Looking For Crystals In Arlington's Crystal Canyon Natural Area

Yesterday Miss Connie asked me if I'd been to Crystal Canyon Park in Arlington.

I vaguely recollected reading something about a new park in Arlington, with Crystal Canyon ringing a bell in my ever more unreliable memory.

Miss Connie came across Crystal Canyon whilst reading Fort Worth Weekly's Best of 2012 issue.

I thought I'd read all through FW Weekly's Best of 2012, not missing a single thing, but, I'd missed the entry about Crystal Canyon and it being FW Weekly Critic's Choice for Best Green Space. Below is the Crystal Canyon blurb from FW Weekly...

Green Space
Critic's Choice: Crystal Canyon Nature Preserve
1000 Brown Blvd. Arlington

This is the newest and most welcome effort to save Tarrant County's vanishing green spaces, which are being paved over at alarming speeds. Crystal Canyon is a 39-acre oasis of old-growth trees, clear-running creeks, and sandstone outcroppings sparkling with the selenite crystals that give the preserve its name. Nestled among homes and shopping areas in North Arlington, the canyon has remained wild, its topography probably saving it from developer's bulldozers. With a grant from the state, Arlington recently added hiking trails, benches, three pedestrian bridges, a drinking fountain, interpretive signage, and a small parking lot. The city plans to maintain Crystal Canyon as a preserve where families, bird watchers, wildflower enthusiasts, and hikers can enjoy its unspoiled natural beauty and find respite from the concrete canyons of the Metromess.

FW Weekly's description of Crystal Canyon pretty much matched my experience there, today, it being today's location for my regularly scheduled daily endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation.

However, as you might notice via the sign at the top, this park is named Crystal Canyon Natural Area, not Crystal Canyon Nature Preserve.

Also, I saw no creeks with any water running in them. I did see some dry creek beds.

FW Weekly indicates there are sandstone outcroppings sparkling with crystals. Maybe the cloud cover stopped the crystals from sparkling, because I saw no crystals, of the natural sort, in the Crystal Canyon Natural Area.

Maybe that crystal you see in the picture is actually one of the illusive Crystal Canyon crystals, and not the piece of broken glass that I thought it likely was.

I hiked off the trail in my futile search for crystals. Which is where I found the "crystal" in the picture.

The FW Weekly article mentions interpretive signage. There was a lot of interpretive signage. Very well done interpretive signange. Interpreting the crystals, interpreting the flora, the fauna and interpreting the very well done, eco-friendly trail and bridge engineering.

Above is the interpretive signage interpreting "What are the Crystals in Crystal Canyon Natural Area" without a question mark.

The Fauna interpretive signage had a lot of birds on the sign. And a Southern Copperhead, Texas Rat Snake and a Bobcat. The picture of the Bobcat, shows an orange Bobcat. I've seen a lot of Bobcats in various Texas parks, but I've never seen a cute orange Tiger kitty looking Bobcat, like the one on the sign in Crystal Canyon.

There are 3 pedestrian bridges in the Crystal Canyon Natural Area, spanning the canyon, or a dry creek. The bridges are made of a hard plastic-like material. I'd not seen this before. It would seem that these bridges will experience no rotting wood issues, unlike some bridges and boardwalks in Fort Worth's poorly maintained parks, like Gateway Park.

You see the above rock formation, in the dry creek bed, from the plastic bridge. I climbed down into the dry creek bed, keeping a watchful lookout for Southern Copperheads, Texas Rat Snakes and Orange Bobcats, to see if I could find some of the illusive crystals, to no avail.

Above you are looking at a section of Crystal Canyon Natural Area trail, as it switches back and forth to gain some elevation. I was very impressed with the Crystal Canyon trail and the engineering that went into the design. The trail is made to handle a flood of water, with multiple drains designed to keep water from eroding the trail.

Utah is my favorite place on the planet, scenery wise. I never fail to be very very happy when I am surrounded by redrock formations, when I am in Utah. Crystal Canyon reminded me, very much, of Utah, at times. The above rock formation was like a mini version of a rock formation I might see in Utah's Zion National Park.

FW Weekly mentioned wildflowers in Crystal Canyon. The above pink wildflower was one of many I saw today, including climbing vines sprouting wildflowers. We are no where near wildflower season. I imagine Crystal Canyon will be very colorful, next year, starting in March.

