Having Fun Getting Overstimulated On The River Legacy Park Mountain Bike Trail

I have now had my first mountain bike ride in over a year. I went to River Legacy Park today around noon. The mountain bike trail has become very popular. The parking lot was almost full. A lot of bikers were hanging out in groups. It was being like the parking lot at the Slick Rock Trailhead in Moab.

The previous time I went a long time without mountain biking was due to the trails being badly damaged by storms. The River Legacy trails were flooded, that time, with a lot of wind damage.

If I remember right the flood/wind damage kept me off the River Legacy trails for a long time, maybe 6 months. I remember when I first pedaled there again I had trouble with the first drop, wobbled and had to jump off the bike. It was only on my second time around, that time, that I got my mountain bike legs back.

Well, today it was like I'd not been off my bike for a year. I sailed down the first drop and zipped up the other side. Same with the next drop. I was being sort of amazed at how much obviously stronger I am being. I had no idea.

Mountain biking was being way funner than I remembered. It is way more intense than pedaling on a smooth paved trail. On a mountain bike trail, particularly one like River Legacy, you have to be constantly alert, lest you run into a tree or miss a curve. It's very stimulating.

I'm thinking testing out my new power legs on the Cedar Hills State Park Dorba Trails would be interesting. I used to go there all the time. But, nowadays it seems foolish to drive 50 miles, round trip, to ride a bike.

I went 11.934 miles today, in an hour and 12 minutes, plus some seconds, the number of which I have forgotten.

When I pedaled the River Legacy Park paved trail a couple days ago, a few miles in, I discovered my mesh shorts had developed a malfunction. Today a few miles in I made the same discovery about another pair of biking shorts. I bought a new pair at Wal-Mart on my way back here. We'll see how long they last without an unfortunate splitting.

Chilly Early Sunday Morning In Texas Getting De-Flocked & Chrome

A few minutes ago a bird gave a false alarm tweet announcing the arrival of the sun on the first Sunday of September. But, I think we are about a half hour away from that glowing orb doing its daily duty of lighting up the place.

And heating up the place. It is 67.7 out there right now. I had to shut the windows and turn off the ceiling fan last night, due to shivering.

I had myself some major nightmare related tossing and turning last night. So much tossing and turning that I've got myself some major muscle soreness going on this morning.

I am hoping the major muscle soreness is alleviated by a salubrious swim this morning. If the major muscle soreness is not alleviated by swimming I don't see a bike or hike expedition in my future for the day.

On a totally unrelated note, I have switched to using the Google Chrome browser. It seems to work way better than the Flock browser I had been using.

Cold Front Drops Texas Temperature With Snow On The Prairie

You are looking at Snow On The Prairie in the picture. That is the name of the white flower.

Today so many of the white flowers were blooming on the Tandy Hills that it was real easy to see how it got its name.

A cold front arrived overnight, dropping the temperature to 60 this morning, with the pool not much warmer than that. Which had me wondering how it is I managed to get in that water in the middle of winter?

In just a couple months we will be at the time of the year when there can be real snow on the prairie. Last winter at one point there was almost a foot of real snow on the prairie.

This morning I took a virtual trip down to Alpine. Alpine is out in far West Texas, near Big Bend National Park. Alpine is a popular tourist town. The original Reata Restaurant is there.

When I was a kid my brother and I were avid agate hunters. That seems like a long time ago. I wonder if my brother remembers being an avid agate hunter? I think my brother and I would have really liked visiting Woodward Ranch, by Alpine. This ranch is famed for its agates and other gemstones.

I don't think I've spoken to my brother since April of 2006, at my nephew's wedding reception. He was way over weight at that point in time. Since then he has moved to Maricopa, south of Phoenix, and has lost the weight, according to reliable sources.

Phoenix is in the Valley of the Sun. I do not know if Maricopa is in the Valley of the Sun. I do know that that yellow flower in the picture is a Sunflower, or at least a good imitator of a Sunflower. This particular Sunflower was blooming solo today, surrounded by Snow On The Prairie.

A Cold 60.9 Saturday September Morning In Texas

It is cold this first Saturday morning of September. My computer is back vexing me again this morning. It is starting to seem like some sort of perverse video game.

Right now it is suddenly back behaving properly again. It is as if it spins out of control, and then when I go to do something, like blog, it then behaves itself.

This is likely just the calm before another storm. Or the eye of the computer hurricane is passing over me right now.

60.9. I believe that is about 8 degrees colder than the predicted low. I'm thinking the pool is going to be extra refreshing this morning.

I think another bike ride may be in my future today. Maybe. But right now I'm heading out into the icy air to get in a frigid pool.

Biking The River Legacy Park Trail With Snakes, Attack Grasshoppers And A Roller Blading Wheelchair Bound Granny

You are looking at my newly reactivated bike on the middle of the bridge across Hurricane Creek in River Legacy Park in Arlington, today, around noon.

