and detail I’m sure permission has been granted to do these but what of copycats who might try to emulate his art in a more clandestine fashion somewhere else? Cool stuff nonetheless and worth a visit to his site:

http://alexandrefarto.com/

A couple weeks ago, we drove out to San Elizario to check out some galleries and across the street from one of them was an old adobe building that had about 2 walls left to it.  This was what was left of one of the windows.