Snake Free Walk Through The Village Creek Wild Zone

As you can see in the picture, looking north, deep in the wild undeveloped zone of the Village Creek Natural Historical Area, there are no hurricane clouds swirling overhead in North Texas this last Monday of October of 2012.

I walked the trail through the VCNHA all the way to Pioneer Parkway. I have no idea how far that is, but it seemed like a long ways.

I don't walk in this area when it is hot, due to the fact that years ago, on my bike, I had my most unsettling snake encounter ever, whilst pedaling fast. I came close to running over a very big, very colorful snake. After that I noticed what I figured were a lot of snake holes along this trail.

A few years ago I was pedaling the River Legacy Park paved trail, when ahead of me about 100 feet I saw what I thought was a stick of re-bar sticking out of the ground. I thought that odd. And then when I got closer, like about 15 feet away, I saw it was a snake, sticking vertical out of its hole about a foot. The snake retreated into its hole before I passed it.

So, I assume any small round hole I see on a Texas trail is a snake home.

Changing the subject to something other than snakes.

My attempt to swim did not go well this morning. The pool had greatly cooled, even though the morning temperature was warmer than Sunday's. I swam to the end of the pool, then back to the other end, and then got out.

Yesterday morning I turned on my furnace for the first time this heating season. It was below 60 in my abode when I got out from under my thick cover of blankets Sunday morning.

I got gas Sunday afternoon, so I called my mom. During that call I learned it was my mom and dad who sent me the small bag full of McDonald's coupons, that I mentioned yesterday,  from which I can get an awful lot of French Fries.

My mom told me I am expected in Arizona in late November. My mom also told me they no longer have an internet connection. My mom seemed surprised that I might need an internet connection.

I don't know about the flying to Phoenix idea. I am sort of suffering a small bout of relative fatigue.

Every Only Child I have known has been messed up to varying degrees. But, sometimes I can see where being an Only Child might be a mighty fine thing. I'd miss having nephews and a niece, though.

X Marks The Mysterious Spot On The Tandy Hills While I Discover Free McDonald's French Fries

An X or a Cross has appeared on the escarpment above the currently dry Tandy Falls.

Why would someone put an X or a Cross at this location?

I never get answers to the questions about the Mysteries of the Tandy Hills.

The bamboo tepee still stands. It seems like it has been years now that the bamboo tepee appeared near the center of the Tandy Hills. Who went to the bother of hauling all that bamboo such a distance? And why?

Then there is that rock crypt that appeared a couple months ago. The ice chest that was near the rock crypt soon disappeared, but the rock crypt still remains, undisturbed. What is buried under the rock crypt and how did someone manage to haul such a big chunk of rock such a distance, up and down hills?

It seems like there are other Mysteries of the Tandy Hills, but I'm not remembering them right now.

I just remembered another Mystery of the Tandy Hills.

It is a mystery to me why, on such a beautiful, perfectly temperatured day as today the Tandy Hills Natural Area is not swarming with locals having themselves a fine time hill hiking in the natural world.

Just as I was pondering that mystery today, thinking how odd it is I've seen no other humans on such a perfect day, two came into view, with the lady half of the pair greeting me with a very friendly Texas howdy. I told the pair what I'd just been thinking, with then them, a  pair of humans, suddenly appearing. The lady half of the pair verbalized agreeance regarding how odd it is that more people don't enjoy this slice of the natural world on such a beautiful day.

Speaking of mysteries of the eventually solved sort. This morning when I checked my mailbox prior to a very short dip in a very cool pool, I found a letter from Phoenix. After the very short dip in the very cool pool, upon opening the letter, I found what looked like a small version of the bag McDonald's French Fries come in. On the front of the bag it said "MONOPOLY. 1 IN 4 WINS. WAKE UP. PEEL OFF."

The upper right said "GO PEEL" with an arrow pointing me to the back side of the bag where I found a sticker waiting to be peeled. I peeled and found nothing under the peeling. I was very perplexed.

This Phoenix perplexation happened early this morning. After my salubrious endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation on the Tandy Hills I think my cerebral bloodflow had improved with increased oxygen improving my critical thinking and problem solving ability.

Because, a few minutes ago I thought to look in the bag and found a lot of little stickers with the words "Medium Fries" printed on them.

I am assuming if I hand one of these little stickers to an order taker at McDonald's I would then get a free bag of French Fries.

I have not been in a McDonald's since I was in Arizona last March. I regularly walk by McDonald's when I go to Walmart Supercenters, like this very morning, up in Hurst, when I went to Walmart across the street from ALDI, after I'd finished with ALDI.

