A Near Head-On Collision In Gateway Park Before Going To Town Talk

What with today being Saturday and what with none of the predicted rain falling in anywhere near copious amounts, at my location, I opted to have myself a mighty fine time mountain biking on the Gateway Park mountain bike trails today, prior to my regularly scheduled Saturday treasure hunt at Town Talk.

A large number of others also thought today was a fine day to roll their wheels in Gateway Park, with one of those rollers rolling the wrong way, causing a near crash, as I hit the brakes.

Methinks it would behoove the Gateway Park trail makers to install some directional arrows pointing the correct way for bikes to travel on the one-way, single track Gateway Park trails.

In the past couple weeks Fort Worth park maintenance people have been cutting back a lot of brush. At the location where my handlebars are, pre-brush cut, to the right was a solid wall of brush, blocking the view of the road and paved trail.  Now at this location both sides of the trail have been de-nuded of brush, thus making a  more thrilling ride as one rolls on the trail near the edge of the cliff which terminates in the Trinity River.

A lot of brush has been cut, but not removed. Instead the brush has been piled up in big piles, covering long sections of the paved trail at the brush cut location. Maybe the brush piles are in preparation for a big multi-bonfire event.

For a month now Saturday's at Town Talk have been a busy zoo. But, not today. I don't know what accounts for the difference. Weather related? Town Talker opting to enjoy the nice weather rather than going treasure hunting?

Today the most unusual thing I got at Town Talk was a rabbit food product, as in the biggest, most deep orange colored carrots I've ever seen. Also got other rabbit food in the form of broccoli and lettuce. Plus 5 pounds of shrimp, flatbread, jalapeno bacon, bleu cheese and other stuff I am forgetting right now.

And speaking of right now, right now I am off to Fry's to see if I can find a PA-1750-04 a/c adapter. It has been a long time since I've been to Fry's. I hope I have myself a mighty fine time there....

Enjoying The Emerald Fosdick Isle Of Fort Worth Texas

That emerald green you see carpeting the ground is yet one more sign that the long cold Texas winter is finally fading into history.

At the top of the mass of emerald green, in the middle, you can see one man walking.

What is that one man walking on?

Fosdick Dam.

That being the feat of engineering that holds back Fosdick Creek creating the Fosdick Lake Reservoir in Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park.

I do not know why big trees sprout from this earthen dam. I do know that standing beneath this dam is a bit less scary than standing beneath Hoover Dam.

The warm cloudy final Wednesday of March had a lot of people walking and playing in Oakland Lake Park today.

Currently, a couple hours after walking around Fosdick Lake, the clouds have grown thicker and are dropping a few drops. Thunderstorming is on the menu. I will believe Mother Nature is serving up a Thunderstorm today when I hear the booming.

In the meantime, I am on the hunt for a replacement A/C adapter for a Toshiba Satellite Laptop.  It is proving to be a difficult hunt.

Today I Learned Fort Worth Has Been A Model For Other Cities Its Size & Larger

I got around to getting this week's Fort Worth Weekly this morning.

I was not long into thumbing through this week's Weekly when I came upon some verbiage which seemed to me to be totally Fort Worth Weekly un-worthy, as in something I would more expect to see in the propagandizing, Chamber of Commerce-ish, hyperbolizing Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

In this week's Fort Worth Weekly "Eats Annual Food Guide" the guide starts up with the intro you see photo-snatched here, with the intro titled "NOSH on THIS..."

Well.

Let me just copy the first sentence, with that first sentence being the one that contains the odd propaganda....

"Fort Worth has been a model for other cities its size and larger for the last several years and coupled with the growing local food movement, Fort Worth has been ranked as the most livable city in the United States."

You reading this in other cities in America must be sitting there in wonderment.

First off, what are these other cities Fort Worth's size and larger which have used anything in Fort Worth as a model for their own towns?

I hear crickets chirping.

There are several cities in Texas larger than Fort Worth, as in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Any of those towns using Fort Worth as model for anything? Is San Antonio now having Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the San Antonio River? Is Dallas abusing eminent domain to take dozens of property owner's property for a public works project the public has never voted on?