My second bike ride since re-acquiring that ability did not see the same seating discomfort as the previous pedaling. I guess my program to amp up the ampleness of my boney derriere is already paying off with greater cushioning.

I have pedaled the River Legacy Trail many many times over the years. I remember a period after my return from Washington in April of 2006, where for 6 months, or so, pedaling hard daily, almost, was my mode of therapy.

During that period in 2006 I found myself noticeably getting stronger. And faster. Eventually I did the pedaling in the highest gear. The fastest I ever completed this particular ride had been in a little over 53 minutes.

Well.

Today, right from the start I was moving fast. This particular trail changes direction a lot. It is windy today. Sometimes the wind was behind me, others I was pedaling in to it.

Well.

I stopped to take pictures or drink water several times. Even so, I somehow managed to break the pedal time record today, returning to my vehicle in less than 52 minutes. That is 11.744 miles in 52 minutes.

In the picture on the right, above, we are at the 7 Mile Marker at the east end of the River Legacy Park Trail. The long range plan is for the trail to continue from this point and eventually join the Trinity Trails in Dallas. That would be a really good thing.

Previously, when heading into a strong headwind I would switch to a lower gear. Today I did not feel the need and found myself going into the wind at 14 mph.

So, I'm guessing all the hiking and swimming has made me a much stronger biker. It will be interesting to see how biking an actual mountain bike trail goes. I'll try that when the River Legacy Mountain Bike Trail dries out.


Pedaling past the now, sort of, mothballed Huffines Development at Bird's Fort, freshly aggravated me today. There was one lone piece of heavy equipment digging at something. All has returned to green from the Huffines scaring, so it now looks like a park again. I know there is no money for such a thing, but this is such a greenbelt gem it seems sort of criminal that this piece of green, in the center of this huge Metroplex zone, might be ruined, rather than added to River Legacy Park.

In the picture, if the Huffines Development gets built, you would be looking at buildings in the view you see here. You would no longer pedal this paved trail with the illusion that you've left the city.

There were a lot of bikers pedaling today. And several joggers. I used to have this trail pretty much to myself. I tell you, Texas is getting in shape. Well, some of Texas is getting in shape. The strangest thing I saw today was at the 5 Mile Marker. A guy on roller blades was pushing what I assumed was his very elderly grandma who was in a wheel chair.

I can not imagine pushing someone in a wheel chair that far on this trail. I have roller bladed it twice, with the second time having me badly overheat, to the point I had to call for a rescue.

I had a big snake encounter today. I was moving about 20 mph, came around a corner and swerved to miss a snake. I hit the brakes and turned around to get a picture, but the beast slithered quickly away before I could get a picture.

I also had an ugly grasshopper encounter. They are very annoying. They sit on the cement and then hop up right as you pass them. One hopped up today and hit me and got inside my shirt. That had cause a wreck potential. I was able to reach behind and shake it out of my shirt. A grasshopper feels very scratchy when stuck between a shirt and skin. Not pleasant.

It's time for lunch now. I'm hungry.

A Cold Front Begins To Cool Long Hot North Texas

We are looking through the bars of my prison cell, I mean, bars of my patio railing, at the extreme darkness surrounding the swimming pool on this, the 3rd day of September.

It is almost chilly out there. 70 degrees, heading towards a newly lowered predicted low for today of 58. 58 is going to feel downright chilly. I have long pants out and ready to wear.

There is a chance of dampness today. I hope that holds off until I complete my 2nd bike ride since becoming, once more, wheel-empowered.

I have a lot of webpage making to get done, after being thrown out of that endeavor by computer woes that past couple days.

But. Before I get to that, I am going swimming in the dark. Clothing optional.

Trinity Litter Piling Up Behind Trinity Falls By Gateway Park

Some rain fell last night. So, this morning the Trinity River was flooding over Trinity Falls by Gateway Park. And an awful lot of litter had piled behind the kayak dock.

A week ago, today, 40 some foolishly brave souls were floating on inner tubes in this litter filled river.

Today, along with the litter, a big tree was stuck on top of the dam/trail bridge that crosses the Trinity.

In the distance you can see the Fort Worth Space Needle that sits on top of Mount Tandy. It was likely too muddy to go hiking on the Tandy Hills today. Which is why I took a Gateway walk on my way to Town Talk.

It is in the low 80s, but, that was one humid, muggy walk today. I especially appreciated the Town Talk walk-in cooler. Just a sec, I'll check what the humidity and Heat Index currently is.

Well, I'm surprised. It is currently 84.3, humidity at 57%, with a Heat Index of 88. It felt way hotter than that.

A cold front is supposed to blow in soon. Tonight, or tomorrow, I don't remember.

As I was walking towards the exit from Gateway Park to look at Trinity Falls, a familiar noise came to my ears. The sound of loud diesel engines pumping water. I'd forgotten about the big water sucking operation on the south side of the river.

