I Got Nothing At Fort Worth's Trader Joe's Except A Parking Lot Headache

Hunting For A Trader Joe's Parking Space

Well, I have now been to Fort Worth's Trader Joe's.

First off, let's talk about the parking.

The Trader Joe's parking lot is too small. The parking lots of the enterprises around Trader Joe's have big NO TRADER JOE'S PARKING signs. Along with a warning that violators will be towed.

I exited the Trader Joe's parking lot and eventually found street parking. I'd say half or more of the vehicles parked to shop at Trader Joe's were parked on the street.

The last time I was in a Trader Joe's was in 2004, in the Seattle zone. I don't remember which of the towns south of Sea-Tac International Airport was the location of that Trader Joe's. Maybe it was the town of Sea-Tac. I'm starting to lose my memory of place names in Washington. Like right now I'm drawing a blank as to the names of the towns near the airport. Federal Way, that's one I remember.

Damn age related memory loss.

Changing the subject from my memory loss back to Trader Joe's.

I left the Seattle zone Trader Joe's having bought a lot of goodies. I left the Fort Worth Trader Joe's having bought nothing. Several of the items I bought in the Seattle zone Trader Joe's were put in my basket after sampling a free sample at various sampling locations in the store. I remember several cheeses, crackers, bread, all into the basket after a sample.

Trader Joe's 19 Cent Bananas

The Fort Worth Trader Joe's has a "Sampling Station." I did no sampling. It appeared the sample was peach salsa. I knew I did not want peach salsa, so no need to sample.

I also bought no bananas. Bananas at Trader Joe's were 19 cents each. I'm not used to buying bananas via anything but the per pound method.

The Fort Worth Trader Joe's is a lot bigger than the one I went to in the Seattle zone. I would have thought with a full parking lot and cars parked on the street that the store would be human gridlock.

As you can see in the picture, it was not human gridlock.

There also were no lines at the checkouts. I'd read the checkout lines were long back when the Fort Worth Trader Joe's opened. I wonder how nightmarish the parking situation was at that time?

When Costco came to the D/FW Metroplex, the first one opened in Fort Worth. I was very happy to learn of this development. Costco is one of the things I greatly missed, that I was used to regularly going to, whilst being a Washingtonian.

I remember going to the Grand Opening of the Fort Worth Costco and being very disappointed. It had been Texasified. Walking in to the Fort Worth Costco I was visually assaulted by dozens of horse saddles. And Remington statues. There was no sushi, no coffee roaster, none of the Costco things I was missing.

Trader Joe's Fort Worth Stockyards Mural

Then a Costco opened in Southlake, a more Yankee-fieed area of the D/FW Metroplex. The Southlake Costco was much more like a Washington one, than the Fort Worth one.

Still no sushi though.

Nothing I saw in the Fort Worth Trader Joe's made me think it'd been Texas-ified.

Though there is a mural of the Fort Worth Stockyards on the wall at the back of the store.

Turn Around To Not Drown While You Are Rockin' The Trinity River

Pedaling on the Trinity Trail on the downriver side of the Rockin' the River zone, I saw an orange boom spanning the river.

I assumed the orange boom was in place to keep Rockin' the River Inner Tubing Happy Hour Floaters contained within the pollution-free safe to swim in section of the Trinity River.

A short distance downriver from the orange boom I saw two signs I'd not seen before, one sign on each end of the big arch of the Main Street Bridge that spans the Trinity River.

STEEP DROP AHEAD
TURN AROUND
DON'T DROWN

Sounds very dire. I had no recollection of ever seeing a steep drop on the Trinity River in this location, so, of course I was curious.

On the right you are looking at the Main Street Bridge. And the warning signs. The Main Street Bridge is also known as the Paddock Viaduct. It was built in 1914. The first bridge in America to have self-supporting arches of concrete.

I do not know if being the first bridge in America to have self-supporting arches of concrete made the rest of America green with envy, or not.

The bridge was named for B.B. Paddock. He was a Fort Worth mayor and newspaper editor.

I know these things because I read them on a plaque stuck to a big rock near the bridge. On the south side of the bridge, that's the right side in the picture, there is a State of Texas Historical Marker that goes into more detail about the bridge. I came upon this Historical Marker years ago whilst exploring the area around the now sadly defunct Heritage Park

That drop off does not look all that dire, not that I'd want to go over that mini-Niagara Falls floating on an inner tube.