Crystal Canyon Natural Area was very easy to find. I  got off I-30 at Collins Street, headed north about a mile, turned right on Brown Boulevard, coasted down a steep hill, with the Crystal Canyon Natural Area parking lot on the right, soon after coasting down the steep hill.

The parking lot is not very big. It might hold 12 vehicles, maybe less, I did not think to count the number of stalls. Methinks Arlington is going to want to figure out how to add some more parking spaces.

All in all, I'd have to say that Crystal Canyon Natural Area is yet one more jewel in the City of Arlington's Crown of Parks.

Crystal Canyon Natural Area is less than 2 miles from one of Arlington's other park gems, that being River Legacy Park.

UPDATE: Crystal Canyon Natural Area (CCNA) is on Facebook.

In Quanah Parker Park Gazing Up At A Giant Pecan Tree

I was up early and in the cool pool when the sun began arriving this morning to do its daily illumination and heating duties.

I am liking the cooler pool water. Very refreshing.

When the time of the day arrived for my scheduled daily salubrious endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation I found myself running late for a date, so I opted to go for a brisk walk with the pecan trees that tower over Quanah Parker Park.

That is the biggest of the Quanah Parker Park pecan trees you are standing under in the picture.

This is the pecan tree that is some sort of specially designated historical heritage tree.

I do not know if Quanah Parker ever parked himself under this tree, or not. There must be some reason this particular park is named after the most famous Comanche chief.

I Will Not Ride A Horse With My Cowboy Nephew David

In the picture you are looking at my nephew, Cowboy David, in the saddle on his horse, White Socks.

I will likely be seeing Cowboy David and his siblings, the twins, Theo John and Ruby Jean, in December, in Arizona.

I am almost 100% certain David will not be riding White Socks to Arizona.

David is mastering his horse riding skills prior to taking a trip to Texas, in January, to visit his favorite Texas uncle.

While in Texas Cowboy David will be going to the Fort Worth Stock Show to go to the rodeo in the decrepit, ancient Will Rogers Coliseum.

Prior to going to the Stock Show, David will be riding White Socks in the world's biggest non-mechanized parade, that being the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade.

I am hoping Cowboy David is not expecting his favorite uncle to ride a horse with him. Nothing good ever happens when Cowboy David's favorite uncle gets on a horse.

The last time Cowboy David's favorite uncle was on a horse was on the 4th of July, 2000, a date which lives on in infamy. The horse went crazy and tried to kill me whilst trying to get to a carrot that the beast knew was in the barn.

That is the short version. Suffice to say it left me traumatized, with recurring related nightmares which recur to the present.

Today I Biked The River Legacy Park Trail To Veridian To See If Homes Are Really Sprouting Up There

New Homes Being Built At Veridian In Arlington

Last week there was an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about houses being built at the Huffines Veridian development north of the east end of River Legacy Park in Arlington.

It seemed to me that it had only been a month or two since I'd pedaled my bike in that zone and at that point in time all I saw were some bulldozers in road building, dirt moving mode.

It takes months to build a house, how could there be finished houses in Veridian, I thought to myself?

I also thought to myself that this could be another case of the Star-Telegram getting their info wrong. This has been the case, previously at this particular location.

I remember when the Star-Telegram had an article touting the opening of a new 4 mile section of paved trail in River Legacy Park, extending the trail to Highway 360, opened after a mile connector to the existing trail was finished.

However, the facts were that this trail had been finished and usable for months. There was no new 1 mile connector. But, more importantly, the trail did not and still does not, extend to 360.

The problem caused by a newspaper printing erroneous information can be a little thing. Like the very day after the Star-Telegram had this article about the trail extending to 360, I pedaled to the 7 mile mark end of the trail, thinking, well, maybe a new section has been added since I've pedaled to the end of the trail.

I got to the 7 mile mark and found a guy appearing to be very annoyed. I asked if he was okay. He told me he thought the trail went all the way to 360.

