Leaving Texas To Go Houseboating on Lake Powell

That's me being the Captain of a Lake Powell Houseboat way back in 1994. I was not totally enamored of houseboating. But the scenery more than made up for being in a trailer that floats. Actually, it was more the being in close quarters with marginal personality types that wore on my nerves and made the boat float less pleasurable than it could have been.

You can read all about that ordeal, which I came to call Hell Houseboat, here.

I Captained another Lake Powell Houseboat expedition in 1998. Three of the crew were the same as the previous float. It was the same time of year, but everything seemed different. The boat was ready to be retired, the lake was like it was at flood stage. We took off from Bullfrog Basin Marina in a rainstorm that produced boat rocking squalls. That was fun. Rain is very rare there, so seeing waterfalls flowing over the canyon walls was cool.

On the 1998 float the water was murky. And cold. On the 1994 float the water was crystal clear and warm. And the lake was about 20 feet lower. Both floats occured in early October.

Why am I yapping about houseboating on Lake Powell you are sitting there wondering. Well, the subject came up this weekend with 7 potential floaters all gungho on the idea. I'd be the one planning this, like I always do, and I'm the least gungho. I'm the 8th floater. That's a lot on board.

The Lake Powell Houseboat fleet has been totally upgraded since I last was there. Many of the houseboats have satellite TV. I find this a negative. Lake Powell is so peaceful and quiet. Hearing a TV would be horrible.

Also on the plus side, it is closer to the launching marina, that being Bullfrog Basin, from here, than it was from Washington. It is under a 1000 miles from here to Bullfrog. If I remember right it was about 1,200 miles from my location in Washington to Bullfrog in Utah.

The price has gone up. If I remember right, 3 days of floating and houseboating, last time, cost something like $1,500 for a boat in the 40 foot range. Now it is $2,245 for 3 days on the least expensive boat. It is bigger than the ones we were on before, as in this boat, The Adventurer, sleeps 12 and is 54 feet long. Just the description of The Adventurer's details makes clear this boat has way more features than the ones we'd been on previously.

You can see The Adventurer by clicking here, as well as other houseboats and floating packages.

The Adventurer has 2 state rooms with double beds. 2 gauchos with pullout double beds, 2 lower berths with double beds, cd stereo, a water slide, 2 bathrooms, with showers, an RV size gas stove, 2- 8 cubic foot side by side refrigerator/freezers, an outdoor BBQ grill, a microwave and blender and forced air heat and conditioning.

On the previous houseboat floats we did not have A/C, no stereo, only 1 bathroom, no microwave or blender, no double beds, no separate state rooms. I had to sleep on this awful hard narrow cot like thing. No one else had it any better. I felt like this must be what prison is like.

So, the Lake Powell Houseboats may cost a bit more, now, but you get way more for your buck, or so it seems.

The floaters this time are all fully formed, fully functioning adults with no neurotic issues or temper management problems. As far as I know. You really don't know someone til you travel with them. Or are locked up with them on a houseboat. Or any other prison.

I'm Moving From Fort Worth To Dallas

I mentioned in a blogging, earlier today, that after I had lunch at Costco, went hiking at Lake Grapevine and checked out Gaylord Texan and the Big Balls of Grapevine, I went to Sprouts Farmers Market where something happened that will change my life.

My one longtime reader may remember me mentioning that I cancelled my longtime subscription to the Fort Wort Star-Telegram at the start of the month. I had a lot of issues with that paper. It was constantly shrinking. The ads were getting bigger and more numerous. They raised their rates and shrunk the paper.

When I experienced the Tacoma News Tribune, this past summer, with it also being a McClatchy paper, but one that had not gone bad, like the Star-Telegram had, the News Tribune still had a robust editorial page. Very few ads in the first section. No page after page of full page ads. Way more content.

Now, to be fair, the Tacoma market is a bit, well, uh, more educated than the Fort Worth paper's market, with way more high school and college graduates and a way higher per capita number of book buyers and readers. So, maybe a town gets the paper that matches its readers. I don't know.

So, I walk into Sprouts and this guy started yammering at me, wanting me to sign up for a raffle. I hate being accosted in this manner when entering or leaving a store. It seemed very un-Sprouts-like. Then he said something that had me saying I cancelled my subscription to the Star-Telegram this month. Then I got confused and said, "uh, are you hawking Star-Telegram subscriptions?"

"No. I'm hawking Dallas Morning News subscriptions."

I told him I'd cancelled the Fort Worth paper years ago due to bad delivery, then got the Dallas paper and the delivery was worse, so I cancelled it and went back to the Star-Telegram when they got a new carrier.

