Spencer Jack Caught In A Web Got Me Thinking About Fort Worth's Imaginary Islands & Bridges Over Nothing Boondoggles

This morning my favorite nephew Jason emailed me some pictures, one of which is the one above, another of which is below, where Spencer Jack is caught in a tangled web.

The text in the email...

Fall is in the air. Foggy mornings. And pleasant afternoons with the day time light shrinking. Spencer Jack suggested hanging up Halloween decorations on the "to do" list. We did such in his lego/train room.

Seeing the above picture amused me when I realized I was looking at something I don't see in my current location.

No.

I am not referring to beautiful scenery.

I am referring to islands. Real islands. I am losing memory of Washington place names, but I believe in the picture we are looking north across Padilla Bay. In the distance I believe that is Guemes Island. I don't know what the small, closest island is named. To the right, if the picture were wider, we might be seeing part of Samish Island.

Samish Island is like islands in Fort Worth, such as Panther Island, due to the fact that Samish Island is not really an island. It used to be an island, but early farmers blocked off the saltwater with dikes so as to create more fertile farmland and put an end to Samish Island's island status.

Spencer Jack and his dad drive by the view above every time they drive from their home zone in Mount Vernon, 15 miles west to Anacortes, where Spencer Jack's dad's Fidalgo Drive-In is located.

Fidalgo Drive-In is so named because it is located on Fidalgo Island, which leads me to another interesting thing that occurred to me when I thought about that drive to the Fidalgo Drive-In on Fidalgo Island.

To get to Fidalgo Island on Highway 20 requires driving over the Duane Berentson Bridge. As you can see this is a twin bridge. The picture only shows you part of this big bridge.

The body of water this bridge crosses is called the Swinomish Channel. The Swinomish Channel was not dredged as part of any sort of demented flood control, economic development scheme.

The dual  bridges replaced an antique draw bridge which caused bad traffic jams whenever a boat needed to head into or out of the channel.

I remember when the Duane Berentson Bridge was built. It did not take four years to build. And it was built over existing water. What a concept. The Duane Berentson Bridge is a much bigger bridge than the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing, which are scheduled to take four years to build.

Near where we are standing in the bridge picture is the Swinomish Casino & Lodge. I believe in addition to the lodge and casino there is also now an RV park and marina. The Swinomish are a Pacific Northwest Native American tribe. Their casino has a restaurant with my all time favorite seafood buffet.

The Swinomish Casino & Lodge, with its restaurants, did not come about due to any sort of sweetheart deals from something called the Padilla Bay Swinomish Channel Vision. The Swinomish have done a good job of economic development all on their own, with maybe a little federal help, just like the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, only with something to show for it a bit more elevated  than music venues, imaginary pavilions, a drive-in movie theater, a brewery and a wakeboard lake.

I do not remember ever reading, in any Skagit Valley media source, regarding the Duane Berentson Bridge, that it was a "Signature" bridge that would become an iconic gateway to Fidalgo Island.

Now, those of you who have seen artist's renderings of what the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing are going to look like, which of these bridges do you think might leave a more lasting impression in a visitor's memory, the Boondoggle's Bridges or the Duane Berentson Bridge?

Well, enough of that.

And now the aforementioned photo of Spencer Jack stuck in a spider's web in his Legoland Monorail Train Room.....

Sampson & Delilah Turned Me Into A Homesick Melancholy Baby Today

This Sunday afternoon has me feeling like a Melancholy Baby.

Sort of homesick.

Yesterday I was told that Sampson and Delilah were taking a roadtrip this weekend. This morning I learned the destination of the roadtrip was the Swinomish Casino and Lodge in my old hometown zone of the Skagit Valley.

Sampson and Delilah posted a couple photos today, on Facebook, taken from their location in the Swinomish Casino Lodge and Resort's RV Park, which I have swiped, without permission.

In the first photo you are looking northeast, towards the Cascade Mountain foothills, with the Mount Baker volcano being that white thing sticking up on the middle left side of the picture. The water you see is saltwater. Padilla Bay if my memory is correct.

Make note of how clear the air appears to be. I miss clear air, that smells good. Fellow Washington exile, Steve A, has asked, more than once, regarding all the tree covered mountains and hills of Washington, pertaining to the Cedar Fever Texas woe, "What makes Mountain Cedar pollen worse than Western Red Cedar pollen?" It is a perplexing question.

In the next purloined Sampson and Delilah picture we are looking slightly northwest at a couple of the islands sticking out of the bay. I don't remember if that is still Padilla Bay. There are a lot of named bays in the Puget Sound zone. My memory is starting to fail regarding Washington geography. Is this considered the Straits of Juan de Fuca, north of Puget Sound? I can't remember where Puget Sound ends and the next named body of water starts up, let alone its name.

The Swinomish Casino was about 15 miles from my abode in Mount Vernon. To the left in the above picture, which is west, in another 10 miles, or so, you come to Anacortes. Anacortes is the town where Spencer Jack's dad, my nephew Jason, has a restaurant called the Fidalgo Drive-In.

Speaking of Spencer Jack's dad. One of the reasons I am feeling a bit melancholy is I got email from my nephew this morning telling me he was thinking of burning up some frequent flier miles by coming to Texas in early February. Spencer Jack's dad was last in Texas nine years ago, way before there was a Spencer Jack. I am appalled that that is nine years ago. Time flies. I felt bad explaining this was a not a good time to come to Texas.

