Unidentified Texas Tarantula

It has been mentioned many times in this blog that I do not travel without my camera on the passenger seat. It has been very handy even for a trip to the grocery store. Yesterday, while looking for a pair of falcons that have for the past two years called an old water tower in a local cemetery their home, I see this object on the roadway ahead  of me moving in the center of the roadway. I stop, get out of the car with my camera in hand and walk behind this moving object until I see the largest spider that I have ever seen.

 Then, I see this big F-150 or F-250 coming down the road at me. Waving my hands, the truck stops,puts down the window and before the lady could think me crazy, I pointed to the spider in front of her  as I said that I was trying to rescue this spider to a tree before it got run over. She jumped out of the truck and with less caution than I would exercise was using her phone to take a picture at very close range. She said that she had not seen one like the one on the roadway in a while, gets in her truck and drives around the spider as I call out to her that her tires were clear.

I'm still walking behind this spider following it as long as it was on the roadway as another car approached. Doing the same hand wave as before, I got the car to stop before the tires rolled over the spider. This time, however, the spider moved under the car and was in front of the rear tire on the drivers side. I ask the guy if he could back up slowly about a foot. I used a tree branch about two feet long to get the spider to attack the stick as I moved the stick with the spider holding on away from the gentleman's car. He was surprised to see such a large spider. His passenger was trying to get him to put up the window because she didn't like spiders. I thanked the man and they drove on.  With the spider on the stick I move him to a nearby tree and he readily climbes onto the tree trunk and moves  to the fork in the main trunk where the spider stops and appeared to be well adjusted. With that rescue done, I'm on the way home. Here is a couple of images of what I discovered and  is commonly called a Texas Tarantula, though I am trying to id the species more at the Texas A&M extension service for Texas critters.

Several weeks ago I say my first armadillo in a roadway that had been run over by a car. This year alone, spotted in nature, were a coyote, a bald eagle and a water snake, on her clutch of eggs that were washed into the lake during a heavy rain event;an American Muskrat, the armadillo  and now, the tarantula. It's most likely because of the returning drought conditions that is bringing these rarely seen critters out in more populated areas.

When first seen on roadway

A Texas tarantula male. Males have two hooks on their front two legs and they are venomous.

 

Calling all Rock Climbers

The outside set-up for training

Until yesterday, I didn't know such a place existed in the Metroplex. It was a discovery that I had not expected or anticipated finding. After talking with the owner for a bit, he gave me a tour inside the facility.

In the foothills outside Denver, there is a concert venue named Red Rocks. It got its name from the two towering rock formations at the entrance of the facility. Recalling my first experience watching rock climbers enjoying their hobby/sport was a mine burn. Since then, everytime the combination of those two words appearing together or is heard together, the mental picture of that day at Red Rocks pops into view. It is  as clear today in my mind as it was those many years ago.

Looking upward inside that 110 foot silo yesterday  also reminded me of something I said in a post several months ago  that: " one thing I would not do is climb out on an I-beam several hundred feet above grade to get a image of an ironworker sitting on that beam eating his lunch sandwich" as my old AP friend,Steve Dodrill did.. Never-the-less the facility has six such "rooms" plus the outside scaling wall set-up. The owner is a wilderness adventures outrigger in Frisco,Texas and uses the training facility  to teach leadership,team building and personal adventure skills. The North Texas Outdoor Pursuit Center is the official name of the facility in the old Blanton Grain Towers in downtown Carrollton,Texas. The Green Line's Carrollton Station is a football field North of the facility. Here are a couple of shots of the facility.

Entrance on the West Side of the Blanton Towers
 

This is the West Side view of the Blanton Grain Towers. They rise 110 feet. Each silo is a training center. The microwave repeaters are just a value added service of the facility
 

 

More Trinity Development Evident

Looking East up Singleton Blvd toward downtown



The Sylvan Avenue Bridge Project Is Underway

The stainless Steel tanks would suggest a micro brewery--maybe?