So, the deal was, if you paid for a year's subscription you got a big discount plus $85 of Sprouts gift cards. I said, I would not want to pay a year in advance for a paper that might not get delivered on time. So, he then offered me 3 months for $47.25 plus a $20 Sprouts gift card and another $5 gift card just for giving them another chance.

Sounded like a good deal. So, starting Thursday I'm back in the paper reading business. I'm pretty sure it will get successfully delivered because one of my neighbors gets the Dallas paper.

The Dallas Morning News is more like a real newspaper than the Star-Telegram. It'll be like reading the Seattle P-I or Times or Tacoma Tribune again. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is more like my old hometown newspaper, that being the Skagit Valley Herald. Although the SV Herald has a better editorial page than the Star-Telegram. And way fewer embarrassingly dumb letters to the editor. But then again, once more, Mount Vernon is an area with a much higher educational level and number of readers than Fort Worth.

Unlike the Star-Telegram the SV Herald does not make note of anyone in the news or on TV's connection to Mount Vernon or the valley. When the SV Herald mentions Secretary of Defense Bob Gates it does not use verbiage like, "Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, who has a home on Big Lake in east Mount Vernon, has been asked to stay on by President-elect Obama." Everytime the SV Herald mentions Jim Cavaziel they don't use verbiage like "Mount Vernon's Jim Cavaziel plays Jesus in the new Mel Gibson movie."

When Mount Vernon was named the Best Small Town in the USA by, I think it was Rand McNally, it was a legit award, CNN showed up. But Mount Vernon did not have a citywide celebration. Those of us who lived there wondered if a mistake had been made. Don't get me wrong, Mount Vernon is a great town, but best in the USA?

Fort Worth got named as one of the most Livable Communities in America by some lobbying group in D.C. who used the bogus awards to advance their agenda. Fort Worth acted like the ugly girl suddenly finding herself winning a beauty pageant. In other words we had a city-wide celebration. I told this to a Tacoma city official (Tacoma/Pierce County won the same "award") and he chuckled. I asked if Tacoma had a city-wide celebration. "No", he said, "we politely thanked them. And then ignored it."

So, anyway, come Thursday I'm reading the Dallas Morning News. Please please please let there not be anything in there like "Dallas native Jessica Simpson is rumored to be pregnant with Tony Romo's baby." Or "Dallas native Jessica Simpson being pregnant with Tony Roma's baby is making cities and towns far and wide green with envy over Dallas' good fortune."

Winter Starts with a Freeze in Fort Worth

I was stopped by the city of Fort Worth from making a video of me swimming on the first day of winter. It would have been very cold this morning making that video. I'm probably better off.

So, I went roller blading, instead of swimming, for something aerobic on the first day of winter. It was 30 degrees when I took off from here, around noon, to put on my blades. It's now a balmy 35. The sky is back to our norm here, nice and clear and blue.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I can see one advantage to being hugely obese. The most obese person I used to know was constantly getting heavy duty aerobic exercise. Just getting out the car involved using her arms in a sort of pull-up motion to get the heft swiveled towards the door and then lifted to a walking position.

In one extremely aerobic, sort of amusing and potentially tragic incident we were in a McDonald's and the Big One had it in her head that she wanted to sit on one of the tall stools at the tall table. But she could not get her bulk on that stool. I was mortified as I watched her huff and puff and try harder and harder, so determined to get on that stool.

And then she tried a new maneuver which rang alarm bells instantly. She tried to hold on to the table and use her thicker-than-my-legs arms to pull herself on to the stool in much the same manner in which she pulls herself out of her car. Well, the table quickly began to tremble under the pressure of all that weight pulling on it. I insisted she cease at once, before she pulled the table over on both of us. Would you not think, after such a humiliating moment, that one would not proceed to eat 2 Quarter Pounders with Cheese and a Chocolate Milkshake? And Fries?

How does such a person get on an airplane, I can not help but wonder? I know Southwest Airlines is making the Heftys buy two seats. But that does not get them on the plane. I mean, how do they get down the aisle? It's a balancing act for me, due to the carry-on and laptop. But I'm basically a skinny guy. How does someone with a 4 foot diameter get down an airplane aisle that doesn't seem wider than 3 feet? And how is it fair to the other passengers to have such a dangerous clot in the aisle? It perplexes me.

I wonder what would happen if an obese person tried to roller blade? Just getting on the skates would be a challenge. I had to help an obese person put on her shoes once. It was appalling.

Anyway, below is a very short video of me roller blading at Quanah Parker Park on the first day of winter.