I wonder if a Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floater went over the falls, thus prompting the installation of the orange boom and the TURN AROUND DON'T DROWN warning sign?

The Monday Morning Blues Starts A HOT Week In Texas

Above is this morning's 6 day forecast courtesy of my computer based weather monitoring device. As you can see we are already heated to 81 degrees, with the humidity making it feel like 91. What you can not see is it is not yet quite 9 in the morning.

What is the meaning of that other then a HOT sun symbol on Friday? It looks dire.

My computer based temperature forecaster says it will get to 102 today. A few minutes ago I heard on the radio that 105 is the prediction. Either way, it's going to be HOT.

Yesterday the official temperature station for Dallas/Forth Worth, that being D/FW Airport, officially registered our first 100 degree day of the year.

I think I will escape the heat this morning by going to Trader Joe's and Sprouts Farmers.

Escaping The Heat Under The Village Creek Shade While Texas Rattles With Earthquakes

The water in the pool was warmer than the air this morning. When the water in the pool is warmer than the air the water in the pool is not as refreshing as when the water in the pool is cooler than the air.

The air at my location is currently being heated to 96 degrees, with the high humidity causing that air to feel like it is 106 degrees.

106 degrees is HOT.

Until the humidity burns off or the temperature drops, I think I will not be doing any Tandy Hills hiking.

Today for my noontime constitutional I opted for the soothing shade of the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

I thought, due to the HEAT, that I'd have Village Creek all to myself. I thought wrong. The parking lot was almost full.

As you can see in the picture there is a lot of foliage along Village Creek, with some very big, very old oak trees. The oak trees are likely so old they shaded the Kickapoo, Wichita and other tribes of the Caddo Confederation who lived here before they got their eviction notices from the Texans.

With summer barely arrived I am thinking more and more that a trip to the Pacific Northwest for the first time in 4 years is sounding real good. I think I'd like to escape the heat and be chilly for a few weeks.

It'd also be nice to get away from these earthquakes that keep shaking me up here in Texas.

Washington has not had an earthquake in years.

While Texas seems to be constantly in shake mode, though likely not building up to a BIG ONE.

 But, who knows?

There's been a lot of tampering with Mother Nature on this part of the planet. Mother Nature can be a real bitch when she gets tampered with.

Does Fort Worth Sanction Graffiti On The Trinity Trails?

Does Fort Worth have any sort of anti-graffiti ordinance?

Yesterday, in the Rockin' the River zone on the Trinity Trail, I came upon some rather elaborate graffiti.

The graffiti was a painted on pavement version of the advertisement the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle puts in local publications like Fort Worth Weekly and DFW.com Ink Edition.

How does one paint such a thing on pavement and how much does it cost to do so?

Does doing such a thing require a permit from the city?

It would seem the process of installing this graffiti would block the Trinity Trail for the duration of the installation and whatever drying time was required.

I think I'll take a stencil and go paint my blog address all over the Trinity Trail today.

Or not.

Pedaling Through The World's Most Concentrated Area Of Boondoggles & Eminent Domain Abuse

Tarrant County College East Trinity Campus

Today was the first time in a long time I pedaled my handlebars on the Trinity Trail past downtown Fort Worth.

Which would make today the first time I've seen the completed version of what was to be the Tarrant County College downtown campus.

The truncated version of the Tarrant County College is, to my eyes, a nice looking structure.

I've opined previously that if this building had been built as designed, with a bridge across the Trinity River to another building, that this might have given Fort Worth what it has never had. That being a building that people in other parts of America, and the world, might recognize as being in Fort Worth.

Unfortunately the Fort Worth Boondoggle Virus infected this project, along with the bad taste of Ed Bass and his disdain for sunken plazas, so the project was never completed as designed.

Part of the failure of this project was caused by the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. The Army Corps of Engineers objected to the TCC project's plan to build on the river's levees. I think, maybe, because those levees are supposedly going to be removed, once the flood diversion channel is built and J.D. Granger's Magic Trees are planted.