Since the  opening of the new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, the area West of the bridge along Singleton Boulevard has increased its development. The new Trinity Commons Project is already showing new stonework,sidewalks and even something that looks like a new micro brewery. This area is getting ready to pop economically and commands watching closely.

Eagles at White Rock

For those that missed the rare view....here is one. The pair were fishing near the dam/spilway. This is looking Northeast from  Garland Road at the spilway toward Winfrey Point.

Remembering United Flight 232 on this Day 23 years ago.

The following is a comment posted today in response to an article about teenage vandalizing of the United 232 Memorial in Sioux City.




It's always hard to lose a close friend. I lost one on United 232.The number of times I have seen the video of the plane tumbling down the runway in an orange ball of fire is vividly imprinted on my mind to this day. George was on his way home to his high school reunion. We would have been in the same high school but a new school was build and a line drawn in the sand. George stayed at the old high school and I went to the new one. We knew the same friends, we went to college together. Over the years we didn't stay in touch though not as much as we should have but we still thought of each other as friends. In high school I had four close friends. Over time, they have passed one,by one. Three in accidents, one of a nasty cancer. I've also lost a son who at 27 was in his prime of life having done everything right. Over the years, this date, this crash, this United 232 has come to be the anniversary of my friends and my son.My son came through Sioux City with his grandmother en route to my niece's wedding in Nebraska just a year before his death. Sioux City is so dear to me. Life is somewhat odd how various parts of life meet as in its own reunion or wedding. The people of Sioux City remember a terrible plane accident. I remember the loss of a very good friend who seems to call out once a year that the Sioux City Reunion Club is calling the membership to order. Grief is slowly turning into healing though the losses still show as scars in my soul, but pain is growing less severe. Thank you Sioux City for being the guardian of a bigger memorial than you can ever know you watch over.

Thanks to Amy Hynde at the Sioux City Journal for taking care of a technical problem earlier in the day.
www.siouxcityjournal.com

Another Post from Fair Park (Part 2)

It goes without saying that Fair Park is the largest collection of Art Deco buildings assembled in one place. There are things at Fair Park that I know that are there, but I have not seen them to date. Sometimes it is a bit of pressure (self-created) to get everything edited from a days shoot and filed where they need to be for future reference. Usually, that is either to my editors sites, this blog or the delete button.Sometimes, I might send one or two to a local lab to be processed which I have printed for an album that sits on my coffee table.
Before hitting that delete button, however, usually, I will go over an image at full power from top to bottom and side to side. Amazingly, one will see things that  had been missed or were just in to much of a rush to really appreciate what your image is really all about. This image is just such a discovery!

If you have been to Fair Park and have every been to the former Women's Museum Building, the art deco art work sculptures are amazing. There is one at Fair Park that I haven't seen, but I know it is on the grounds somewhere. Not making a special effort to find it specifically, my thinking was that in time, I would eventually cover the full 177 acres and would discover the location of the unseen statue.

While giving the image the last and final inspection I found the missing statue at Fair Park! Now that I know the location, I can now focus on getting a much better shot of the statue, but that will have to wait for now. 

Fair Park the Day After

It was a hard decision to not go to the fireworks at Fair Park yesterday. The heat isn't good for an old man like me. My prescription bottles even say that I should avoid the sun and long exposures to the heat. So by the time mid morning rolled around, it was time to get out for a couple of hours before it got really hot.

Cleaning up after the fireworks was in full force today. It usually is a cool time to get some interesting shots. Also, one of the stations had been moved from the Railroad Museum to its new home in Frisco within the past week. The rolling stock is scheduled to be moved over live tracks later on this month. While at Fair Park I wanted to  check out the train situation. I pointed Nikon  Buggy toward Fair Park and headed out.

The Texas Button on the Texas Star Ferris Wheel

The Texas Skyway was even testing out the cable cars.

Admiral Nimitz and Cotton Bowl Circle

As expected, the 177-acre park of streets, museums, restaurants, etc., crews were busy all over the place. The interesting shots abounded,too. In keeping with the prescription warning, I parked in the shade, traveled in the shade and shot from the shade. A limit in some sense but still manageable, all things considered.