Had I known about these little stickers that were hiding in this bag I might have had myself some French Fries this morning. Might have. But more likely not.

Running Gateway Park Orienteering In The Forbidden Zone With Geo-Cachers

In the picture you are looking at the Forbidden Zone in Fort Worth's Gateway Park. In the center of the picture a teenager is running west, while I head east.

I have never seen so many people in Gateway Park engaging in so many different activities as I saw today, on this last Saturday of October of 2012.

I knew something was up when I pulled into the parking lot zone and saw a lot of school buses and groups set up under canopies, with food and drink, among other things, being provided under the canopies.

Soon I started seeing dozens upon dozens of kids wearing green North Texas Orienteering t-shirts. Others were in camouflage gear.

My intention today was to get me some extra endorphin inducing aerobic activity by running, but I was feeling like a big, lumbering lug when I started to run. I think it may have been the excessive amount of clothing needed due to it being cold that may have thrown me off my running game.

As I made my way through the Forbidden Zone I came upon multiple groups of two or three doing the Orienteering thing. I came upon one kid doing the orienteering solo. He said, "Excuse me, sir," as if he wanted to ask me something. I asked if he was lost. He said he was not lost, but he never said what he was excusing me for.

I came upon an older lady bent over doing something. When she saw me she acted embarrassed and explained that she was geo-caching.

I came upon a group of guys playing a strange game that involved underhand throwing of what looked like mini-bowling balls.

In addition to these out of the ordinary activities I also ran into many examples of people doing things I usually see in Gateway Park, like mountain bikers, disc golfers, walkers, skateboarders, dog walkers, plus soccer and baseball games.

The attraction of orienteering eludes me, but those doing the orienteering sure seemed to be having themselves a real fine time.

After I was done with Gateway Park I did my regular Saturday thing and went to Town Talk. I got a lot of produce today. 3 big heads of Romaine lettuce for a buck, 2 big heads of cauliflower for a buck and a half, 4 bunches of cilantro for a buck and 8 big oranges for a buck. In the non-produce realm I got 2 cases of yogurt for 3 bucks each.

What was I thinking? Getting 3 big heads of Romaine lettuce?  That is a lot of salad.

Did Godzilla Torch Big Tex?

On Facebook this morning I saw the above new explanation as to what set Big Tex on fire at this year's State Fair of Texas.

I've not read anything about any investigation into what caused Big Tex to go up in flames, other than it was some electrical malfunction. I have not read anything about why it was that Big Tex was constructed of such flammable material.

And what about the children? It had to be traumatic for a little kid at the fair, gawking at Big Tex, listening to him talk, watching him wave his arm and then to suddenly see Big Tex start to smoke, then burst into flames.

Fairgoers can get fairly close to Big Tex. On my last visit he was surrounded by a train and landscaping and a fence. When Big Tex burned up did the crowd run? Or did the conflagration happen so suddenly that Big Tex was toast before there was a chance to run away from the flames?

Is anyone suing the State Fair of Texas for traumatizing their little kid with a flammable Big Tex? How about those people who were stuck high in the air, on a Midway carnvial ride, for hours, on the same day Big Tex died?

A Cool Saturday Morning Swim With Betty Jo Bouvier Celebrating Her Birthday In Seattle

I did not realize  the temperature was scheduled to get to one degree above freezing this last Saturday morning of October 2012.

I did realize the air had done some serious chilling when at some point during the night I found myself seeking extra warmth under blankets in my slumber chamber.

Knowing that the water in the pool would be significantly warmer than 33 degrees I went swimming this morning. The water was cooler than yesterday but not yet cool enough to trigger the shiver reaction.

Unless the temperature gets well above 50 today I will not be getting in the pool tomorrow morning. I see we are currently scheduled to reach a high of 60 today, with the low tonight being 36. Even if the temperature does reach 60 the water in the pool will be cooler tomorrow morning than it was this morning.

Today is Betty Jo Bouvier's birthday. Happy birthday Betty Jo.

I shan't say how old Betty Jo is today, as that would be impolite. Suffice to say that today is a significant anniversary of the day Betty Jo turned 39.

Betty Jo is celebrating her birthday by spending the weekend in Seattle where multiple surprises have been planned for her. I hope one of the surprises is a ride on the Seattle Great Wheel so I can get another first hand account.

Taking A Trip To Mexico Via The El Rancho Supermercado In Fort Worth

This morning when I went for a swim it was 49 degrees. The water was a lot warmer than the air.