Global Cooling Hits Fort Worth and the Rest of the West

Among my many bad habits is each morning I check the temperature in 5 places using a website called AccuWeather. The 5 temps I look at are Fort Worth, Mount Vernon (my old hometown), Chandler (Phoenix zone where Mom and Dad and Sister are), Tonasket, Washington (home of Tootsie Tonasket) and Tacoma (home of my poodle nephews, Blue and Max).

That's Max in the photo, frolicking in the snow in his backyard.

Yesterday, when I checked AccuWeather, Fort Worth was 60, Mount Vernon 15, Chandler 29, Tonasket -12 and Max's Tacoma town was 21.

Right now at 11, Sunday morning, Fort Worth is now the second coldest on my list, at 24. Brrrr. Mount Vernon has warmed up to 30, Chandler 37, Tonasket a balmy 5 and Mount Vernon is 30.

Here in Fort Worth we went from that high of being in the 60s Saturday morning, to an Arctic Blast coming in from the west, dropping us to 21 for the Sunday morning low. This is the same cold front that has brought record breaking temperatures and a lot of snow to the Pacific Northwest, leaving many people snowbound, including my sister and Blue and Max.

This is the same cold front that brought snow to Las Vegas on Wednesday. That does not happen very often. I have been to Vegas when it is raining. I have been to Vegas when it is 115. I have been to Vegas when it is freezing. But I have never seen snow in Vegas.

On their blog Blue and Max have documented the terror they have been going through courtesy of this storm. The long-suffering poodle's furnace igniter broke, leaving them with only a fireplace and one space heater to keep a big 3-level house warm.

Blue and Max photo documented what the thermometer was saying their inside temperature was. 52 degrees.

Well, my one longtime reader may remember I spent a month with Blue and Max in their house last summer. I believe that the first 2 levels of the house rarely got any warmer than the 50s during my entire stay. The only warm spot in that house was where I was incarcerated, up in the area they called The Tropics.

Anyway, we as a planet really need to start working hard to find a way to stop this Global Cooling Crisis before it's too late and we're all one big iceberg.

The Christmas Big Balls of Grapevine

Yesterday, that day being Saturday, I made my now regular weekly visit to Costco for a free sample lunch en route to going on a hike on one of the trails around Lake Grapevine.

This week the Costco samples weren't quite up to last week's cheese overload, but it was still good. The hike this week was once more the Northshore Trail starting at Rockledge Park. It was perfect mountain biking temperature, so there were a lot of bikers. Few hikers.

The day had started out in the 60s, but a cold front blew in throughout the day, making it in the 50s by noon at Lake Grapevine. And 22 this morning.

The town of Grapevine puts on quite a festive Christmas display. Including pairs of Giant Balls at several intersections along the Grapevine Highway. The pair of Giant Balls in the photo is in front of the Great Wolf Lodge, directly across the street from the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center.

I drove through the Gaylord Texan complex, hoping to get a picture of Santa in his powerboat pulling his Reindeer on skis. But the traffic did not cooperate. I did successfully get a picture of another Santa in a covered wagon being pulled by his Reindeer. I guess it makes sense to have multiple Santas, but the covered wagon Santa is right across the street from the boating Santa. I fear this might confuse small children. I saw no conventional Santas in a sleigh. But I could only see part of the Gaylord Texas complex. It is huge.

After leaving Santa I went to Sprouts Farmers Market for my weekly stocking up of good stuff. Something happened there that will change my life in about 4 days. I'll save that story for another blogging.

Going to Health Camp in Waco

The previous blogging was, in part, about Durango, Texas and a roadtrip I took to check out my namesake. Thinking about that put me in mind of something I saw along the way that seemed a tad odd.

To go to Durango you exit Interstate 35, in Waco, at Exit 333, to Highway 77. You head east and you'll soon come to a big traffic circle.

At that traffic circle, at 2601 Circle Road, is a greasy spoon type burger joint. That calls itself Health Camp. There were a lot of cars parked at Health Camp. If you click the photo, on the enlarged version you'll see "Malts", "Shakes", "Serving Super Burgers."

Health Camp opened in 1949. Making it older than McDonald's. One of the burgers on the menu is called the "Super Health Burger." With that you get a double-decker bun, 2 meat patties, lettuce, tomato, 2 slices of Old English cheese and "special sauce."

You can also get fries and onion rings at Health Camp.

