High School Sea Serpent

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Perhaps the only way to explain the sea monster built by the students of Highland High School is that it happened in the trippy 1970s. The pink, blue, and yellow serpent is frozen in mid-undulation, half-in half-out of Albuquerque's dirt. Its mouth gapes wide, perhaps in shock from having its spine severed for a driveway into the school's pool parking lot, or maybe from finding itself high and dry in a desert.

Constructed of concrete and steel, the sea monster has survived fairly well for its 40 years' exposure to the New Mexico sun. It had a fresh coat of paint when we last visited, a sign that Highland High values its outdoor art, or at least that part of Highland High that controls the budget -- perhaps the former students of the 1970s.