How about outside of Texas? What town the size of Fort Worth or bigger has modeled anything in their town after anything in Fort Worth? Well, Chicago does dye a river green every St. Patrick's Day. But I think Chicago was doing that well before Fort Worth's goofy former mayor, Mike Moncrief, tried to dye the Trinity River purple.

Fort Worth has been ranked as the most livable city in the United States? That has happened one time, one time only, and it was not ranked the most livable, it was ranked in the top ten of the most livable cities in America, ranked by a Washington, D.C. lobbying group which was interested in promoting the urban village concept, with Fort Worth being the only one of the ten towns named which took the "award" serious, holding a city wide celebration for the bogus award.

I really do not understand why Fort Worth media, as in the Star-Telegram or Fort Worth Weekly, feels the need to propagandize in this manner with such blatantly foolish puffery.

I have lived in a town which was named best in the nation by a legit entity. That town did not go into a spasm of self congratulation, even though CNN showed up to show the rest of the world the Best Small Town in America.

A few weeks ago another bogus entity, something called something like Livability, ranked Fort Worth's downtown as being the best in America, causing an awful lot of perplexed head scratching. The other towns on the list were equally puzzling. Fort Worth Weekly's take on this "award" was more grounded in reality than this week's embarrassing puffery, with Fort Worth Weekly's article saying something like it was like being named Best in an Ugly Baby Contest.

Anyway, I certainly am not suggesting that Fort Worth is not a perfectly fine town, a fine town with many fine attributes. But best at anything? That is just ridiculous. Where does this need to self-aggrandize come from? Some have suggested it comes from a massive civic inferiority complex caused in part by being paired with Dallas.

I do not know what the explanation is for this type propaganda spewage. What I do know is it is embarrassing and really needs to stop.....

Having Myself A Mighty Fine Time Stuck Behind A Fort Worth Truck Blockade

I opted not to go biking or hiking anywhere today, unless one counts wandering the aisles of Target as constituting a hike.

I don't think I wandered the Target aisles at a high enough speed to reach any level of aerobic benefit, because I did not perceive any endorphins being generated.

I opted out of going to any of my regular hiking biking locations because the weather is being a bit inclement.

That and I had myself a mighty fine time during my morning hot tub hydrotherapy session and multiple semi-cool pool dips.

In the picture above the sky does not look to be stormy. That is the view through my windshield. The view via the rear view mirror was looking stormy.

At the location above I found myself stuck in an unwanted roadblock. You are looking west on John T. White Road, where it crosses I-820. The truck and trailer combo was having a hard time making a turn, driving up on the median.

And then a Fort Worth cop showed up.

It took two green light cycles before the truck driver was able to get his truck to go where he wanted it to. Where he wanted to go turned out to need a U-Turn, heading back east on John T. White Road.

I thought a U-Turn was a no-no at this location.

But, apparently, blocking traffic, driving up on a median and making a U-Turn where U-Turns are a no-no is not a ticket worthy offense, like, for instance, driving too slow, in a traffic-free neighborhood, without clicking ones seat belt.

The Fort Worth cop simply continued heading west, ignoring the traffic blocking truck driver who was heading east.

Eventually I successfully made it past the stoplight....

Talking About The Oso Landslide I Learned My Mom's Washington Memory Is Better Than Mine

A couple days ago my mom called, apparently erroneously thinking I'd not called in a sufficiently recent time frame.

During the course of talking to my mom the subject of the Oso Landslide in our old home state of Washington came up.

At the point in time where my mom and I were talking about the Oso Landslide it was only a couple days old and at the point in time the fatality numbers had not reached the dozen point, nor had the projected number of fatalities reached the current projected number of well over 100.

When I first learned of the Oso Landslide, the day it happened, I thought the name sounded familiar and thought it was one of the small towns one drives through on Highway 2 when one heads over Stevens Pass to Eastern Washington. I was erroneous.

Mom told me she thought Oso was on the Stillaguamish River, upriver from Arlington. I said to mom, isn't the Stillaguamish the river that runs beside Highway 2 on the west side of Stevens Pass? Mom told me she thought that was the Skykomish River. That then had me confused as to whence the Snoqualmie River flows from and to.

