I Found Why The Gateway Park Trails Are Closed

On Sunday I biked from Gateway Park to the Trinity Trail to take some pictures.

When I got back to Gateway Park I thought to myself I had not been a scofflaw for at least a week and felt the need to do some scofflawing.

Ever since Hurricane Hermine morphed in to Tropical Storm Hermine and drenched North Texas, causing the worst flooding I've seen since I've been in Texas, the paved trails in the eastern part of Gateway Park have been blocked with "Trail Closed" signs.

I wondered what the flood damage had been, so yesterday I decided to end my curiosity. Well, you can see in the picture what the problem is. The Trinity River removed a big chunk of real estate, right up the edge of the trail.

You can not really tell it from the picture, but it's a very steep drop off. Logs have been placed at either end of the drop off to stop anyone blissfully biking along from going over the edge.

I believe this is the location where the paved trail had already been relocated away from the river, where you could see the old trail ready to fall into the river. I think the flood cleaned that mess up. But that could have been at a different location. I did not pedal any further, but I did cover most of the blocked off trail.

This problem seems easy to fix. Just move the trail away from the riverbank 50 feet and put up a fence along the drop off. We'll see how long it takes to make this fix.

Another interesting thing I saw whilst pedaling on the forbidden trail was a lot of water remaining in ponds where water previously did not sit. Just like the new ponds in River Legacy Park, the Gateway Park ponds are a very swampy shade of green.

Up Early In Training In Texas For The Amazing Race

As you can see from the view through the bars of my prison cell, October 18 is yet one more nice, clear blue sky day in Texas.

The blue sky day thing should be ending today, if the weather predictions of multiple days of incoming rain prove to be accurate.

I was in the pool, that you can see through the bars, soon after the sun lit up the place. The pool was very pleasantly temperatured.

Temperatured is being red-flagged as being a misspelling. I am choosing the "add to dictionary" option, thus turning "temperatured" into a legit word.

I learned last night that I need to get myself in shape for The Amazing Race and an audition video. The Queen of Wink and I are going to race around the world and be first to the final finish line, thus winning a million dollars.

I was shocked this morning to read my old hometown newspaper, on-line, to learn that a friend of mine from high school had gone missing whilst hiking on Sauk Mountain. I made an urgent inquiry of Betty Jo Bouvier and learned this was a different person, of the same name, who had gone missing. I've hiked to the top of Sauk Mountain many times. I don't quite see how one would get lost, without intending to do so.

I have not heard from Elsie Hotpepper for days. I think she must be pouting due to erroneously thinking I suggested that she was an old lady. All I did was refer to Elsie as a "lady of a certain vintage." That phrase does not mean "old lady." It could mean young lady, which, of course, it does, in reference to Elsie Hotpepper.

I think I will go hiking the Tandy Hills today as part of that get in shape for The Amazing Race plan. I hope I don't over do it.

The Tires Of The Shrunken Trinity River And Its Warnings & Dangers

What's up with all the tires in the Trinity River? Well, more accurately stated, left stranded by the Trinity River. I had not noticed this interesting one the previous time I biked out of Gateway Park to take pictures of the extremely low Trinity River. We are looking west towards downtown Fort Worth in the background, with the sand bar in the midground, which was one of my reasons to bike the Trinity Trail today, which you see in the picture below.

As you can see, this sandbar almost crosses the Trinity River bed. It appears some vehicle has driven down onto this sandbar. That seems foolish to me. In the full-size, full resolution photo I saw 3 or 4 more tires. They are located in the lower middle part of the picture. They are the little black specs. 

Above the sandbar you can see what appears to be a yellow school bus. It is not a yellow school bus. It is a yellow law enforcement bus that hauled a chain gang to the Trinity River levee to pick up litter.

My goal on this particular bike ride was to take the picture that you see above of the sandbar with the Trinity River narrowed to a trickle. And to take a picture of the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Trinity River Water Sucking Operation a few miles further down the trail, that I'd taken pictures of a few weeks ago. 

I thought it'd look interesting if that particular water sucking operation's pipes were out of the water, with the Trinity River dried up in that location. With me then pondering, as to how much of the Trinity's low level is due to the millions of gallons being drained by the gas drillers.

But. That particular water sucking operation, just past the train bridge that the Trinity Railway Express uses to travel back and forth from Fort Worth to Dallas, is gone.

All cleaned up.