The temperature continued to get colder after the sun began its daily rise, eventually bottoming out at 46 before beginning to get hotter, with it currently being a not too balmy 53 in the middle of the last Friday afternoon of October of 2012.

In addition to a long swim and some other things, this morning I was reading this week's FW Weekly and came upon this week's Chow Baby column.

Chow Baby is sort of a restaurant review column written in an amusing manner. This week's article was titled Tortillas Flat. About two places where tortillas could be found near the border of Haltom City and Fort Worth, near the Belknap/Beach Street  intersection.

One of the places mentioned by Chow Baby was the EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO. Chow Baby described the Supermercado as being as if all the Mexican products had seceded from Central Market and opened their own grocery store.

I figured this Supermerado place would have a website. I figured right. It's a really noisy website, playing Mexican music. I could not find the off button.

At the El Rancho website I learned that Fort Worth is not the only place where an EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO is located. There are 5 in Dallas, 2 in Austin, 1 in Lewisville, 1 in Cockrell Hill, 1 in Arlington and even 1 in Odessa, conveniently located for the Queen of Wink.

Re-reading Chow Baby's words of wisdom I see she says the Beach Street store is #23 in the chain. I guess that means there are more EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADOs than what I saw on their website.

So, with it being so cold that going on a walk or hike or bikeride did not seem all that enticing, and after having had myself plenty of endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation from swimming this morning, I decided to go to the EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO on Beach Street. Turns out it is not all that distant from Town Talk, just a short distance north of the Beach Street Walmart Supercenter.

I rather liked the EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO, though I did not find a lot to buy there. It felt like a trip to Mexico. The same type Mexican music that blares from their website also blares in the store.

The EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO has a big bakery with Mexican baked goods. My previous experience with Mexican baked goods has been that they look way better than they taste.

There is a restaurant that looked to have the Mexican food regulars, although I'm not sure about some of it because it was all in Spanish. I think tongue may have been on the menu. The dining room is nice and rustic with picnic tables.

At the Tortilleria (tortilla making operation to you non-Spanish speakers) I got myself a big batch of freshly made, still very hot, whole wheat tortillas.

Since the EL RANCHO SUPERMERCADO is so close to places I regularly go to, I will likely be back, if only for the fresh tortillas.

Drops Of Rain Dampened Bike Riding Today Before The Northern Front Invaded North Texas

Today around noon my handlebars were on the paved trail in the Bob Findlay Linear Park, which trails past Arlington's Interlochen neighborhood.

To get to the Bob Findlay Linear Park one pedals the paved trail which runs through the Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

Today, a few minutes into pedaling, rain drops started falling on my head. And other places in addition to my hatless/helmetless head.

The rain was not falling in copious amounts. But with the clouds looking as if they could go into major level weep mode at any moment I cut the bike riding short today.

Currently, at some point in time between 2 and 3 in the afternoon the outer world is being heated to 77 degrees at my location. Around 3 a Northern Front is scheduled to march into the D/FW zone drastically dropping the temperature into the 40s.

I am fairly certain I will be under blankets tonight in my slumber chamber.

Looking outside it appears the Northern Front may be invading earlier than predicted, with sudden gusts of wind. So far, at least according to my computer based temperature monitoring device, the temperature has not yet begun to plummet.

Spencer Jack's Jack-O-Lanterns Are Ready For Halloween

Spencer Jack Working On His Pumpkins

Earlier in the month I made mention of the tragic smashing of my great grand nephew, Spencer Jack's, Halloween pumpkin.

I have received multiple inquires regarding the current state of affairs regarding Spencer Jack's Jack-O-Lantern situation.

Well, I am pleased to report that Spencer Jack's favorite girl friend, Brittney, took him back to the pumpkin patch, where Spencer Jack found himself two new pumpkins.

One big, one little.

I do not remember painting pumpkins during my pumpkin carving, Jack-O-Lantern making, years. This must be a new thing the younger generation has added to the Halloween pumpkin carving tradition.

Below is the finished result of Spencer Jack's 2012 Halloween Pumpkin Jack-O-Lanterns. I am assuming that after the picture was taken Spencer Jack moved the pumpkins back inside the house so as to avoid a repeat of the previous smashed pumpkin tragedy.

Why are carved pumpkins called Jack-O-Lanterns I am sitting here wondering? Yes, I know I can end the wondering by doing some Googling. I have a tendency to wonder about something and then remember the answer is easily found.

How Does Mitt Romney Survive His Embarrassing Gaffes Without Becoming A National Laughingstock?

