Texas Has Some Of The Worst Cities For Allergy Sufferers

Yesterday I found myself on Facebook, discussing with a Washingtonian, how I never had allergy woes til I moved to Texas.

Yesterday the pollen was extra insufferable. Hot and windy, blowing the sneeze wheeze makers at great volume at high speed.

Overnight a cold front has arrived, along with a noticeable drop in the airborne irritants. I have not felt the need to take an allergy pill this morning.

Blessed relief.

I saw that which you see above, this morning, on the aforementioned Facebook. I don't know why Austin is not at the top of the worst cities for allergy sufferers. I've known people who moved from Austin to escape the annual onslaught of Mountain Cedar Pollen.

The worst allergy bout I have been through was in Fort Worth several years ago, caused by conditions which blew large amounts of Texas Hill Country Mountain Cedar Pollen north to the DFW zone.

There are Mountain Cedar trees here in Wichita Falls. A couple years ago I was biking through Lake Wichita Park when I saw a Mountain Cedar suddenly release what looked like a fog but was Pollen going airborne due to who knows what sudden stimulus. I had never seen such a thing happen before in person. I had seen videos of such.

I have not yet decided if I am going to venture into the outer world today. Current, at 10 in the morning, it is only 52 degrees outside...

Is The Tandy Hills Thin Man Suffering From Mountain Cedar Pollen Air Pollution?

On the left you are looking at the Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man on this 3rd Monday of 2014, also known as Martin Luther King Day.

I had myself a mighty fine Martin Luther King Day time with an hour, give or take a minute or two, of high speed hill hiking.

Today after the high speed hill hiking had me feeling good due to the aerobic stimulation stimulating endorphins I wondered to myself why some pharmaceutical company doesn't come up with an endorphin pill. I think it would be a big seller, but the FDA would likely prohibit its sale due to it being more addictive than heroin.

A couple days ago I read that the then low level of pollen pollution in the air was about to end with the arrival of Mountain Cedar pollen blowing in from the south.

Mountain Cedar pollen blowing in from the south?

Where are these mountains, south of my location, from whence (sorry Miss Julie) this Mountain Cedar pollen blows?

I do not know if it is Mountain Cedar pollen which is the culprit, but some culprit has got my breathing system in allergy mode, stuffed up bad. The high speed hill hiking and its resultant heavy breathing temporarily abated the stuffiness, but now it has returned.

I think I need to move back to a location more suited for my respiratory architecture, that being the evergreen-scented air of the Pacific Northwest, with its naturally moisturized, naturally saline-ized air blowing in from the Pacific.

If I still had a house to move back to in Washington I think I'd move back tomorrow, what with how I am feeling at this particular moment....

The North Texas Air Quality Has Turned Unhealthy For Us Sensitive Group Members With Too Much Ragweed

As you can see, via the gauge in the middle of the top row of the graphic above, the Air Quality Index at my location on the planet is currently in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups Red Zone.

Since I am borderline elderly I have decided to limit the outdoor air that I breathe today and not get myself any noontime endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation. I think I got myself plenty of endorphins from an hour in the pool starting before the sun arrived this morning to begin its daily heating duty.

Currently that aforementioned sun's daily heating duty has it only heating the outer world to 86, at about an hour before noon. Those 86 degrees are predicted to increase to 101 as today progresses.

In a related air quality issue. The past couple days I've been doing a bit more wheezing and sneezing than is the norm.

Today I learned that ragweed levels have been rising, which is having people sneezing all over North Texas. I think it was ragweed which brought about my allergic misery last October.

Apparently the high levels of ragweed are being mixed with elm and grass pollen, with the grass pollen being higher than the norm due to grass not turning the brown color it usually turns to by this time of the year.

Us Sensitive Group members are being advised to limit our pollen exposure by not going outside, while taking anti-allergy medications and taking showers to wash off the allergens.

Does swimming count as an allergen removing strategy?

Hiking The Windy Tandy Hills Breathing Low Ozone Air With Extreme Pollen

With the temperature barely in the 80s, with a strong wind blowing, with the ozone level low enough for the air quality to be declared "Good" in North Texas, I decided to return to the Tandy Hills today for the first time in awhile.

I am not sure how long awhile is, maybe well over a week.

In the picture you are looking at the Tandy Wagon Trail that heads towards the skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth from the top of Mount Tandy.

Many a wagon must have rolled over this trail to leave such long lasting ruts.

Typing the word "ruts" I am sitting here wondering if that is actually a word and also wondering why I think this word refers to the tracks left on the ground by wheels passing over a trail.

Hiking the Tandy Hills today tests what it is what I have had an allergic reaction to the past couple weeks.

So, far I don't seem to be having any new allergic reaction. If I was having an allergic reaction I'm thinking I would need to consider that it is pollen that is bothering me and not high ozone levels. The pollen level remains "Extreme". I am not quite sure what that means, but it sounds sort of dire.