That is the TRE, in the picture, heading to downtown Fort Worth. It startled me today, tooting loudly, as I was taking pictures of some interesting signage that I am about to show you. I stopped taking the sign pictures and turned around and managed to get one of the fast moving train before it moved out of camera range.

 I am standing on the Trinity Trails side spur that crosses over the Trinity River on one of the dam/bridges. This is slightly south of the 4th Street Bridge across the Trinity. The top sign says...

DANGER
 MAINTENANCE IN PROGRESS
NO
WADING SWIMMING BOATING

Without that sign I'm sure a lot of people would be tempted to go wading, swimming or boating. Or inner tubing. The second sign is also interesting....

WARNING
BY ORDER OF THE TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH;
THE POSSESSION OF FISH  FROM THIS RIVER IS
STRICTLY PROHIBITED
DUE TO CONTAMINATION

The next picture shows an additional DANGER to the danger caused by maintenance in progress.

Is that not an amazing collection of litter and brown water swirling around the intake that goes under the dam?  This particular section of the Trinity River, with the dire warning and danger signs, is just a short distance down river from the section of the Trinity River that J.D. Granger has deemed suitable for his Trinity River Vision Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

I wonder what maintenance is in progress? And why this maintenance presents a danger? And what is being added to the Trinity River, after it leaves J.D. Granger's safe clean river zone, that has the Trinity so badly contaminated by the time it reaches the 4th Street Bridge that the dire warning and danger signs are needed?

I saw a couple other interesting things today. I'll blog about them later. 

In Texas Thinking About Getting The Lap Band Procedure Done To Combat Morbid Obesity

Everyday it seems at least once I hear an ad for a Dallas Fort Worth Lap Band Clinic. Everyday, no matter what direction I drive, I see billboards advertising weight loss via Lap Bands.

The fancy name for a Lap Band is Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Band.

On the radio ad a cheerful young thing answers the question asking if she is happy she had the procedure done. "Am I happy? Just look at me," she says. Implying that now she is a svelte, beautiful thing.

The Lap Band ad with the svelte, beautiful thing also mentions that the procedure only costs $9.999. And that they will work with your medical insurance to get the procedure covered. That is one buck shy of 10 thousand to get a band stuck on your stomach to shrink its usable area from around 6 cups to around 1 cup.

You have to have a Body Mass Index above 40, or be more than 100 pounds over your ideal weight and between 18 and 55 years old, to qualify for this bizarre procedure. There are some exceptions.

I have actually only known two people who would qualify for the Lap Band procedure, morbidly obese-wise, but, sadly, disqualified, due to being too old, age-wise.

Up close observing the feeding patterns of these 2 morbidly obese people it is very easy to see why they are so big. No restraint. Nutritional imbeciles. Lazy.

For $10,000 would it not make more sense to check yourself into a Fat Farm for some intensive tough love and living lessons, like what happens on NBC's Biggest Loser?

It takes 3,500 calories to create a pound of fat. For every 3,500 calories beyond your caloric needs you are going to put on a pound.

How much do all those pounds cost, I can't help but wonder? $100 per 10 pounds gained? I know the cost would vary by what you are eating to make up those extra calories. Some obese people are larded up with very expensive fat, while others create their girth with too many refried beans.

The two morbidly obese people, who's feeding habits I have observed, would likely skew to the expensive end of the cost of all that stored fat. I'm guessing maybe $1,000 per every 100 extra pounds.

I estimate the ideal weight of the female fat feeder that I have observed to be, maybe, 140 pounds. The last I observed this person, in person, I estimated the weight total was likely somewhere in the 500-600 pound range. The size has likely had a substantial increase since then. So, that is several thousands of dollars worth of blubber stored up

I'm thinking if I had so little self control that I blimped up to elephantine proportions, rather than get my stomach operated on, I would simply stop eating and live off of all that stored blubber til it was all gone. That just seems simpler, more common sensical and easier. Not to mention way cheaper. You'd be saving the $9,999 surgery cost, plus the cost of all that food you've stopped eating.

There are some dire possible side effects to Lap Band surgery. You can read about them in the Wikipedia article about "Adjustable Gastric Band."

The State Fair of Texas In Dallas Ends Today While Last Night The Texas Rangers Beat The New York Yankees

One would think I could sleep in late on a nice quiet Sunday. One would be wrong.

Looking out my bedroom window you can see it is very dark out there.

It is already October 17. The last day of the State Fair of  Texas. By the end of today another State Fair of Texas will have closed for the year without me managing to make it to Dallas to have me some Deep-Fried Beer.

