franklin mountains state park

guess what. we got the largest urban park in the nation. that's right. you name a city and we got it beat. it basically just a huge mountain in the middle of the city. it's 24,247 acres or 37 square miles big. it wasn't a state park until 1979, when nature lovers were getting worried cuz developers were starting to cut into the pristine mountainside. that's when they decided that texas parks and wildlife should own it, and it was opened to the public in 1987. i've ran over that mountain a couple times, and one time went bird watching in the dark. mission fail.

juarez star

napolean dynamite's friend pedro is from juarez.

smeltertown

it's basically the ghost town right at the foot of the asarco smoke stack. it all got started in 1887 when the kansas city consolidated smelting & refining company set up shop just north of el paso along the rio. they put a smelter there to process lead and copper ore that they brought from mexico. a town grew up around it named smelter town, but in seventy two, they made everyone leave cause the levels of lead were poisonously high. game over.

pancho took over

juarez once again served as the provisional capital of mexico during the mexican revolution. one of the opposition leaders was fransisco madero. his guys led by pancho villa took over the city on november 20, 1910. it was home to intense fighting for a while, but prohibition helped revive it around 1919-1933, w everyone going there to drink. i wonder how many national capitals are on there national border?

read your Bible...

literally that's what is written in huge letters on the side of the mountain in jaurez. it's totally readable even from the el paso side of the river. the full message says, 'CD. JUAREZ...LA BIBLIA ES LA VERDAD LEELA.' that means, the city of juarez, the Bible is the truth, read it. no one really knows who put it there, it's just always been there. there's a guy who goes and gives it some fresh paint every couple of years, along w the rest of the folks at his church. while juarez is going crazy, all the while the answer was written on the mountain for all to see.

the french intervention in mexico

here's what happened. benito jaurez, then president of mexico, got tired of paying interest payments to france, spain, and the uk. so he stopped. naturally, the countries went crazy, and behind the leadership of france, decided to attack mexico. for a while benito was on the run w his troops, and he crashed for a while in el paso del norte. this was the name of the city on the south side of the river. eventually, he set up his government-in-exile in chihuahua. but, since all the people in el paso del norte loved benito, they decided to rename their city after him in 1888. thus, juarez is named after a guy who refused to pay his bills. in his honor perhaps, many people have also refused to pay their bills. perhaps.

juarez

before i begin i must mention that all facts all stolen from wikipedia, which is not always known for it's accuracy. but since all lies contain a bit of truth, on to the bit of truth. el paso and juarez make up one of the largest binational metropolitan areas in the world, w combined population estimated at 2.5 million. juarez is also one of the fastest growing cities in the world. about 60,000 people cross the border everyday, in large part due to the almost 300 maquiladoras, or factories the city has. my mom used to be one of those people until she got tired of the drive, and our car got stolen. but now we got a better one. as of july 14, the body count in the drug war in juarez reached one thousand. the pic is of the bridge.