The Former Radio Shack Headquarters

Elsie Hotpepper did not go bike riding with me today. So, that is not Elsie Hotpepper pedaling under those arches towards the former Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters, currently the downtown Tarrant County College Trinity Campus.

This area of Fort Worth really is an interesting confluence of boondoggles, eminent domain abuse and public works projects gone awry, in addition to being the location of the confluence of the West and Clear Forks of the Trinity River, which may disappear if the Granger Pond ever comes to fruition.

In this area you had Radio Shack hornswoggling Fort Worth to abuse eminent domain to take the Ripley Arnold apartments. I don't remember if Radio Shack got tax breaks, as well as property stealing help.

Instead of Fort Worth suggesting Radio Shack build elsewhere, like maybe on blighted land on the north side of the Trinity River, land that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle will supposedly unblight, Fort Worth's Ruling Oligarchy went along with Radio Shack's plans.

No consideration was given to the fact that allowing Radio Shack to build in this location would remove acres of free parking and the world's shortest subway, from Fort Worth.

I have seldom been to downtown Fort Worth since the ease of doing so was destroyed by this boondoggle.

Radio Shack moved into its new corporate headquarters to much hoopla. Meanwhile the new downtown campus of Tarrant County College started getting constructed.

Soon problems arose, along with rising costs.

At some point in time Radio Shack found it could not afford its shiny new corporate headquarters. Eventually someone decided it would be just a dandy idea to buy Radio Shack's corporate headquarters and turn it into Tarrant County College West Trinity Campus.

I saw the Tarrant County College Trinity Campus signage on the structure today, where it used to say Radio Shack.

So, you have two downtown Tarrant County College campuses, one east of Main Street, one west.

I do not understand how anyone who follows the downtown Fort Worth ongoing soap opera of  incompetentitude can have any hope that the Trinity River Vision is not going to out boondoggle all previous Fort Worth boondoggles.

It should be epic when the inevitable crash comes.

Will J.D. Granger and his mama end up doing jail time? Who knows.

I am currently reading a book titled Confederacy of Silence: A True Tale of the New Old South. This book has given me a greater understanding of why things are the way they are here, along with understanding J.D. Granger and his mama will get in no real trouble, because that just is not the Fort Worth Way.

Rosie The Rat Dog Getting Dirty On Top Of The World

Rosie the Rat Dog and her Entourage have blogged again. This time in a blogging titled Color between black and white that I don't quite understand.

It may have something to do with the fact that they finally made it to a place where they could wash the dirt off their vehicles, that being a place called Tok, Alaska.

I have been a bit confused by the tales of treacherous roads, with me thinking the Alaska Highway is not supposed to be all that treacherous anymore.

Well.

Rosie directed her entourage off the Alaska Highway somewhere around Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. This eventually had them on a road called the Top of the World Highway. I believe this was still in Canada. A couple hours after getting past customs and back in the USA the road turned into something called the Taylor Highway, eventually ending in a town called Chicken.

I'm guessing the name of the town has something to do with most people being chicken to drive the highway to get there.

There are some gorgeous photos on Rosie the Rat Dog's Alaska! Blog. There was a moose encounter whilst kayaking. More bear encounters. And other encounters.

I'm starting to think a roadtrip to Alaska sounds fun.

Following My Handlebars To Check Out Cowtown Wakeboarding & A Bridge To Nowhere

That Is Not Me Wakeboarding At Cowtown Wakepark

Today I decided to emulate one of my favorite blogs, that blog being Hometown by Handlebar and go check some locations in my current hometown via my own handlebars.

We'll be following the handlebars from Cowtown Wakepark to the Phyllis Tilley Bridge to Nowhere.

The parking lot for the Cowtown Wakepark is also a Trinity Trail parking lot. Which is one of the reasons  it was the starting point.

I would think a nice warm day, with that day being the first Saturday of summer, that Fort Worth's premiere urban wakeboarding lake would be really really busy.

Well, I thought wrong. There were two people in the water being pulled around the pond. The mechanism that does the pulling is ultra-quiet. I could not figure out how it worked. Not that I spent all that much time pondering. I'd not noticed the little pond on the right, in the picture, til today. It appeared to be some sort of training pond. There was one person in that pond who looked as if he or she was trying to stay on a waterboard, without much success.