I lamented with mom that after 15 years of being away from Washington,  I am losing memory of places and routes and, apparently, rivers. Mom told me it gets worse when one gets older.

After I got off the phone I opened up my Microsoft Map program to quickly learn my mom was right regarding river locations. So, even though mom claims the memory woes get worse as one gets older, mom remembered better than me the river locations in question.

I was more than a little surprised to see where Oso is actually located, as in how close it is to my old abode in Mount Vernon, as in only about 22 miles distant, as you can see via the screen cap above, with the thick black line drawing the route from my house to Oso.

I think the last time I took this particular route was with nephew Joey. We had gone mountain biking at a location the name of which I can not remember, then drove east to Lake Cavanaugh, then over the logging road mountain pass that eventually drops down into the Stillaguamish River Valley and the little town of Oso.

This Oso Landslide is by far the worst natural disaster to hit the Pacific Northwest since Mount St. Helens erupted over 30 years ago. If the worst case scenario turns out to be accurate, the Oso Landslide will result in more fatalities, by far, than the Mount St. Helens eruption.

I need to use Google Earth to do some virtual driving in Washington. I am totally drawing a blank as to the route I would have taken, multiple times, to Granite Falls and the Mountain Loop Highway, with that loop being looped a lot of times, hiking, mountain biking and cross country skiing. And yet I can not remember the route from I-5 to Granite Falls. If I remember right the Mountain Loop Highway loop goes from Darrington back to Arlington via Highway 530, passing Oso a short distance from Darrington.

I need to spend a month in Washington doing some road tripping.....

Visiting Arlington's Village Creek Indian Ghosts Before Biking Through A Forest Of Tires

I am guessing no one can guess where my handlebars are in the picture on the left.

Well, if you guessed Texas, that would be correct. The Dallas/Fort Worth zone, as a guess, would also be correct. Arlington would also be a correct guess.

But, I don't think anyone could guess the actual specific location of my handlebars because I am not actually certain where they are.

Except I know the handlebars are in the Texas town of Arlington. When I began rolling my wheels today I started from the western parking lot of the Village Creek Natural Historical Area, which the whole world knows is in Arlington, Texas.

I had not attired myself adequately to prevent the wind chill from chilling me once I began rolling my wheels at high speed. So, when I got to the area of the Village Creek Blue Bayou I opted to pedal south, over the big open grassy area which is sometimes used a  soccer field. This leads to an area which is wooded on both sides of the trail, eventually coming to the scene you see below.

Above you are looking at only a fraction of the tires which have taken up residence at this location. Why do so  many Texas city parks serve as refuges for used tires?

I pedaled on past the Forest of Tires, eventually coming to the big open field you see above, in the photo at the top. In that photo I had reached Division Street, turned my bike around to face north, to take the photo of the big open field.

Is this big open field and the Forest of Tires part of the Village Creek Natural Historical Area? I have no idea. I do know as I pedaled south I saw no sign telling me I was leaving the Natural Area and entering the Forest of Tires Area.

I also no longer felt the presence of the Village Creek Indian ghosts.....

Information Architect Shout Out About 2014 Prairie Fest Saturday April 26

On Saturday an information architect / visual storyteller named Jen emailed me nicely asking me if I would shout about the upcoming Prairie Fest.

I don't think I attended last year's Prairie Fest. I think the last time I attended a Prairie Fest was 2012's part one of that year's three part Prairie Fest.

Would that make it the 2011 Prairie Fest when I helped man a booth with a leggy ex-waitress and Granny Grassroots?

I enjoyed manning a booth at that particular Prairie Fest, that is til the White Knight and his assistant, Robin, showed up and insisted we dismantle and leave early, wreaking all sorts of havoc.

Anyway, below is what the information architect wanted me to shout out about......

Hello there Durango. Love your blog. Give Prairie Fest a shout out? Thanks!!