I suppose you're wondering why this greasy spoon is called Health Camp. Well, seems the original owner, Jack Schivetz, had trouble coming up with a name for his new burger joint. All he could think of was Health Camp. Due to Health Camp being stamped on each egg his mom would buy from a nearby farm when he was a kid. Why couldn't he just call the place "Jack's Burger Joint" I couldn't help but wonder.

There's a guy in Texas calling himself Texas Burger Guy. TBG has a very good blog that's all about burger joints. He'd didn't care for the Health Camp burgers, but other stuff, like the shakes, he liked.

You can check out what the Texas Burger Guy thought about Health Camp by clicking here.

Durango Texas, the Town & the Person

Durango became my Internet Nickname way back in 1994. That year, or maybe 1995 my Durango named was tied to the name, Lulu, in a website Lulu's first husband made called Lulu & Durango In As The WWWeb Turns.

As The WWWeb Turns was soon Cool Site of the Day. Back when that meant something. As The WWWeb Turns was basically the email exchanges between myself and Lulu, with Lulu's first husband adding photos, most altered to give me a big forehead. As The WWWeb Turns may have been the world's first blog.

Lulu's husband soon tired of doing As The WWWeb Turns. One day I was summoned to his house and presented with the initial HTML for a new website, including a logo he'd made. The new website was called Dialing Doctor Durango. By then the Durango character had been established as being this sort of overbearing know-it-all. It wasn't a hard part to play.

Dialing Doctor Durango soon became a monster. I got questions from all over the world. Many of them not getting that it was a joke. When a German medical school listed Dialing Doctor Durango as one of the top 20 medical websites on the Internet, I decided the madness had to stop.

So, I started Durango World which continued after I moved to Texas. Around 1999 or 2000 I decided I wanted my own domain. I figured it'd be Durango something. Since I was in Texas I figured why not durangotexas.com.

When I chose that domain I did not know there was actually a town of Durango, Texas. Unfortunately for the real Durango, Texas, my webstuff sort of overwhelms searches for info about Durango, Texas.

Eventually I took a road trip to check out my namesake. It's a bit southeast of Waco. Durango, Texas has seen better days. It's pretty much off the beaten path these days.

You can go here and see what Durango, Texas, the town, looks like.

All you gotta do is look at this blog to see what Durango Texas, the person, looks like.

Zorro's Buffet and the Fort Worth Cops

Being deeply depressed due to my swimming pool being closed on a day so warm I've got my windows open and the ceiling fan spinning, I went to Zorro's Buffet, again, for lunch.

Friday is Seafood Day at Zorro's. I've decided Seafood Day is my favorite Zorro's day. I didn't care for Thanksgiving at Zorro's. Mexican Day is okay. But Seafood Day is more than okay, as in I liked it as much as my first visit to Zorro's, which was also on Seafood Day.

One thing about Zorro's, that I like, is there are always new things. Today I had a really good spring greens salad that had apples and walnuts mixed in with bleu cheese. There was a couscous type salad. You don't see couscous in many mainstream buffets. The grilled shrimp were prawn-sized, tasted like they'd been grilled in butter with garlic. Speaking of butter. Despite being told twice by commenters that the yeast rolls were excellent, I'd not had one til today. They are homemade, like mom's, well, actually better than mom's. And mom's are darn good. The Zorro's yeast rolls are very light and very buttery.

Anyway, good pigout at Zorro's today.

I like to take the backroads back here from Zorro's. It's like a drive through a 3rd World Country. I take visitors from up north on these type tours and jaws always drop. You just can't see this type scenery anywhere that I know of in the Pacific Northwest.

On the way back from Zorro's, last week, I came upon a long abandoned gas station which still had its gas prices on display. Gas prices which, ironically, match about what we are paying now. So, I wanted to take a picture of this to show you. And so I did.

I snapped several pictures, not realizing that there were 2 Fort Worth cop cars parked under the dead gas station's awning.

After taking the pictures I went down a side street, for a bit, due to seeing an odd scene of a kid on a horse in a fenced yard. These were little houses and little yards. The horse and rider looked way out of place.

I'd made it about a block when I saw a cop car behind me, lights flashing with one toot of the siren. I pulled over.

The cop got out, walked up, asked to see my license. I showed him. "What did I do wrong, officer?" I politely asked.

"Why were you taking pictures of us?" the cop asked.

"Huh? You mean just now?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"I didn't see you. I was taking a picture of the gas price sign."

"Why would you take a picture of that sign? They don't sell gas anymore.

"It's for my blog," I said.

"Why would you put that on your blog?"

"Because I think it's ironic and sort of funny."

"I don't see anything funny about it," the cop said, starting to sound cranky.

