Black Friday In Walmart Wondering About Humanity Sanity Before Seeing A Flooding Trinity River

Donald Trump being the Republican front runner has a lot of people concerned about the sanity of a large number of my fellow Americans.

Well, I was finding myself concerned about the sanity of a large number of my fellow Americans when I had myself a Walmart visit on this Black Friday.

As I drove on to the Sam's Club/Walmart parking lot I saw the largest woman I have ever seen. She was loading stuff into her trunk. She was as wide as her trunk. How was she able to drive I found myself wondering. But, I did not linger long enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The two ladies you see using motorized transplant inside Walmart were dainty in comparison to the large woman I just got done telling you about.

In Walmart today I saw an inordinate number of people ill-fitted into clothes, sporting too much weight for the clothes they were stuffing themselves in to, along with sporting tattoos, piercings and one with his ear lobes enlarged into big circles.

The guy with the expanded ear lobes looked quite slovenly.

It always perplexes me when I see such things, wondering why would getting tattoos and piercings and ear lobe expansions be something one thought improved or enhanced their appearance, when there are other things one would think would come first. Like losing weight, getting a haircut, wearing clothes that fit, that type thing.

I did not realize so much rain had dropped during the current storm til I  learned, on Facebook, via Mary Kelleher, that the Trinity has once again flooded her ranch, with some of her cow babies needing a middle of the night rescue from the unexpected flood.

After leaving Walmart, on the way back to relative safety, I drove Randol Mill Road and was surprised to see how high the flood waters  had risen.  Eventually I drove into Mallard Cove Park.

The water appears to have risen higher than last spring's flood, which was the first time I ever saw Mallard Cove Park flooded. I did not get out of my vehicle. Those are big raindrops hitting my windshield you see above looking like Village Creek ghosts.

More rain is on the menu for the next several days. Not good.

A Late In The Day Tandy Hills Hike Has Me Pondering Why Downtown Fort Worth Is A Ghost Town Today

An observant person might look at the photo you see here and deduce, due to the long shadow, that the Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man had himself a late in the afternoon Black Friday hill hike today.

That observant person would have deduced correctly.

The Tandy Hills looks different late in the day than it looks under the more direct noon day sun. I rather liked seeing the sun so low on the horizon, creating dark shadows where usually I see no shadows.

During my regular hiking time today I was busy doing my Black Friday shopping. It took me about 15 minutes to complete this year's Christmas shopping.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, and who isn't, when the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth came in to view I stopped to snap the picture you see below.

Last year, on the day after Thanksgiving, I drove to downtown Fort Worth to document the least busy big city downtown in America on the busiest shopping day of the year. I doubt there were any more shoppers in downtown Fort Worth today, since there still are no big stores in downtown Fort Worth. Let alone any vertical malls.

Yesterday Google caused me to happen to look at the Green With Envy webpage I long ago made, documenting numerous instances of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram claiming some totally ordinary thing about Fort Worth was making the rest of the world green with envy, or the envy of other towns far and wide.

It had been so long since I'd looked at the Green With Envy webpage that I'd forgotten how many instances of that bizarre propaganda I'd seen. And I'd totally forgotten about all the amusing comments from people equally perplexed.

Near as I can tell the Star-Telegram never fesses up to any of its tom foolery of the propaganda sort. Whether it's a big headline announcing the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, with the headline saying this would turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

No, you reading this who have actually been to Vancouver, I am not making this up.

Or the Star-Telegram's bizarre claim that a lame little development called the Santa Fe Rail Market was the first public market in Texas, and that it was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and public markets in Europe. I knew when I read it that this lame development was not the first public market in Texas, having been to the Dallas Farmers Market, but then I was appalled to learn that this lame development was not even the first public market in Fort Worth.

Any mea culpa apology from the Star-Telegram?

Nope.

And then there was the Cabela's Boondoggle. The Star-Telegram trumpeted over and over again that this sporting goods store would be the #1 tourist attraction in Texas. A short time later another Cabela's opened, in Buda, by Austin. And now the Fort Worth Cabela's is not even the only Cabela's in the D/FW Metroplex.

Any mea culpa apology from the Star-Telegram?

Nope.

Lately the Star-Telegram has been going along with the local propagandists' touting that due to some totally bogus "award" that Fort Worth has the TOP Downtown in America. It did not take much digging to find the award submission that was submitted by the Fort Worth propagandists was full of absurd claims, ridiculous lies, such as claiming that downtown Fort Worth's new little plaza attracts millions of visitors a year. Sort of like the imaginary millions attracted to that #1 sporting goods store tourist attraction.

Today is the day which renders this TOP Downtown in America nonsense totally absurd. Like I have already said, on the busiest shopping day of the year downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town. How can the Top Downtown in America have zero department stores, few places to shop?