As I crossed the footbridge to the Trinity Trail, a familiar sight came in to view. Two white pick-ups. I was not close enough to read if the trucks had the Express Energy logo on them. I suspect they did. When I snapped some pictures a guy got out of one of the trucks. It was all seeming way too deja vu to me.

But, I was fairly certain, in this instance, I was in very little danger of having a close encounter with a menacing truck.

Until the vexing wet stuff mucked up the outdoors, my plan today was to go on a ride on my two-wheeled auto-locomotion device. More rain is expected to do some more wetting. I'm sure it will eventually dry out again.

I'd love to stay and chat some more, but I have some other matters I need to attend to. I'll leave you with a look at Trinity Falls, looking west. I am almost 100% certain that is not an adventurous inner tuber that you see out in the middle of the river.

A Thunderous Night In Texas With A Gloomy Morning Of Computer Doom

It is a wet second day of September in Texas. The damp gloom is matching my mood. Thunder rumbling for hours, every time I woke up Thunder was rumbling. I assume it must have rumbled all night.

I was up well before dawn, but did not get around to taking a picture of my morning view, due to the fact that, at the time, I would have been unable to get the picture off my camera.

Two days ago I started having computer woes. I thought all was well. I only had one easily fixed computer problem yesterday.

And then this morning, something took over my computer as soon as I woke it up. Re-starting did not fix the problem. All would be fine on start-up, and then the PF Usage would start to rise, to the point where the computer would slow to a crawl, if moving at all.

I had nothing running. Except the Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus program I installed 2 days ago. There was no option to turn of MSE to see if it was the problem.

After an hour or two of trying various solutions I decided to un-install the Microsoft virus checker. It took about 15 minutes for the slogged down computer to populate the program list. I clicked to remove. After about 5 minutes the very program I was trying to remove told me it was doing me the favor of stopping the operation because it could harm my computer.

I decided to look in the program files to see if I could find the MSE problem. I found it, saw the name of the executable, went back to Task Manager and stopped that process.

Instantly my computer was back working correctly.

Now I have to figure out how to remove this Microsoft virus off my computer totally.

I always end up bailing on anti-virus programs for the same reason. They seem to be a worse problem than anything they are stopping from happening.

I thought Microsoft's Window Defender was supposed to stop bad stuff like Malware. It updates its definitions daily. But, during this recent debacle I learned that Windows Defender had not run its check of the system for 2 weeks.

Anyway, it's been a very frustrating morning, so far.

As The Sun Begins To Set On Fort Worth A Double Rainbow Glows Bright

Miss Puerto Rico called me about a minute ago to tell me that a Rainbow was hitting my gutter. I went outside and was shocked to see that this was true, along with another Rainbow hitting my closest tree.

I braved the rain to look for a pot of gold in the gutter and under the tree, to no avail.

This is only the second time I have ever seen a double Rainbow. Combined with no spelling errors on my first blogging of September, this is looking to be a most auspicious month.

Looking At The Stormy Afternoon Of The First Day Of September In Texas

We are looking at the somewhat stormy view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony around 5 in the afternoon of the first day of September.

It is being a bit breezy. At Miss PR's the wind was howling like a sound effect in a movie blizzard.

I was over at Miss PR's because she told me her computer was acting up. I thought it might be suffering the same malady as what has been maladizing mine the past day or two.

Speaking of which, my computer is behaving so much better. I had acquired, despite always practicing safe computing, several nasty infections of varying degrees of direness.

Speaking of direness, I just heard a loud thunder boom. I think we may be in for some storming in my zone of East Fort Worth. I'm prepared, the hatches are battened. The wind has let up, while wet droplets are now falling.

Texas Thunderstorms are one of my favorite things about Texas, as compared to relatively Thunderstorm-free Washington. That and extreme downpours. My zone of Texas gets about the same amount of rain, per year, as Seattle. With the delivery method being totally different. Seattle delivers its annual inches over long long periods, day after day, month after month. While my zone of Texas delivers its annual inches in a few short storms delivering, often, several inches per dose.

I remember one fall in Washington, 5 inches fell in a couple hours. That very very rarely happens up there. The result was the worst flooding I've ever seen. And the sinking of one of Washington's floating bridges, among other dire calamities, like failing dikes and massive mudslides.

In Texas you don't have the flooding problem Western Washington has, because no Pineapple Express can deliver warm rain to the mountain snowpack, causing a rapid melt, because there are no mountains with snow to melt in Texas.

In Texas a lot of the severe flooding is not really Mother Nature's fault. It's Mother Nature's children's fault, pouring too much concrete without proper drainage, resulting in deadly flash floods that need not ever have happened.

Speaking of which, I imagine the Flood Queen of Haltom City will be keeping a watchful eye on her killer creek if this wetness onslaught accelerates.

I don't have a creek to worry about. But I do need to go get my swimming suit from its drying location before the wind blows rain on it. I need it dry for my morning swim.