As Much As I Love the Arboretum, Build Your Garage on Your New Lot!

The City of Dallas wants to cut (and destroy) the fields of Wildflowers at Winfrey Point,White Rock Lake,especially with the Dale Chihuly Exhibit about to open at the Arboretum The first hint of trouble came earlier when parking was allowed at the ball diamonds and a shuttle ran trips from the lot to the arboretum.  Last year,  a lot was used on Gaston Avenue with tour buses running shuttles every 15 minutes. The kicker: Parking at the big lot on the grounds of the Arboretum went up from $7.00 to $10.00 this year and when you park off grounds, the Arboretum looses the parking fees. This year, a new lot across SR78 (Garland Road) opened but now city hall is talking about a garage! A 15-17 million dollar garage.

One of the areas in the background where the city wants to destroy the wildflowers and build a garage or establish parking. Note the local CBS affiliate trucks in the lower right of the sign. Another TV crew was off to the left filming.

The wild flowers are one of the unique things about Texas springs. This is when we really need Lady Bird Johnson, again! 

New Temple for Buddhist Center of Dallas

Today was the ceremony for affixing gold leaf and installation of the Nimitr Balls and Temple Corner Markers at the Buddhist Center of Dallas.Events are planned for several more days.
The temple is in the tradition of Theravada, Thai Dhammayut order. It's a beautiful building and setting.The link to the Centers website is: Http://www.watdallas.org

Eloquent Eloquence on all Levels

A long awaited ceremony for a new temple.

Gussied up for a 100 year Celebration and a splash of Chihuly about to be Opened Officially

The Munger Place Methodist Church, founded in 1913 is a fine example of English Gothic architecture. With the help of Highland Park Methodist, Munger Place got a face lift.

The orange ball is part of a many pieces of blown glass by glass artist Dale Chihuly being readied for the opening of the exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum the first few days of May. The exhibit will run to November 5th.

100 years in 2013. As English Gothic Architecture goes, 100 years is just a toddler.

The Dale Chihuly Exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum is preparing for the May opening of the Exhibit. Sam Champion of ABC's GMA will be at the Arboretum on May 5th to kick off the opening. Today, from Winfrey Point, one of the pieces can be seen on the grounds of the Arboretum as the displays are made ready. Let's all hope that Dallas does not get any big hail storms until the exhibit closes.

Absolute Absolutely

An afternoon walk through the tall grasses.

Texas Wildflowers rise above the tall grasses.

It was an absolute that it was a perfect spring afternoon in North Texas,absolutely! Enjoyed an e-mail from an old friend who had just returned from Charleston, South Carolina. It inspired me to get out and take some pictures today.

A New Look for Spring

Dear Readers,

Some of you will like the new look while others will not. The new look offers a lot more options and the social media groups will be more able to share my images with their family and friends. It will be a bit frustrating until the regular users adjust to the in and out flow of material. The new visitors will learn from the beginning and it won't be a big problem. It's been frustrating for me already but I'm getting the grasp of it already so I know you will too. Just hang in there!

I hope all of you continue to visit us as before. The one thing that I miss already and will need to restart is the world map by location of our visitors. Most of you have already noticed that the counter stopped at 7473 and the world map has archived more than once already. That was a precursor to the changes you see today. I'm trying very hard to get things back to a normal situation. All I have to do is "Hang In There!!!!!"------Like you!

Thanks for being patient.

Vendor Tents

At one time, I was a strong supporter for March of Dimes. Growing up as the first group of baby boomers, The March of Dimes was a well respected organization. When it comes to  organizations as a whole,  I'm not so sure about that anymore,but I still give March of Dimes and a very limited number of others their respect in this day of "Everyone has a Cause" grab-game of money and power. Having said that, this Saturday, April 21st at 9 am at Norbuck Park at White Rock Lake, the March for Babies event kicks off for another year. The tents have been going up for two days. There are 70 vendors and get this: NO PARKING. Everything is shuttle bus ("please allow 30 minutes to park and ride the shuttle"). The closest and shortest shuttle ride in distance is the Dart White Rock Rail Station. The longest and it might be a toss up in miles......Valley View Mall or Mocking Bird Station. It might be more efficient to load a C-130 Transport and drop the crowd off at once! I've co-chaired large events before. Most were when a cell phone was mounted in the trunk of your car and not in your pocket. We've come a long ways, I suppose. Imagine riding a shuttle ("please allow 30 minutes to park and ride the shuttle") every time you needed to use your phone in those days.

Turtles on a Log and a Goose on a Nest

The turtles have been scarce of late but today, I found the old crew hanging out in a new place. While trying to get the shot before they piled off the log into the water, I found a goose setting on her nest. By the time I got back to the turtles, a park survey was heading toward the turtles.......luckily, the guy saw me and sat down on a picnic table until I got my shot. As I started for the car, all I could hear was the plunk,plunk, of turtles diving off the log into the water. The park guy was going the other way with his clipboard under his arm. Here is the goose and a bunch of big turtles.

A goose on her nest

The Senior Citizens of the Turtle Community