Only 363 more days left this year

 It's been said over and over from common man to Theologians everywhere, "Time waits for no man". It's always is a  reminder to me that you got to be in the starting gate and ready when that ball drops for all the things that you promised yourself that you were going to do in 2023. 

I have seen people do the annual ritual of writing down all the things that they want to leave behind, putting them in a bowl, pit or grill and set them on fire. Two months from now, they will still be doing the very things that they burned on those little slips of paper that they were acting out to be leaving behind for many of those that went through the motions. That: is not being at the gate ready to hit the road running when that ball drops on the New Year.  Don't be one of those people. It's like what my mother always warned about. "Nothing good happens after midnight" meaning that when you go out for dinner or entertainment, when it's over, come on home.  

Having said that, we were out the gate first thing yesterday morning. Although it was hard to believe that about 10-days ago were were in Arctic air and single digits to yesterdays 77°F at the 15:56 reporting hour at DFW International, our official record keeping for Dallas. That's more-or-less a 70° swing in temperatures. February is, by records and tradition, our coldest month of winter in the Metroplex. 

Not knowing if the American White Pelicans had made it back to White Rock Lake in October, I set my aim on Sunset Bay. I stopped at Jimmy Johns and picked up a sub and drink after getting off the bus and beginning my walk down to the lake were I ate my lunch at the picnic tables on the Sunset Bay Cottage patio.

There had been some major capital improvements to roads, and roads that have been blocked off for many years with post that rise up at control points with new column post with the White Rock markings after new water lines had been run through the park the last time that I was out shooting before my hospitalization.  In short, very nicely done. 

People were our in droves. Bikers, walkers, strollers, skateboarders, photographers, pic- nickers. From there, I rode via bus to downtown for the first time in 2023 and then taking the train out to North Dallas transferring to bus for the final trip home. It was a delightful 5-hour outing with some good pictures, and some even more good-er!!!!!

Strong storms from Dallas East to the Arklatex.  These storms and system is part of that Pacific storm that hit the Sierra and Sierra Nevada north of Lake Tahoe. Truckee had tons of snow and the first time I have ever seen snow on the side of a telephone pole protrude a foot or better out from the side from bottom to top.US Highway 50 was blocked by large bolders onto the roadway were so large, they will need to be blown up to remove them. It is also the same storm that actor Mr. Jeremy Renner was injured in with a snow plow accident he was driving at his Reno, Nevada home. Reno is just 40 odd miles from Truckee, California and Lake Tahoe. Time and time again I have watched Pacific Coast storms come through Truckee via like cameras  and drop on into the Metroplex in a day or two later. Such is happening here at this time.

                                    New Capital Improvements at White Rocck Lake

A beautiful female mallard swims with her mate close by. She had been feeding in the shallows near a dock.

click on any of the images and the enlarger will open so you can see them better.

The colony of American White Pelicans that arrive every year shortly after the scouting group come a couple of weeks earlier. They stay until about the third week of March when they head North toward the boarder states with Canada to nest.