Last night I flew Google Earth from my current home zone to my old home zone of Washington state. It had been a few years since I had flown home via this method.
I first checked out the town I grew up in, Burlington, going down Fairhaven Avenue, that being the main drag through town. Much had changed, including what looked to be a lot of new landscaping at the area train tracks intersect with, I think, Highway 20, that being the rode which takes you to North Cascades National Park.
When I got to my old home, across from Maiben Park, I saw something which clued me as to why I find a certain aspect of Texas to be a bit appalling.
That being the sad state of sidewalks in the Lone Star state.
The sidewalk in front of the house I grew up in is wide, with a grass median between the sidewalk and the road. A feature I rarely, if ever, have seen in Texas. And now a sidewalk has been added on the park side of the street.
The house I grew up in is the one in the middle. Seeing the sidewalk, with the median between sidewalk and road, I understand why I find the Texas sidewalks so appalling.
After several minutes in Burlington I headed south to Mount Vernon. The first thing I checked out in Mount Vernon was the Riverwalk along the Skagit River.
The Mount Vernon Riverwalk was built as part of a flood control project. Previous to this new flood control method sandbags were used to build a walk to keep downtown Mount Vernon from being flooded. Now a temporary wall can be assembled quickly by just a couple wall builders, not the hundreds of volunteers it took to build a sandbag wall.
The Texas town I used to live in, Fort Worth, has been trying to build a new flood control method in an area which has not flooded since the 1950s, because flood control levees already prevent such from happening. Fort Worth's slow-motion project, limping along for most of this century is known as the Trinity River Vision, purported to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development plan.
So vitally needed that, so for, the only major part of that Vision which can be seen is three simple little freeway overpass type bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
The river that flows through Fort Worth is the Trinity River. This is not a Skagit River type river. As you can sort of see in the above photo, the Skagit River looks like it is flowing clean, clear water. The Trinity River looks like flowing mud, and in flood mode that flowing mud is covered with litter.
That photo at the top is the house I lived in before moving to Texas. Built in 1985 for only $65,000. Sold in 2002 for $132,000. And recently I saw the house has been sold again for a little under a hall million bucks.
Such seems so bizarre to me. That anyone would pay that much for that house. Only three bedrooms, two bathrooms. And no walk-in closets. The decks in front and back were rather nice, there is that. I had a great roof top garden in the front patio, with two big blueberry bushes, among many other vegetative things, including a lot of basil.
I'm appalled to see a garage door has been added to the open carport, not matching the look of the rest of the house. I see the stairs leading to the front door have been totally re-done. And why is there what looks to be a big plastic tarp above where my bedroom was?
I guess it really is true, you can't go home again. And expect all to be the same as you remember it...
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