I asked him if he read that in the Star-Telegram. He replied in the affirmative. He'd told friends, flying into D/FW International, that he'd jog the new River Legacy Park trail and to look for him waving from an overpass, and to exit and pick him up. How he timed this or how he thought he knew what overpass he was going to end up on, I did not ask. I told him I didn't think he had any option but to jog back to wherever his vehicle was.

So, today I fully expected to see no houses built or being built on the Veridian development.

Well.

I was wrong. There looked to be, maybe, a dozen or more houses in various stages of construction. I thought it took 4 to 6 months to build a house. Have Texans figured out how to speed up home construction?

The Veridian development ground to a halt when the economy collapsed in 2008. Are homes rising in this location yet one more sign that the economy is coming back? I hope so.

A First Day Of October Walk With The Indian Ghosts Wondering How Many Were Murdered In The Battle Of Village Creek

Yellow Flowers in the Village Creek Blue Bayou

This morning's swim was quite refreshing, what with the air at my location on the planet being heated to a relatively chilly 58 degrees, the water in the pool was warmer than the air.

At noon I decided I needed to check in on the Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area in Arlington.

I saw two large water snakes today in Village Creek. I was not able to get a picture of either.

This past weekend's rain has recharged the Village Creek Blue Bayou, causing the sprouting of a lot of green foliage, which is blooming yellow flowers.

In the Blue Bayou I saw a small turtle the likes of which I've not seen before, for a brief moment, before he or she dived for safety. The turtle had a red marking on it.

There were a lot of people in the VCNHA today, including a pair of canoodling smoochers sitting on a picnic table by the Blue Bayou. I don't think they noticed me.

I stopped by the historical marker that is stuck in the ground by the parking lot off Dottie Lynn Parkway, today, and read it, again.

I'd not made note, previously, of one of the paragraphs. I found this paragraph just a bit appalling in its nonchalant way in which it described what was basically a crime against humanity.

Below is the referenced paragraph...

The earliest days of the newly formed Republic of Texas record the end of the long history of Native American settlement in this area. Expeditions of scouting parties made up of the rangers, volunteers and militia were designated to clear the area of Indians to make way for colonists and the land hungry settlers who were being attracted with the sales of land grants in 1841 to the W.S. Peters' Emigration Land Company of Louisville, Kentucky. Before being destroyed in the Battle of Village Creek in 1841, a whole series of villages lay on either side of the creek extending for about five miles southward from near current-day Lamar Boulevard to a hill on which was located the largest village at the current location of the clubhouse of the Lake Arlington Golf Course near Spur 303. A large village was also located in the vicinity of Village Creek where it crosses this trail east of the marker. Three hundred acres of corn grew near the villages which supported over 1,000 warriors of the native local tribes, which included the Anadarko, Bidais, Caddo, Keechi, Kickapoo, Tawakoni, Tonkawa, Waco, Waxahachie and Wichita, all members of the Caddoan Confederacy.

I have not found any source which tells me how many Indians were murdered in the Village Creek zone in this primitive version of abusing someone's eminent domain. The number likely was very large.

Why Is Top Chef Fort Worth Not Premiering November 7 On Bravo TV?

Top Chef Fort Worth. Season 10 of Bravo TV's Top Chef premieres November 7. Season 9 of Top Chef was Top Chef Texas.

If you parse the above paragraph you will see I am not actually indicating that Season 10 of Top Chef is going to be Top Chef Fort Worth.

Because it isn't.

Season 10 of Top Chef is going to be Top Chef Seattle.

That got me to thinking. Why is it that it is highly unlikely there would be a Top Chef Fort Worth?

Why are there no TV shows which use Fort Worth as their setting?

I can think of several TV shows that use or have used Seattle as their setting. Frasier, Grey's Anatomy, Real World. Others that I'm forgetting.

Okay, I just now Googled "TV Shows Seattle" to find there is a Wikipedia article titled List of television shows set in Seattle. It is a long list. It starts with Here Come the Brides. On the list are A Year in the Life, The Night Strangler, John Doe and many more.

I Googled "TV Shows Fort Worth" to find no Wikipedia article listing television shows set in Fort Worth.

Methinks this is a very interesting question to seek an answer to.

What is the question?

Why is Fort Worth not used as the setting for any television show?

Me also thinks it would behoove the Fort Worth powers that be to ponder that question.