In the main pond it looked like there are only two tow bars. Which would seem to mean only two people can be wakeboarding at a time. The wakeboarders zipped rather quickly around the pond, so I would think more than two at a time could get dicey. No idea how this works. You wakeboard for 10 minutes then give it up for the next person in line? Not that there appeared to be a line.

I think I've mentioned before that the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has a real penchant for signage. The penchant has grown since my last exposure.

Now you have TRVB signage, plus signage from the TRVB's partner in delusion, the TRWD, as in Tarrant Regional Water District. Currently, you can stop what you are doing on the Trinity Trail and aim your smart phone at one of the ubiquitous "CHECK OUT our NEW Trinity iPhone App!" signs and get yourself some sort of Trinity Trail App.

At trail junctions there are now signs, courtesy of the TRWD, pointing you in the right direction to get to various Trinity Trail destinations. On the south side  of the sign in the picture we are directed to Stockyards, Marine Creek, Buck Sansom Park, Cowtown Wakepark, Gateway Park and Sycamore Creek. The north side of this sign points the way to Downtown, Panther Island Pavilion, Trinity Park, Cowtown Wakepark, Gateway Park and Sycamore Creek.

The redundancy in mentioning Cowtown Wakepark and Gateway Park and others on both sides of the sign is because they are all accessed by crossing that dam bridge across the Trinity River you see in the picture.

I find the fact that Panther Island Pavilion and Cowtown Wakepark are on these signs to be interesting. I remember when the Santa Fe Rail Market was on directional signage in Downtown Fort Worth with me remarking that that will soon need to be altered. I thought the same thing when I saw Cowtown Wakepark on the signs, particularly after seeing how meager its patronage was today.

Rockin' The River Panther Island Pavilion

As for Panther Island Pavilion. That is a Rockin' the River Inner Tube Happy Hour thing that is part of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. I was surprised to see that a sort of permanent pavilion has now been installed at the Rockin' the River Inner Tube Happy Hour location.

The permanent stage was not the only thing that surprised me in the Rockin' the River zone.

Surprises like there are now two sets of Fort Worth style modern restrooms for the comfort of Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floaters.

One of the restrooms was real upscale. With showers.

I don't know if you are required to take a shower before getting in the river, so as to not add to the pollution, or you have the option of taking a shower when you get out of the river so as to wash off the pollution.

The goofiest thing I saw in the Rockin' the River zone was 3 big, Thanksgiving Day Macy's Parade Float type things floating in the river.

The giant inner tube says it was MADE IN FORT WORTH. Is the creature floating in the inner tube some sort of caricature of Fort Worth's former mayor Moncrief?

Continuing on, let's jump ahead to the most surprising thing I saw today, that being the current condition of the Phyllis Tilley Memorial Bridge to Nowhere.

For some reason I thought the Phyllis Tilley Memorial Bridge to Nowhere was finished, opened, ready to transport bikers and pedestrians from one side of the Trinity River to the other. I was wrong. Instead I saw one of the messiest construction sites I have ever seen. What an eyesore. It did not look as if much work is going on. Wind was blowing construction flotsam up against the cyclone fence. I saw one big chunk fly over the fence.

I think I will end this blogging with the bridge debacle. I may do a part two of today's look at my current hometown by handlebars.

I almost forgot one more thing. One of my goals today was to check out the current state of the supposedly soon to open first new drive-in movie theater in America in a large American city in decades. I could find nothing that looked like a drive-in under construction.

Did Fort Worth get hoodwinked and hornswoggled again?

Electronic Postcards From Alaska

Postcards are so last century.

I've decided Travel Blogs are the postcards of this century.

Til something better comes along.

Currently I am taking two virtual trips to Alaska, one on land, one on water.

The water trip began in late March, starting in Nanaimo, British Columbia, slowly floating north to Alaska, doing a lot of fishing and catching a lot of fish along the way. I've lost track of how many King Salmon have been caught.

I'll call the boatbound people "The Fishers" because that is sort of their name. I've not asked if it was okay if I shared their blog, so I won't. But I did swipe a cool picture from their latest blog post. That being a humongous moon rising above a snowy mountain. The Fishers currently have made it as far north as Sitka.

