Sunday, October 10, 2010

Dallas & Fort Worth Visions With River Legacy & The Grand Canyon of The Trinity River With Egrets & Gardens Of Angels

You are looking at the Grand Canyon of the Trinity River, in Arlington, in River Legacy Park.

I was not quite in the mood to go riding the mountain bike trail, quite yet, after just recently recovering from last Sunday's unfortunate mountain bike incident.

So, I biked the paved trail to its end near 360. Some day, likely long after I am no longer in Texas, that trail is supposed to continue past 360 and ride along side the Trinity River, heading east to connect to the Dallas Trinity River Trails.

Dallas is getting some new trail footage, I believe, along the Trinity River. You would not know it if you only read Fort Worth media, but Dallas has its own Trinity River Vision. In fact, Dallas had its Vision before Fort Worth sort of copied the Dallas Vision. Only the Dallas Vision remained fairly clear while the Fort Worth Vision developed a case of Macular Degeneration. After Fort Worth copied the Dallas Vision, to the point of pretty much using the same name, with the Dallas Vision, I believe being called something like Trinity Vision Project. Fort Worth's became the Trinity River Vision. Then the Dallas name changed to Trinity River Corridor Project.

Where Dallas will have a big lake, Fort Worth will have a pond, where Dallas will have 3 signature bridges, Fort Worth will now have 3 ordinary bridges. I do not know if Dallas added inner tubing and wake boarding to their vision and that that is how Fort Worth came to add those two activities to their vision.

Dallas is a bit further along seeing its vision than Fort Worth is. Bridge work is currently being done in Dallas. I don't know if the Fort Worth Vision even sees, yet, where their 3 bridges are going to be doing their bridging.

Anyway, back to River Legacy Park. I know I've mentioned it before, but it is worth repeating, because I like repeating myself, but when I first arrived in Texas, I was not too long into my exile, before I discovered River Legacy Park. On my way to discovering River Legacy Park, I came upon my first homicide scene ever. A guy had been murdered and his body thrown out at the intersection of Trinity Boulevard and 820, ironically, very close to where I live now. But at that point in time I lived about 15, or so, miles to the north.

Several years later I was driving east on Trinity Boulevard and came upon a bizarre scene with a lot of crosses. It was the Garden of Angels, a memorial to murder victims. I webpaged what I saw. Below is the blurb from that webpage regarding my first murder scene.

One day in 1999, not long after moving to Texas, these Eyes on Texas headed to a park called River Legacy. The route to that park was Trinity Boulevard. At the exit from I-820 to Trinity Boulevard police were seen, with crime scene tape, with a body outlined in the grass, like something from a TV show. After that a makeshift memorial was built on the spot where the body was found. It grew to be quite elaborate. At some point it was scaled back and a small permanent memorial was built. The cross you see here is for that victim, Marty Klozik. His family and friends have added many items.

Years later I took my cousin Kristi to the Garden of Angels on our way back from having too many margaritas at Joe T. Garcia's. Kristi's grandma, my aunt, was a murder victim. Kristi became very unsettled, freaked out, actually. The Garden of Angels is built where a murder victim was found, with that victim being the first Angel in the Garden.

Anyway, like I was saying before the Garden of Angels interrupted me, I know I've mentioned before that when I discovered River Legacy Park it had not been long open. I was surprised at how few used it. Within a few years a bridge was added across the Trinity, with about 5 new miles of paved trail. Now, likely 10 years after I first biked River Legacy it is crowded.

As in, today, there were a lot of people biking, walking, pushing strollers, bikes pulling baby on board strollers, roller blading, skateboarding, jogging and likely one or two types of motion I'm forgetting.

Oh, fishing and boating. I saw a group of 3 attempting to put in a big canoe at the boat launch on the north side of the bridge. They gave up due to the river being way below the boat launch and being very muddy. I doubt the river is deep enough, right now, for boat floating.

I also saw two big white birds fishing. Are these Egrets? You can see them in the above picture, on either side of the mouth of Hurricane Creek as it drains into the Trinity River.

I saw a guy fishing. Are the fish safe to eat in this section of the Trinity River? What would make the fish here safe to eat when they are not safe to eat in the section where J.D. Granger holds his Inner Tube Happy Hours?

When I get to J.D. Granger in a blogging, I know it is time to shut up.

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