Years ago, back in the 1970s, I remember being appalled whilst watching a debate between the current president, Gerald Ford and a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter, when President Ford informed America that he did not think that Eastern Europe was dominated by the Soviet Union.

Just a few years prior to Mr. Ford saying this, the Soviets had invaded Czechoslovakia in the most recent example of the Soviets keeping an iron thumb on the communist satellites the Soviets occupied after World II.

How could an American president say something this stupid I sat and wondered?

Mr. Ford lost the election.

During the 2008 election campaign, at one point during the campaigning, a tornado struck a town, where in the Midwest this occurred I no longer remember. This was a killer tornado, causing multiple deaths. Barack Obama repeated, multiple times, in multiple venues, that over 10,000 had died in this tornado. I remember being appalled and thinking how can a man, running for president, not intuitively know that over 10,000 people dying in a tornado would be the worst natural disaster in American history, and not intuitively know that the over 10,000 had to be a mistake?

This gaffe never became a big deal.

Barack Obama won the election.

Before he dropped out of the 2012 campaign for the Republican nomination, at one point Herman Cain said that we can not allow communist China to acquire nuclear weapons. How can someone running for president not know that China has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s?

Recently the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, made clear he did not know that passenger jets had pressurized cabins, and windows rolling down is not possible.

And then you have Romney stupidly making the non-point that America has fewer ships in the Navy than it did in 1916.

And he would fix that.

That bonehead whopper should have been a sufficiently bad enough gaffe to have the man on the fast track to being laughed out of the race, in my opinion. How could a man running for president not understand that America's navy now has these things called aircraft carriers, that the era of naval powers having big flotillas of boats is long gone?

Methinks someone who thinks he is qualified to run for president should have a fairly well developed knowledge of geography. Particularly if that someone is going to participate in a debate about foreign affairs.

How could Mitt Romney be so geographically ignorant that he could assert, in a debate about foreign policy, that we can not allow an Iran dominated Syria, because that would give Iran a direct path to the sea?

How could Mitt Romney not know that Iraq is between Iran and Syria?

How could Mitt Romney not know that Iran already has a path to the sea, since Iran is situated on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and on Iran's northern border is the Caspian Sea, though landlocked, this is the largest landlocked body of water on the planet?

In elections in years gone by I think a candidate saying as many embarrassing things as what have come out of Mitt Romney's mouth would not have a chance of America taking a chance on such a potential buffoon.

Then again, I sort of think collectively us Americans have dumbed down and have collectively lost a lot of our critical reasoning ability. What other explanation is there for much of the Republican nonsense being taken seriously by anyone?

The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are not even remotely distant memories, the bungling, the Intel failures, the misinformation, the bad strategy. And now we have this relatively minor incident in Libya, with some Republicans, led by their Top Boob, Rush Limbaugh, making claims that the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi incident is worse than Watergate.

Worse than Watergate?

Have I mentioned I think some of these people are ignorant morons? Rush Limbaugh is very glib, and can be amusing, but his education ended at high school. Education is important. As is the result of a lack of education.

A Snake Free Walk With The Indian Ghosts Who Haunt The Village Creek Natural Historical Area

Village Creek Blue Bayou

Yesterday I think I overdid it with the running around Crystal Canyon looking for shiny objects, because this morning when I got vertical in my slumber chamber, after a long slumber, I found myself to be a bit sore.

I took a dose of ibuprofen and a long swim, both of which I think may have contributed to feeling less sore.

When the time of the day came around for my regularly scheduled salubrious endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation I opted to not be very stimulated, so I drove to the Village Creek Natural Historical Area to walk with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the historical area.

The Village Creek Blue Bayou is slowly being choked with vegetation. Years ago when I first saw this bayou it was more like a big open pond, with little vegetation. I remember roller blading on to the now replaced wooden viewing platform and asking a couple guys what they were looking at.

Water Moccasins, I was told.

It was a group of 5 or 6 reptiles in the water making a minor snake boil. This was very early in my getting adjusted to living with a lot of snakes in the natural world, so seeing all those snakes sort of unsettled me. In the years since I've learned that it is likely these were not Water Moccasins, but instead some other group of water snakes, without a venomous bite.

Miss Puerto Rico returns from her home island today, arriving in the D/FW zone a bit after 8, after a long day of flying, going from San Juan to Washington, D.C. to D/FW.

I think I may have forgotten to check in on Miss Puerto Rico's mentally ill cat, Tasha, yesterday. I probably should go do that right about now.