Who: Friends of Tandy Hills Natural Area (FOTHNA)

What: The 9th annual Prairie Fest is a free outdoor festival celebrating the natural world. A FW Weekly Best Outdoor Cultural Event winner, the family-friendly, solar-powered event is Saturday, April 26, 2014, 11am to sunset, rain or shine.  Along with arts, entertainment, and tasty local food and beverages, you'll find prairie wildflower tours, storytellers and science hikes on rolling hills - while spontaneous happenings inside the Prairie Circle of 50 exhibitors feature services and products for sustainable living.

Where: Tandy Hills Natural Area, 3400 View Street, Fort Worth, TX 76103

When: Saturday April 26th, 11am - Sundown

Why: To bring your local Prairie to the People!

More Info: www.tandyhills.org/fest

A New Tandy Hills Hoodoo With A Crow Mad At A Bobcat & Pesky Flies

Well. The Tandy Hills Hoodoo has under gone yet one more remodelling, taking on a different shape than the shape I saw last Friday.

A new shape and it appears a new Hoodoo is sprouting to the north of the main Hoodoo.

After I photo documented the new Hoodoo I found myself suddenly confronted by a very upset crow, making extremely loud crow cawing noises.

A few seconds later I saw what had the crow so upset.

A bobcat suddenly leapt out from the trail which leads to the Hoodoo from the west.

The bobcat saw me and did a quick u-turn, running back from whence it came. I followed, hoping to take a picture, but the bobcat was long gone.

I think today was the first time I've had a bobcat encounter on the Tandy Hills. I may be forgetting one.

I had other wildlife encounters today on the Tandy Hills, with those wildlife encounters being extremely annoying.

I do not recollect ever being bugged by bugs on the Tandy Hills.

Til today.

It was being like a mild version of a late summer high country hike in the North Cascades, where biting deer flies can make hiking miserable, unless one douses oneself in bug spray.

I don't know if it was biting flies which I found myself repeatedly swatting. I do know they looked like a small version of a deer fly. And I don't believe I suffered any bites.

I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but my location in North Texas is way less buggy than my old location in Western Washington. I don't believe I have had a single mosquito bite since I have been in Texas. I never went a summer in Washington without a mosquito bite. My last mosquito bite occurred  the last time I was in Washington, in Tacoma, summer of 2008.

If this fly infestation continues to be a pest on the Tandy Hills I think I may be cutting back on my hill hiking.

Walking With Arlington's Indian Ghosts Perplexed By Litter Mudslides & Kissing A Leggy Ex-Waitress

Today I had myself a mighty fine time taking a Sunday walk with the Indian ghosts who haunt Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

Soon after the Sunday sun arrived, lighting through a cloudy sky, I had a long hot tub hydrotherapy session combined with a long bout in the not too cool pool.

Decades ago I knew a nurse who was known as The Fat Lady. The Fat Lady had a thing about hugging trees. I remember being in Olympic National Park with The Fat Lady with her hugging the biggest tree in the world of some particular type. Was it cedar? I don't remember. I do remember the Fat Lady would only hug a very small part of that particular tree's circumference. The tree hugging sent The Fat Lady into some sort of religious like reverie that was sort of creepy to be an eye witness to.

So, today, with The Fat Lady in mind, I came upon the tree you see above. I think it is an oak. I gave the oak a hug.

I'd like to say I felt the spirit of an Indian ghost pass through me as I hugged the oak. But, I felt nothing.

Spencer Jack's dad, my favorite nephew, Jason, emailed me this morning regarding the massive mudslide that slid down in my old home state of Washington, destroying several homes and killing several people.

More on mudslides below, but first I have to point out the "mudslide" I came upon today in the Village Creek Not So Natural Historical Area. That to which I refer you can see below.

How can a little rain wash this much debris into Village Creek? I am almost 100% certain that Village Creek flows out of the Lake Arlington reservoir. A short distance away. How can this much litter  accumulate in such a short distance?

Continuing with the mudslide subject.

In the same batch of email as the one from Jason regarding the Washington mudslide there was a blog comment from someone named Bulletholes mentioning a Texas mudslide.....