The town I lived in before moving to Texas, Mount Vernon, has a downtown about the same size as Fort Worth's. With a much bigger river. Mount Vernon's population is around 30,000. Fort Worth's is around 800,000.

When I was growing up, in Burlington, across the river, north of Mount Vernon, Mount Vernon was the Big City in the valley. Downtown Mount Vernon had a Penney's, a Sears, a Woolworth's and a Montgomery Wards, along with multiple other stores. And a couple grocery stores.

In the 1990s all of downtown Mount Vernon's department stores headed north, to Burlington. My old hometown became the retail hub of the Skagit Valley, with a mall, outlet center, Costco, K-mart,  Fred Meyer, Target, new grocery stores. Even a Krispy Kreme.

Is this what happened to downtown Fort Worth? I know there used to be a department store in downtown Fort Worth called Leonard's.

Would it not be a more appropriate behavior if the Star-Telegram, rather than touting absurd claims that just are not true, instead editorialized reality based ideas about Fort Worth? Such as what could Fort Worth do to actually turn its downtown into one of the Top Downtown's in America?

Things like fix the Heritage Park Eyesore. Things like making it appealing to live in downtown Fort Worth. Things like figuring out why downtown Fort Worth has no department stores. Or grocery stores. Things like figuring out why downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year....

Today's Totally Tacky Look At Texas Will Not Include A Visit To Black Friday's Loneliest Downtown In America

The past few days Google has had me motivated to do something I have not done in years. As in open all the webpages that exist under my durangotexas.com domain.

We are talking hundreds upon hundreds of webpages. Some of which were initially made late in the previous century, as in early on in my Exile in Texas.

One of the webpages that I had not looked at in years is titled Totally Tacky Texas.

Apparently before I found myself adjusted to the Texas culture shock I found a lot of things that I came across to be a bit tacky. This all seems quaint to me now, like I was operating out of my naive innocence, or something like that.

One of the tacky things I made note of is still being tacky all these years later, that being the long abandoned eyesore in the Fort Worth Stockyards called the New Isis Theater.

The blurb I wrote about the New Isis Theater sort of sounds like the type stuff I am still saying, all these years later....

The example of Texas Tacky to your left is in Fort Worth's Stockyards. There is an abandoned theater on Main Street in the heart of the Stockyard's 'Historical District' called, ironically, the 'New Isis'. This theater appears to have long been abandoned, broken windows covered with plywood as per the Fort Worth standard for abandoned buildings. To add to the tackiness semi-current messages are put on the marquee. On one side the sign says 'Welcome to the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards', while the other side announces 'Christmas in the Stockyards', which would be fine, except this sign still says this, on the first day of spring, 2002, well after Christmas. It is difficult to understand how a major city would allow such an eyesore to exist in the heart of its main claim to tourist fame. Particularly an eyesore with such renovation possibilities. Where is the civic pride? Perhaps a city government group could be sent to other towns to see how they manage to fix such problems. Any of the tourist towns in Washington state would suffice, or any of the tourist towns on Highway 49 in California. Or any of the tourist towns in Colorado, Utah, Arizona or New Mexico. Or just stay in Texas and find out how the town of Archer City managed to renovate their town's famous theater.

If I were to update Totally Tacky Texas in 2014 I would need to add the eyesore that Fort Worth's Heritage Park has become. Along with some of that which the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has wrought, like the shoddy looking Cowtown Wakepark, the also shoddy looking Coyote Drive-In, and let's not forget that also shoddy location where The Boondoggle has its Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats, with its outhouses and over all junky looking layout.

I think I'd also add Arlington's Dallas Cowboy Stadium to a 2014 update of Totally Tacky Texas. Sticking a stadium at that location, with urban blight on two of its four sides, across the street  from a Super Walmart, not to mention the outrageously tacky abuse of eminent domain which was used to take the land upon which the stadium sprouted, is all very tacky.

Well, all this tacky talk has brought me to the time of day where I am off to do something tacky, as in participate in the Black Friday mayhem. But I won't be Having Fun Looking For Black Friday Shoppers Today In Downtown Fort Worth like I did a year ago today....

I Did Not Get Lost In The Black Friday Crowd At Fort Worth's Sundance Square Plaza Today

I finally made it to the goofily named Sundance Square Plaza today for the first time since its Grand Opening hoopla a month or two ago.

From photos, previously seen, I thought I had a fairly good idea of what this plaza was going to look like.

That and last April I saw the space under construction, so I had an inkling as to the size of the space.

Well.

Did I like what I saw today? The answer to that question is YES.

Sundance Square Plaza is a HUGE improvement over the parking lots which previously occupied this piece of prime downtown Fort Worth real estate.