Methinks Fort Worth might be a good setting if a TV producer were looking for a city with a rather humdrum downtown, poorly maintained parks, with a closed eyesore of a park at the heart of its downtown (Heritage Park), people walking beside roads without sidewalks, an unseemly amount of litter.

Unlandscaped, littered, weedy freeway exits to the town's only actual tourist attraction, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards.

A ditch-like dirty river on which litter is often seen floating.

Lots of litter everywhere.

A drive back in time, that my visitors from the Northwest always find fascinating, that being a drive east on Lancaster, Rosedale or Berry.

I actually think Fort Worth would be a great setting for a TV show and that Hollywood is actually missing out on a potential gem.

It would need to be a Twin Peaks/ Northern Exposure type show. Maybe a primetime soap opera.

Just look at the elements that clever writer's could have fun with.

Fort Worth has had a corrupt mayor named Moncrief who was so dumb he tried to dye the Trinity River purple as some sort of tribute to TCU being in the Rose Bowl.

Fort Worth's corrupt congresswoman, Kay Granger, had her unqualified son, J.D., installed to run a bizarre public works project, for which the public has not voted, called the Trinity River Vision Boondoogle, a project which abuses eminent domain to take down Trinity River levees that have kept Fort Worth dry for decades, to build a little pond, and a flood diversion channel that will likely look so ridiculous it will become a tourist attraction.

Additional TV show fodder can be found in the town's sad excuse for a newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which acts like a Soviet-style propaganda rag, touting enterprises, like a sporting goods store called Cabela's, claiming it would become the #1 tourist attraction in Texas, bringing in millions upon millions of visitors. And then not a peep from the Star-Telegram when Cabela's does not quite perform as propagandized, not only that, it is now not only not the only Cabela's in Texas, it is not even the only Cabela's in the D/FW Metroplex.

During the summer hundreds of Fort Worth natives get into the polluted river in Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

There really is a lot of material here for a TV show.

Fort Worth is really proud of having the world's only twice daily cattle drive. Cowboys drive a small herd of longhorns up and down the main drag of the Stockyards, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. You don't see something like this anywhere else in America.

A TV show based in Fort Worth could do flashbacks, back to the days of Hell's Half Acre, with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You could flashback to the Spring Palace and it tragic end with the heroics of Al Haynes. You could flashback to Quanah Parker coming to town. Or earlier to when Quanah's mom and sister arrived in Fort Worth after being re-kidnapped.

Fort Worth has so much culture an entire area is devoted to Fort Worth's culture, called The Cultural District. Does any other town in the world have a Cultural District?

So much material.

Fort Worth is the biggest town in America that has no major league sports team. But, the town does have a minor league baseball team, the Cats, who play against little town's teams. This seems sort of unfair and unsportsmanlike to me.

Fort Worth is the world's guinea pig for urban shale drilling and its fracking, which leads to contaminated water and earthquakes, along with natural gas. Fort Worth has 1000s of natural gas holes in the ground, with the town being blessed with an ever growing network of underground piping carrying non-odorized natural gas.

Like I said, so much material. Hollywood really is missing out on a Mother Lode of material in this town.

I'm done now, for now....

Walking Around Fosdick Lake With Pink Wildflowers & Tortilla Pizza For Lunch

Fosdick Flowers

Today, for my last day of September, Sunday walk in the wild, I went to Oakland Lake Park to walk around Fosdick Lake.

Thanks to Mother Nature's irrigation intervention in the past 24 hours a forest of pink wildflowers was busy blooming near the Fosdick Lake Dam spillway.

Dozens upon dozens upon dozens of pink flowers made the landscape look as if it is Spring, not Fall, not sliding down the slippery slope towards Winter.

I saw no turtles today. They are likely traumatized by the cool temperature. The Fosducks seemed to be in a very good mood, doing a lot of melodic quacking.

Changing the subject from quacking to pizza.

I invented a new pizza for lunch today. Took large whole wheat tortillas, covered them with spaghetti sauce, then black olives, green olives and mushrooms, then shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend I got yesterday from Town Talk. Roasted the pizzas for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Very tasty.

However, due to the thin nature of the tortillas, to render the pizza edible it had to be folded over, ala a taco.