The Texas Rangers are one win closer to being in the World Series, via beating the New York Yankees last night. I think I could hear the cheering. The Ballpark in Arlington is only a few miles east of where I am sitting right now.

It is 59 degrees at the current point in time, about a half hour before the sun finally gets around to lighting up the place. When that happens I am going swimming and will be staying in the pool til I am chilled to the bone. Which should not take too long.

Mother Nature's Schizophrenic Tandy Hills Behavior & A Dried Up Trinity River Ruining Inner Tubing

With only 16 days until November arrives, Mother Nature, in Fort Worth's Tandy Hills, is putting on a somewhat schizophrenic show. Like Mother Nature can not decide if it is spring or fall, as witnessed by the spring-like display of wildflower color in the picture above. Blooming at the same time as the fall-like foliage in the picture below.

I do not have any clue what this clash of seasons portends for winter. A record breaking 100 degree plus day in the middle of January? A Christmas Eve tornado? A blizzard with 5 foot snow drifts?

I must say, hiking on the Tandy Hills today was as near perfect as it can get. Perfect temperature, perfect wind blowing.

An interesting item is sitting next to Tandy Shrine II. I did not take a picture, because I knew my photo skills would not be able to manage a decent picture of it. Someone found a long, maybe 20 feet long, sort of rusted, tapered, thick wire type piece of junk. I suspected it was laying nest to the Shrine because the person who drug it there found that he/she could not stick it in the pipe without knocking the pipe over.

But, in the oft chance the the pipe dragger had not attempted wire insertion, I tried it. I quickly found that what I suspected, was true. The pipe could not support the wire. That and the effort left my hands a rusty mess.

Since it is Saturday, of course I was on the Tandy Hills. And equally of course, afterwards, I went to Town Talk. On the way to Town Talk I saw the Trinity River is the lowest I've seen it. On the west side of the Beach Street Bridge the river is down to just a couple feet wide, with a mud bar almost reaching from the south side of the river to the north. I should have stopped and taken a picture. I do not think I could muster the energy, later today, to head out to Gateway Park and pedal my bike out to the dried up inner tubing mecca.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get a closer look at the disappearing river. I wonder if the Trinity is drying up due to the Tarrant Regional Water District over selling water sucking permits to the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers? Those boys suck millions of gallons of water from that long-suffering river.

What happens when you happen to float on your inner tube near one of the giant water sucking straws? I guess this is not currently an issue, with there currently not being enough water to float anything but random pieces of litter.

Where are the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers doing their water sucking now that they've sucked the Trinity dry?

Up Early Blogging Late Pondering BBQ Burgers & Yankees Beating Texas Rangers

I was up early, am blogging late, on this October 16 Saturday morning. It is a semi-chilly 56 out there right now. That is a little warmer than when I went swimming soon after the sun arrived.

I did not watch the New York Yankees send the Texas Rangers' fans into shock last night when the Yankees suddenly went into overdrive in the 8th inning and evaporated the Rangers' 5-1 lead.

I'm not a baseball fan, but you can't help but be exposed to it. Am I remembering wrong? Isn't the middle of October usually when the World Series  takes place?

I think I will do me some Tandy Hills Hiking today. And after I work up a good appetite, come back here and barbecue some burgers.

Wolfgang Puck's 560 In Dallas Turns Away WW II Nazi POW Camp Surviving Vets

You are looking at Wolfgang Puck's Five Sixty, high atop the Reunion Tower in Dallas. The restaurant spins around once an hour, just like the Space Needle in Seattle.

67 years ago yesterday, on October 14, 1943, on a day known as "Black Thursday," one of World War II's most deadly air battles took place deep inside Germany. Sixty B-17s, were shot down, killing around 600 airmen. Survivors were caught by the Germans and sent to Stalag Luft III, later the inspiration for the movie The Great Escape.

Survivors of that particular Nazi POW camp meet once a year in an American city. Up til now those cities welcome them as the honored heroes they are.

This year six of the surviving veterans, along with their wives and kids, came to Dallas. The POWs are now in their late 80s, early 90s. When they get together they wear baseball caps commemorating their Mighty 8th Unit and POW T-shirts.

When the Mighty 8th Surviving Veterans took the elevator to the top of the Reunion Tower, for lunch at Wolfgang Puck's Five Sixty, the hostess informed the Six that they were not properly attired, that the restaurant had a "business casual" code.