I saw The Fishers here in Fort Worth, back in September of 2010. They were passing through town towing a boat they'd bought south of Houston. The boat serves as a transit ship from the mother ship, that being this humongous yacht type vessel The Fishers had built for them at some boat building place down in the Los Angeles zone.


The Fishers having a smaller boat on their bigger boat is the water based equivalent of the Rosie the Rat Dog entourage towing a SUV behind their RV.

Rosie the Rat Dog and her entourage have now made it to Alaska. They successfully ferried across the Yukon River yesterday, entering Alaska.

My sister emailed me pictures, this morning, of the ferry crossing and the Welcome to Alaska sign, among others. But, these pictures have not been blogged yet. Apparently it may be a few days before they are back in an Internet enabled zone.

My sister's description of yesterday's leg of their journey is amusing....

Hey, we survived the ferry crossing today and last night's sunset was the most amazing one I have ever seen! It finally set after 12:45 this morning!  Today's drive was only  187 miles and it took ALL DAY!  The road was dirt and gravel, potholes and gravel, steep slopes and gravel and one grizzly bear!!!!  Not many guard rails along dropoffs, the sort of road that, as a kid, would have had me crying. Right now we are in Tok, Alaska, our phones now work and we may stay here two days to do laundry and to just sit still.

I believe that picture at the top is the sunset my sister is referencing.

My sister's reference to driving a road with steep dropoffs and that type thing causing her to cry as a kid is so true. Dropoffs and a lightning storm would send her into hysterics. I remember the worst steep dropoffs sister hysterics happened on our first trip to Yellowstone National Park. At that point in time Interstate 84 was under construction, that being a much improved road to take vehicles from the Columbia Valley up into the Blue Mountains of Oregon and the Umatilla National Forest, and beyond.

Before the freeway was built, part of the road up into the Blue Mountains, on the route to La Grande and beyond, was called Dead Man's Pass. That name alone was enough to make my sister nervous. The road itself twisted and turned, switchbacking to gain elevation. With very steep dropoffs.

Well, our car overheated. It was a new Chevy Impala and it was prone to overheating when called upon to pull a trailer up a steep hill. My dad had to pull off to the side of the road, right where the dropoff was steep. My brother and I were loving it. My sister not so much. I think it may have been my brother, or it may have been me, who said, we are slipping over the side.

This set my sister off into hysterics. My brother and I found this funny at the time. I vaguely remember we got in some sort of trouble for causing our sister to cry.

Near the summit of Deadman's Pass sits Emigrant Springs State Heritage Area, a state park, where we camped for the night after the ordeal of passing Deadman's Pass. At that point in time you could still see the wagon wheel ruts of the Oregon Trail.

Rosie the Rat Dog's Alaska! Blog is making me want to go on a roadtrip. Not to Alaska though.

I just remembered one more amusing thing in my sister's email that gives you an idea of what wimps Pacific Northwesterners are when it gets just a little bit warm...

Cloudy out right now after a day with the temps over 80 degree's. Right now we are in the motor home with the a/c running, as it is so hot out.

80 degrees? Right now at my location it is 96 with the humidity making it feel like 109.  I also have my a/c running. Whining about the temperature apparently is in my DNA.

Unable To Take The Bus To Walk With The HOT Village Creek Indian Ghosts

Village Creek Blue Bayou

With a temperature of 95, feeling like 112, I was in no mood to get HOT doing some Tandy Hills hill hiking today during the time frame when my regularly scheduled maintenance hike takes place.

Instead of the HOT hills I opted for the shade provided by the big oak trees which date back to the days they shaded Native Americans who lived by Village Creek before the Texans arrived in town and evicted them.

Yes, I walked today with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area in the biggest town in America without public mass transit, that being Arlington, Texas.

With no wind blowing, HOT air and high humidity, I had myself a mighty fine steambath today.

In the picture the Village Creek Blue Bayou looks almost inviting for swimming purposes.

Well, my poor photographic skills were unable to make visible the pond scum that floats on top of the Blue Bayou. The pond scum negated any swimming appeal.

Look what the current forecast has in store for us. Our first chance to break the record for most 100 degrees (or higher) days in a row, with the first 100 degree day of the year scheduled to arrive on Sunday.