A long swim, early this morning, under the sliver of light provided by a skinny crescent moon did little to alleviate my bad mood.
So, I decided some fast wheel rolling on the Gateway Park mountain bike trails would be just what the Mood Doctor would prescribe if I had a Mood Doctor.
As I made the left turn into Gateway Park I began to see puddles of water. This did not bode well. While no rain fell on my location yesterday, it appeared that five miles to the west some precipitation precipitated.
As I drove to the bike unload zone I decided if the trails were muddy I would instead pedal the paved trails, trails which I have not pedaled in a long time, not since I discovered I enjoyed the Gateway Park mountain bike trails.
As you can clearly see above, I made it to my favorite Gateway Park photo op location. A scenic look at the Trinity River in its natural state, not needing tricky lighting and special filters to make the Trinity River look good which is what you usually need if you want to take an "enhanced" Trinity River photo in the downtown Fort Worth zone of the Trinity River.
The fact that I made it to my favorite Gateway Park photo op location would indicate the trails were not muddy, which they weren't. But rain had left the trails a bit sticky, thus impacting how freely the wheels roll.
I had already decided I was only going to go one time around the trails due to the sticky trails issue, when I came to the below obstruction.
Getting over the fallen tree was fairly easy, but doing so rendered me a wet sweaty mess. I was already in adrenaline over drive due to an encounter with a big cranky snake stretched across the trail. I slammed to a stop, did not reach quickly for my camera, figuring by the time I got the camera turned on the snake would have slithered off. I figured wrong. The slithering took long enough that I likely could have taken a picture had I quickly reached for the camera. I think the snake may have been slithering slow due to the cool temperature, as in chilled to the low 80s.
Continuing on I came to one of Gateway Park's infamous boarded up boardwalks, where I saw signage had been added, signage with very tortured verbiage whose meaning my feeble grasp of English had trouble understanding.
ENTERING CLOSED AREAS; HOURS OF OPERATION, IT SHALL BE UNLAWFUL FOR ANY PERSON TO ENTER ANY PORTION OF A PARK OR RECREATION AREA WHICH IS DESIGNATED AS RESTRICTED.
So, is the Gateway Park boarded up boardwalk designated as restricted? Does the AREA CLOSED TO PUBLIC sign you see below designate the boarded up boarkwalk as being restricted? Why use such clunky verbiage on a sign?
An even better question than wondering about clunky verbiage on a sign is to wonder how many more years is this Gateway Park eyesore going to exist? Either fix the boarded up boardwalks or tear them down.
Or are we waiting on the Gateway Park Master Plan to fix the boarded up boardwalks? Which leads us to the next sign.
The Trinity River Vision may be one of America's top all time Boondoggles, but one thing the TRVB does do well is produce long lasting signage spewing imaginative propaganda about imaginary plans.
Like the Gateway Park Master Plan signage. The forest of Trinity River Vision Boondoggle propaganda signs showed up years ago, near Fort Woof in Gateway Park touting the Gateway Park Master Plan. The propaganda on the sign above, under the title "The Gateway Park Master Plan" says...
"The revitalization of Gateway Park is a major component of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. The park's ecosystem will be restored to its natural beauty and over 80,000 native oak and pecan trees will be planted. Community-requested recreational amenities will be added throughout its 1,000 acres, making it one of the largest urban programmed parks in the nation. The master plan will spur economic development and connect the east and southeast neighborhoods of Fort Worth to the Trinity River Corridor."
Shouldn't a Master Plan have some sort of plan? You know, something like a project timeline?
When are we going to see any of the wonderful things we see on the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's propaganda signage about the Gateway Park Master Plan?
More than once whilst reading Trinity River Vision Boondoggle propaganda I have been baffled by the Boondoggle making a claim along the line that something has been requested by the community. In the Gateway Park Master Plan's instance the sign says "Community-requested recreational amenities will be added throughout its 1,000 acres."
I really would like to know how the Boondoggle manages to find out what the "community" is requesting. I'm part of the "community". No one asked me what amenities I'd like to request.
Since, apparently, the Trinity River Vision Boondoggles does what the "community" requests, on behalf of the "community" I would like to request a project timeline letting us in the "community" know when we well be able to start enjoying the amenities the "community" has requested?
It is a puzzling, perplexing mystery to me why more people are not puzzled and perplexed by the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's propaganda nonsense....
The whole Fort Worth Trinity River Panther Island project is ridiculous and probably will never be completed.
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