"Well, you probably don't wanna be reading my blog then."

"Okay, I'm gonna let you go. Watch what you're taking pictures of next time."

"Thank you, officer, I will be more careful in the future."

So, that's been my day. First Fort Worth robs me of my pool. And now the Fort Worth police are harassing me for taking pictures. What's next I tremble to wonder?

Fort Worth Pools Closed Under Warm Blue Sky

We are seeing our first blue sky in days, here in Fort Worth. That's the view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony at about an hour before noon.

It is almost 70 out there. That's good swimming temperatures. But I am unable to swim. Like I told you yesterday, the city of Fort Worth has shut down the pools in town.

Fort Worth has been overreacting to pool issues, mostly drain and pump issues, ever since Fort Worth was successfully sued for a large amount of money, due to 4 out of towners, attending one of the rare conventions to take place at Fort Worth's Convention Center, drowned in an overfilled whirlpool at the Water Gardens that are adjacent to the Convention Center.

Due to that tragedy my pool was drained and new pump safety devices and drain covers were installed. At great expense. The new thing that the city is insisting on has to be installed by a licensed technician. So it may take awhile to get one here due to all the pools in town needing whatever this fix is.

Meanwhile, in the big city to the east, that being Dallas, none of these supposed safety improvements have been mandated. I suspect incompetent boobery is what is at play regarding the pools here in Fort Worth.

I guess the good news for me today is my bad case of SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) is temporarily abated by the return of blue sky and warm temperatures.

If I was still living in my old hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington, I would be snowbound today. They are having heavy snow and record breaking temperatures up there, with the ski areas finally able to open. But with severe avalanche danger. Avalanche danger is a danger we don't have here in Texas. My baby sister is stuck in Tacoma, snow and ice bound, unable to get to Olympia.

The lowlands of the Puget Sound zone can go years in a row with no snow. Where I lived we didn't get snow as often as further south, as in Seattle, or further north, due to being in a valley that was protected by mountains that caused what is called a convergence zone to occur south and north of us. But there was a snowstorm in the 1990s that was record breaking. I was snowbound for about a week. I cross country skied to the grocery store.

Click here and scroll down the page to see snow photos of my old abode in Washington.

Fort Worth Gas-Powered Leaf Blower Ban

Yesterday a small army of what may have been illegals from south of the border descended on my zone to attack the fallen leaves. With gas-powered leaf blowers. The noise is deafening, like a dozen Harley's without mufflers.

It seemed like hours were spent slowly blowing the leaves that surrounded the area around the pool up against a fence right below me. And then on top of the constant blower noise the men operating the blowers would yell at each other. In Spanish. Loud. So they could be heard over the blowers.

I thought to myself I can not be alone in thinking the use of gas-powered leaf blowers should be banned, just on the noise issue alone. Add to that the fact that you can smell the blowers exhaust fumes.

What is wrong with using rakes? These guys are so slow at blowing the leaves it would seem raking would be way faster. They end up using rakes in the end, anyway, once the leaves are blown into a huge pile, then rakes are used to get the leaves into garbage cans.

So, I looked into the issue of leaf blowers and learned I am not alone in thinking they should be banned. In fact, gas-powered leaf blowers have been banned in much of the country.

One guy had this to say on his blog......

"Whoever invented the leaf blower should be shot. See here. These contraptions are noisy, dirty, and environmentally destructive. First, they throw dust, dirt, and organic matter into the air, making it difficult for people (especially those with respiratory problems) to breathe. Second, they use gasoline, which pollutes the air. Third, they're infernally noisy. Whatever happened to sweeping or raking? Brooms and rakes are quiet; they don't throw dust into the air; and they don't destroy the ozone layer. They're also less dangerous. Would you want to walk around wearing a container of gasoline on your back? What moron would do such a thing? Nothing symbolizes our wasteful, arrogant, obese age more than the leaf blower. The sooner it is outlawed, the better."

Los Angeles has banned gas-powered leaf blowers. There is a website devoted to enforcing the LA ban. The website's URL is zapla.org. "zapla" comes from Zero Air Pollution Los Angeles. I found the following blurb from the Zapla website amusing...

"Los Angeles Residents, if your neighbors can’t or won’t control their gardeners after your polite requests, REPORT a blower in progress to 877-275-5273 and select number 1, Non-Emergency Crimes."

So, while it pleases me to learn I am not alone in my aversion to noisy leaf blowers, I know there is not a bat's chance in hell they will be banned in what one of Fort Worth's best known citizen activists, Don Young, refers to as Dirty Ol' Town.

So far today, no noise.