SMU/Mockingbird
I'm liking City Line More Each Time I Visit.
Upon arriving at City Line/ Bush Station the construction of all the new apartments has more than doubled since my last trip up there. Where I get off the train and walk the area includes the several buildings of State Farm Insurance Regional Office Towers 1,2 and 3. The restaurants, hotels and offices are built on what I remember was a hay field at Renner Road and Plano Road just north of what is known as Lookout. It's a different type of interesting place. By that, I mean, it is unusual. It is quaint. It is sprawling. It is a mix of residential and commercial. It is medical. Nestles in between the George Bush Turnpike and North Central Expressway which I call the NCX aka US 75. It's pretty bad in Dallas now with the President George Bush Turnpike (that's 41) and the George Bush (with a section re-named for 43 around Mockingbird and NCX. A street in University Park on the campus of SMU is also named after 43 next to his Library. Then there is the Sam Rayburn for highway 121 and let us not forget the LBJ which was smart. For example, the LBJ and NCX is so much easier and for those that are now lost, that's the High 5. Interstate 635 and US 75.
That's the driving part. I like it because it is just one name for train riders. But, still, it has the word Bush connected to it. City Line/Bush Station. That will soon be tempered with the addition of the Silver Line at City Line/Bush station, which was the purpose of the trip to see the station progress. Much to my surprise, the station, is just west of the Dart light rail's City Line/ Bush platform. There, you can see the steel girders coming up out of the cement platforms with the pilings going up to raise the grade over the NCX northbound. as it turns more southerly toward the UT Dallas campus in the Frankfort and Campbell area east of Coit road and just south of the Bush Turnpike. Are you totally confused, yet?
The progress is taking shape more rapidly I suppose because of the good non-winter weather where workmen can make "hay" (pardon the pun) while the sun shines with record temps for December. And so did I while shooting more images thus far this December than any single month from my first surgery in 2019. Also, yesterday's trip was the best and longest walk that I have had this year. Still, a bit short of my 9-mile record for one outing but progress is being made. I even felt good walking and didn't have the muscle pain in my legs afterwards.
I will say this. Dallas does have a hodgepodge way of naming streets that must be anchored in some historic cattle drive notebook or something. I have been in a lot of major cities and have a good sense of direction, but here in Dallas, it is the only place where you start out on one street and never get off of it and it has a different name at the end than where it started. Miller Road/Royal Lane. And, there are many examples of that. If things like that bother you, looky here. A street can start our north and south and end up east and west. How 'bout them cowboys and I don't mean the The Tuna's version of a football team or Jimmy Johnson's version, either. Don't get me wrong. I love Dallas. Always have. Always will.