Bulletholes has left a new comment on your post "Illuminating Luminarias in Fort Worth": 

I started working there as a busboy in May of 1975, the day after I graduated High School. I ended up Head Chef a few years later.

Every time the millionaire owner would fly in from California I would tease him that he out to know better than to build a California restaurant on the side of a Texas hill. And he'd laugh at me. Then two years later, I came in one morning after it had been raining for days, got my cup of coffee, went over to the window to look at downtown before starting work (which I did every day) and I got to the window, looked down and the patios were covered up in a mudslde and half the hill was gone.

I just had to laugh.

Somewhere, there is a leggy ex-waitress with a branding iron in the shape of a heart I pulled off the wall. If you see her say hello, kiss her once for me.

The restaurant to which Bulletholes refers used to exist on the west side of the Tandy Hills, at the north end of Ben Street. The first time I was in Fort Worth was in August of 1980. At that point in time I stayed at what was then a Ramada Inn on the north side of I-30 and Beach Street, a short distance from the aforementioned restaurant. I remember seeing that restaurant back then and thinking it looked to be an interesting location. By the time I moved to Texas the restaurant had become an abandoned ruin, but was still standing. Then at some point in time, after that, the remains were razed to the ground, leaving only the cement foundation.

As for kissing a leggy ex-waitress. The only leggy ex-waitress I can think of is Elsie Hotpepper. But, Elsie is unbranded.

Speaking of Elsie Hotpepper, and who isn't? Today whilst walking with the Indian ghosts Elsie Hotpepper texted me with the cryptic message "No Comment?"

I had no idea what "No Comment?" meant so I texted back, verbalizing my perplexation. This turned into multiple textings back and forth. Each time the text noise happened I'd have to sit down at a picnic table or bench in order to text back a reply.

My needing to sit down in order to text a message had me wondering how and why there has been a problem with people texting whilst driving. I don't see how it would be possible to fumble out a message on a phone whilst driving.

At my location I have seen none of the rain that was predicted to be falling this weekend. Nor have I heard a single clap of the predicted thunder. The only part of the weather prediction that has come true is the temperature has been dialed back down to the chilly zone.

I am looking forward to that time of the year when the temperature is reliably, predictably, HOT....

No Thunderstorm Impeded Biking Gateway Park Today Before Town Talking

Apparently I misunderstood the forecast for today's weather. I thought that more than once I heard that thunderstorms were scheduled to rumble in some time after midnight, along with rain.

With an electric wet forecast I figured I would not be swimming or getting any hot tub hydrotherapy this morning, let alone a bike ride in the noon time frame.

I figured wrong. No thunder, no rain, at least so far, coming up on two hours past noon.

So, this morning I was able to have my second long swim of the new year, and then later, a long bike ride on the Gateway Park mountain bike trails.

At one point whilst rolling my wheels today I stopped at a point high above the Trinity River and saw the view you see above. I thought the giant twig stuck in the middle of the river was interesting. How did it get there?

And then I found myself being perplexed by the water rolling down the river.

Where does all this water come from, what with very little rain falling on North Texas, what with the upriver reservoirs  pretty much drained almost dry.

There are no mountains with snowpacks in Texas, melting, and flowing water into rivers.

So, why is there so much water still flowing in the Trinity River?

Anyway, I had myself a mighty fine time bike riding today. I have to say, the Gateway Park mountain bike trails are very well designed. Who figures out where to make a trail like this? The Gateway Park trails are more challenging to me than the River Legacy Park mountain bike trails that I roll on. I stay off the challenging River Legacy Park trails that are beyond my biking ability, like the EKG loop and Fun Town.

Maybe I should give EKG and Fun Town a try. How much harder than the Gateway Park trails can they be I can't help but wonder. Part of the Gateway Park trails could be called Fun Town, because, well, it's fun. Like a twisting and turning roller coaster ride of sharp ups and downs.

I had a successful Treasure Hunt at Town Talk today. Two bags of California mandarins, dozens of Tyson all natural chicken legs, broccoli, extra sharp white cheddar cheese, prickly pear syrup, whole grain Belgian waffles and transmission fluid.

I am fairly certain the transmission fluid is not edible....