Driving North To Hurst On The Last Day Of September Thinking About Getting Shaken By The Irving Earthquake

In the picture you are looking at the view out of my motorized vehicular transport, mid-morning, on the last day of September, looking north towards my destination of Hurst, on the on ramp on to the I-820 freeway.

That dark thing at an angle across the windshield is a rain wiper.

This morning it is barely drizzling, not like the copious amount of wet that fell yesterday, but still enough wetness to require the window wiping device to be activated.

Yesterday's rain added a couple more inches of water to my swimming pool. This morning's swim was very pleasant, with the water being warmer than the air, which was being chilled to barely above 60 degrees.

It seems to my well functioning breathing tubes that the rain has swept the air clean of all that which has vexed my respiratory system. I have my windows open.

Yesterday the earth moved again in the D/FW Metroplex. This time it was Irving that was shaken by an earthquake, shaking somewhere between 3 and 4 on the Richter Scale. If you are near the epicenter of an earthquake of this magnitude, you definitely feel it.

Prior to my move to Texas I got to experience multiple small quakes epicentered a couple miles to the east of my abode, in what is called the Big Lake area. The strongest of these shakers was in the 3.0 range. One of the quakes cracked the tile on my kitchen floor. Another time I was laying on my water bed when a quake struck, creating a rough water on the ocean effect. Another one of those quakes I was sitting in my living room, the windows all flexed and the tall evergreens swayed.

I suspect a lot of people in the Irving zone felt the earth move yesterday. It can be very unsettling.

A Walk In The Rain Perplexed By An Area Closed To The Public In A Fort Worth Public Park

Under A Bumbershoot Stopped By A Spider

Today, on my way to Town Talk, I stopped at Gateway Park via the Beach Street park entrance.

This morning, swimming in the rain was very pleasant, so I thought I'd have myself a noontime relaxing walk in the rain under my bumbershoot.

In the picture you are looking at Trinity Falls from the middle of the pedestrian bridge that exits Gateway Park to the Trinity Trails.

I only recently learned, via Hometown by Handlebar, that this bridge does not cross a creek, which I erroneously thought, but instead it crosses a former riverbed of the Trinity River. The Army Corps of Engineers, in flood prevention mode, rendered this section of the Trinity River to its current non-river status.

I got no further on the bridge across the former Trinity River than you see in the picture. I was stopped by a giant spider and its web. You can see the spider in the picture, it being that dot slightly above the center. I don't like tangling with giant spiders, and so I didn't.

I reversed direction and walked back into Gateway Park. When I started walking the rain was falling lightly, by the time I headed back into Gateway Park the rain had greatly quickened its pace.

I soon found myself looking at something I have been perplexed by for a couple years now. That being the boarded up boardwalks in Gateway Park.

How does a self-deluded World Class City, like Fort Worth, one of the most modern, highly developed, forward thinking, advanced cities in the world, reconcile its renowned, imaginary greatness with having a sign in one of its public parks saying "AREA CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC?"

How many more years are these boardwalks going to be boarded up? If there is no plan to fix the boardwalks, why not remove the eyesores?

Seriously, Fort Worth really needs to start learning to put on its big boy pants and start acting like a grown up city, instead of a town stuck in a troubled adolescence, with a lot of really bad pimples, with, apparently, no anti-pimple ointment in play.

What is the current status of one of Fort Worth's other embarrassing eyesores? That being Heritage Park in downtown Fort Worth, across the street from the Tarrant County Courthouse, overlooking the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Over the years I have learned of Fort Worth's alleged greatness only via propaganda spewed in the town's sad excuse for a newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I have never actually heard a Fort Worth native spew the delusional Star-Telegram type propaganda regarding the wonders of Fort Worth which make the rest of the planet Green With Envy....

Alma The Songbird Of The Texas Gulf Coast Showed Me A Surfin' Bulldog That Made Me Want To Go Roller Blading

Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, currently crooning at various venues in the Port Aransas zone, pointed me to the above amusing YouTube video.

I have ridden a wave on a surfboard, slid on snow on a snowboard, rolled on cement on a skateboard, but never at the skill level of the Surfin' Bulldog you'll see in this video.

I'm inspired to put on my roller blades, something I've not done in years, but it is currently raining out. The roller blading inspiration will likely pass by the time the rain abates.