The spokesmen for the group,  Jay Coberly, 93, took the rejection in stride, saying, "We've been all over the country, and we've never had this kind of problem. Dallas must be a first-class town."

The men's wives and kids did not take the rude, dumb, snub quietly, with Jay Coberley's daughter telling the hostess, "Do you realize these veterans fought for your freedom and your way of life and you can't see your way clear to let them up to get a view of the city?"

I do not know by what means Wolfgang Puck's organization (and Dallas) realized they had a public relations nightmare on their hands, but damage control went into play. The restaurant's manager sent the Vets two bottles of Scotch, with an apology and an invite to return to the restaurant.

The Mayor of Dallas, Tom Leppert, sent each Vet a letter along with a gold lapel pin with the City of Dallas seal.

The men toured around the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, during which time they received the apologies. But, they left town without returning to the Five Sixty, saying being humiliated once was enough.

I have a personal reason why this story resonated with me. But I don't want to talk about it right now.

Thinking About The Possibility Of Inner Tubing Village Creek In Arlington

At noon I felt the need for motion. So I pedaled my bike at a high rate of speed on the paved trail at Village Creek Natural Historic Area, in Arlington.

I've wondered more than once where the "Natural" comes in at this location. To me "paved trail" and "natural" sort of contradict each other. Another unnatural contradiction is more pavement on which picnic tables and BBQ fireplaces sit. Also power transmission towers cut through the Natural Area.

What was looking very natural today was the Village Creek Pond. I think I may have mentioned previously that when I first saw this pond it was not clogged with the greenery that currently clogs it. It was a big open pond of slow moving water. I saw a big bunch of water moccasin in this pond way back then.

Today the Village Creek Pond was being pretty much crystal clear, as in put in the inner tube and float level of crystal clear. If it weren't for the possibility of an up close encounter with a water moccasin.

I wonder if there are any water moccasin in the Trinity River? I suspect not, now that the Trinity River has become an inner tube floating destination rivaling the San Marcos and Guadalupe Rivers down in Texas Hill Country.

Village Creek was also running very clear today, but not with a sufficient amount of water to make it suitable for inner tubing. If there were sufficient water one could easily ride ones inner tube all the way to the Trinity River, where one would find oneself soon floating into River Legacy Park where one could exit at the boat launch.

If only I had an inner tube.

Ballad Of The Baker: Is The Baker Hotel In Mineral Wells Really Being Restored?

It has been at least 10 years since I first saw the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells. Soon after I saw the Baker Hotel I made a webpage about it.

At that point in time there was no other webpage devoted to the Baker Hotel, near as I could tell.  So, for years, my webpage about the Baker Hotel Googled in the #1 spot.

That is no longer the case. There is a lot of Baker Hotel info on the Internet in 2010, including a sort of Official Baker Hotel website.

During the years when my webpage about the Baker Hotel Googled #1, causing people to think I was somehow associated with it, I have lost count of the number of emails I've gotten asking me questions about buying the hotel, who owns it, what I'm asking for it. And the weirdest one, asking me to pick someone up, flying in from Los Angeles, at D/FW Airport, and transport them to Mineral Wells to the Baker Hotel.

Over the decades that the Baker Hotel has sat idle, in ever failing health, there have been many rumors about plans to restore it to its former glory.

It appears that this is finally going to happen. And is actually underway, due to the renovation efforts of someone named Jeff Trigger.

Trigger allegedly has a $52 million budget, which he will spend to re-do and modernize the hotel rooms, restore the grand lobby to its heyday splendor, restore the Baker Hotel's outdoor swimming pool and mineral bath. With an indoor floor dedicated to what made Mineral Wells famous. Its mineral water.

The Baker Hotel renovation project is far enough along that a movie is being made of the effort, called The Ballad of the Baker. The Ballad of the Baker even has a website. That is a snapshot from the website in the picture above. You can go to the website and view videos of the movie trailer and the Baker Hotel renovation.

I feel like taking a short roadtrip out to Mineral Wells and verifying this project is actually underway. I've been burned by this type news before. Like being told, quite earnestly, that the New Isis Theater Eyesore in the Fort Worth Stockyards is being renovated. Years later the New Isis is a worse eyesore than ever.

I hope the new Baker Hotel is able to make a go of it. Will the mineral springs still be able to attract visitors? There really is not a lot going on in Mineral Wells, tourist hotspot-wise, that would seem to draw people, besides the novelty of the restored hotel. Maybe this will turn Mineral Wells into a tourist town, with shops and galleries and good restaurants.