I have liked the Chisholm Trail mural, you see in the first photo, from the first I ever saw it. But, at that point in time the mural looked out over parking lots.

Now the mural looks out over a much more aesthetically pleasing view.

However.

I know today was Black Friday. Black Friday is a day when downtown Fort Worth is pretty much a ghost town during the day, coming alive Black Friday night, as we previously discussed, earlier today.

So, today, Sundance Square Plaza was not sporting much human activity.

But I can sure see where this space could come alive at night, particularly during the HOT days of spring, summer and fall.

Currently, due to the excesses of the holidays, the plaza is looking at bit cluttered.

I suspect the plaza looks much nicer holiday clutter-free.

I can see how the water feature of the spouting fountains variety is going to be HUGE hit come the HOT times of the year.

That is the fountain water feature in the photo at the top, with a couple kids being a bit tenuous about walking out into the water zone. At one point the fountains did erupt, but not as spectacularly as what was portrayed in a photograph taken by the persnickety Mr. Galtex, which I feloniously purloined and used on this blog.

Maybe the fountains were operating at low pressure today.

My biggest surprise today came from another plaza which I had not previously seen  That previously unseen, by me, plaza, well, I give that plaza a total double thumbs up.

Impressive.

And big city plaza worthy of any big city.

Anywhere.

I don't think I can say that about Sundance Square Plaza.

I will blog photos of my favorite downtown Fort Worth plaza in a subsequent blogging.....

Having Fun Looking For Black Friday Shoppers Today In Downtown Fort Worth

Today, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year, I drove myself to downtown Fort Worth, well known to local propagandists as the most lively big city downtown in Texas, to check out Sundance Square Plaza for the first time and to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the throngs of shoppers flooding downtown Fort Worth.

Well.

The first picture is the aforementioned Sundance Square Plaza, at noon, on the busiest shopping day of the year.

As you can see, there are not many people in the plaza. Plenty of available seating.

Those of you reading this who have never been to downtown Fort Worth are probably thinking that all the people are busy shopping in downtown Fort Worth's stores.

Well, you would be wrong.

Downtown Fort Worth does not have any stores of the sort you might see in other big towns in America. Not a single department store. Not a one. No vertical malls. Not a one.

Not even a grocery store.

As you can see, via the photos, there is not a lot of life on the streets of the most lively town in Texas on this busiest shopping day of the year. Or vehicular traffic.

Below, looking south towards the location of Sundance Square Plaza there is so little street action that pigeons have taken up peaceful residence, sort of like panthers of long ago, napping in downtown Fort Worth, supposedly.

I got way too much material for one blogging today, which means there will be subsequent bloggings about that which I saw today in downtown Fort Worth, including what I thought of Sundance Square Plaza.

I have to say that this Black Friday visit to downtown Fort Worth was not nearly as lifeless as the first time I visited downtown on this particular day.

When I left downtown Fort Worth I headed west to West 7th to check out the new bridge. I really like the new bridge. It is way more impressive in person than via photos. Four lanes, plus sidewalks on the outside of the arches. I've never seen a bridge like this before.

I should have stopped and parked at Trinity Park and walked back to take pictures of the new bridge, but I was hungry and in need of lunch mode.

In case you who are not familiar with Fort Worth are sitting there worrying that the locals have no where to shop, what with their ghost town of a downtown, well, rest assured, there are plenty of places to shop in Fort Worth. West 7th is one of those location. Today West 7th was booming with Black Friday shoppers.

And tonight downtown Fort Worth will not be a ghost town because thousands will be there watching the Parade of Lights. Presented by Chesapeake Energy, according to signs I saw today.

I thought Chesapeake Energy had opted out of sponsoring this type thing, what with money woes and being sued by entities like Fort Worth.

Well, I am off to do myself some Black Friday shopping. Upon my return I have some more blogging to do.....

A Cold Black Friday In Texas Recovering From Overeating & Worrying About North Korea's Insanity

Looking out my icy window on the early morning of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, November 26.

The low did not go as low as the predicted 27, at my location, but it did freeze at 29.

My Turkey Day Buffet went well.

But, I am sort of out of buffet practice due to the extreme infrequency of going to all you can eat buffets. So, even though I did not eat as much as I would have when I was in training for over eating, I did eat too much, almost to the discomfort point.

I forgot to mention my mom called on Thanksgiving Eve. Mom and dad were not going to be home on Thanksgiving, due to heading south to my brother's, in Maricopa, hence the Thanksgiving Eve Happy Thanksgiving call.

I don't know if I want to attempt doing the swimming thing this morning. The novelty has sort of worn off. I know for certain I will not be participating in Black Friday.

I'm feeling nervous that the insanity known as North Korea may be about to go over the edge.