Looking at these Sampson and Delilah pictures has me thinking how extremely different Skagit County is from the county I am currently in, Tarrant County in Texas.

As you can see, via just a small glimpse, Skagit County has some rather scenic natural water features. Tarrant County has some man made lakes, a polluted river, creeks prone to flash flooding and a bizarre plan to make a fake lake and build an unneeded flood diversion channel.

Speaking of channels. There is a marina at the Swinomish Casino. There is also a channel. Called the Swinomish Channel. I believe the Swinomish Channel is manmade. I know it is a connection between two bays and that the scenic tourist town of La Conner is on the channel.

The total population of Skagit County is 118,222. The total population of Tarrant County is 1,809,034. The total area of Skagit County is 1,920 square miles. The total area of Tarrant County is 897 square miles.

So, Skagit County is more than twice the size of Tarrant County, with a population less than one-fifteenth the population of Tarrant County.

And yet, all of Skagit County is served by public transit, known as Skagit Transit.

From the Skagit Transit website, this blurb....

"Our goal is to provide high quality public transportation that meets the needs of the citizens of Skagit County at the least cost to the taxpayer contributing to the county's economy and quality of life."

How come it is no ones goal to provide high quality public transportation that meets the needs of the citizens of Tarrant County I am sitting here wondering? And somehow it is someone's extremely goofy goal to provide the citizens of Tarrant County a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, which no one has voted for?

Another stark difference between Skagit County and Tarrant County is the existence of casino resorts. There are two. In addition to the already mentioned Swinomish Tribe's operation the Skagit Tribe has the Skagit Valley Casino Resort.

Whilst living in Skagit County I would visit the Skagit Tribe's casino more frequently than the Swinomish Tribe's Why? Nothing to do with gambling. It was the Skagit's buffet, usually at lunch, that I frequented. However, for seafood, the Swinomish Casino's Two Salmon Cafe was my favorite. So good. With pan-fried oysters just like mom used to make. And no catfish, ever.

I purloined the below image from the Swinomish Tribe's website about the aforementioned Two Salmon Seafood Buffet.

Before the Washington Tribes won their battle with the state over casinos it was a novelty for me to go to Nevada, usually Reno. It seemed so exotic, all those noisy slot machines. It took awhile for the Washington Casinos to get to being totally Nevada-like.

Unlike Texas, Washington did not use a primitive form of eminent domain to evict its Tribes. There was some hostility, early on, but for the most part relations between the natives and the newcomers were fairly cordial. Hence the name of Washington's biggest town being Seattle, after Chief Seattle, well, Sealth. It is why a lot of Washington place names are native based.

Unlike Texas, Washington has multiple Indian Reservations. During the 60s and 70s and 80s the Tribes got themselves some good legal help that helped them win court battles against the state, over and over again, over things like fishing rights. And their rights to a high degree of sovereignty on their tribal lands. And to open casinos.

The income from the Tribe's casinos  has noticeably improved conditions on the tribal lands. I remember when the Swinomish Reservation was an extremely impoverished, depressing thing to see, back decades ago in the previous century. That extremely impoverished depressing thing to see no longer exists in 2014.

I really think I need to move back to a progressive, liberal, well-educated location. I must try and figure out how to make that happen.....

A Firecracker Free 4th In Texas While Spencer Jack Blows Up & Floods His Backyard In Washington

This morning Spencer Jack's dad sent me two 4th of July videos. I'm assuming the videos were shot with a phone. The videos are in Apple Quicktime .mov format, so I was unable to open and view them in Windows Media Player or Windows Movie Maker.

However, I was able to make YouTube videos and thus see Spencer Jack.

In the first video Spencer Jack is demonstrating that currently in Western Washington, particularly the town of Mount Vernon, no Lawn Whisperer is telling anyone to conserve water. Thanks to a phenomenon known as "Two Much Rain" Western Washington is in water surplus mode, thus allowing Spencer Jack to make his own personal flood.

 

At my location in Texas, in the town "Where the West Began," I heard not a single firecracker this 4th of July or the days before the 4th of July.

When I lived in Spencer Jack's current town, the 4th of July was like a war zone of explosions.

Nearby Indian Reservations supplied the fireworks. This made for a much more festive 4th than I experience in Texas, though I was not a huge fan of having to sit outside on my roof top deck to guard against rockets that had gone astray.

The nearest Indian Reservations, to my location, are not in Texas, but up in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has a lot of Indian Reservations due to the fact that at one point in time, the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, was Indian Territory, that being the area where the U.S. government tried to concentrate the Indian population that was being forced to evacuate the eastern part of America.

That forced evacuation to an Indian Territory really did not work out as planned, but did end up with Oklahoma having a lot of land that is now Indian Reservation land, with casinos, and, I assume, fireworks stands.

I am guessing Spencer Jack likely did his fireworks shopping at the Swinomish Nation, since that is the closest reservation to where Spencer lives.

I suspect, if Spencer's dad took him to the Swinomish Nation, to get fireworks, a stop was likely made at the Swinomish Casino & Lodge, maybe to go to the buffet, if the Swinomish is still doing the buffet, it being the best seafood buffet I've ever experienced. They do oysters the way my mama did oysters back when she had oysters to do.