And The Caissons Go Rolling Along

My readers would never believe the connection that got me out to the National Cemetery today, but I'm gonna tell it like it happened anyway. As everyone has heard by now, Interstate Brands Corporation with their Corporate Office in Irving, Texas has said that they are shutting down their 31 bakeries because of labor more than their bankruptcy that they are currently in. That's the people who bake the famous Hostess Twinkie golden sponge cake.

While I haven't had a Twinkie in years I went on the web and discovered that while there are no bakeries here in Dallas, they do have two "day old" stores. One was in Hurst, the other in Oak Cliff. There wasn't much difference in miles to either one of the two stores , but there was a big difference in traffic to one over the other so I gave the cat a hug, told her to be good and I headed out the door. By the time I got to the store, I was a few miles shy of Cowboys Stadium but about half again the distance to the Dallas -Ft. Worth National Cemetery. I like going there in the spring and also like visiting in the fall. So, with a right hand turn and a left hand turn, it was a straight shot our Keist Blvd. past Reverend Jake's Potter House (Whitney Houston's Funeral Speaker) which is just a large block from the Dallas Baptist University Campus. This campus sits on a massive hill overlooking  Mountain Creek  Lake but the spectacular draw for me is the architecture of it's buildings, especially the church that has the massive steeple. If you have ever been to Old Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, the church up the hill from the market has one of those steeples. I wish I could find a place to park and just gaze upon the elements of the fantastic architecture. I did stop at the guard post house last spring and they said I could take pictures, just not from the grounds. Later, I ran into a retired professor who said to me, "who told you you couldn't take pictures?" He was rather disturbed to say the least, but I do understand to some degree---especially in today's society-- but the architecture is impressive and inspiring and I still want some shots from the grounds.

Almost got sidetracked-- but when you see those buildings....you need to make a turn onto Mountain Creek Parkway as the cemetery is adjacent to the university's property.

With a bag on the seat of the car full of Twinkie Boxes, here I am in between  several funerals. To me, it is an honour to be among those that fight for our freedom, even in death. Silently, from  one of the hill tops, I said a prayer for the fallen and their families.

Beauty and Honour

Looking toward the front gate, but the drive along the funeral route will leave your speachless.

Many times, I have written about how I end up coming up with an image. Never, have I been driven by a Hostess Twinkie Sponge Cake but as it turned out, I got my Twinkies and I got my shot, as unusual as it may be to have that kind of a driving force to end up in the National Cemetery. The death of a Twinkie Brand unnecessarily kind of runs parallel to an necessary death for a soldier.

Service Areas A-E  and Memorial Walk

 

Fall Afternoon of Potpourri Images

Old No. 7 to sick to travel on it's own,hence the hospital move.

Good grief, how long has that been there?

When days are free of appointments  from my medical friends who poke and jab and twist and probe their areas of expertise, I celebrate byspending the entire afternoon just looking at fall colors and light patterns. Surprisingly enough, I find some interesting things to photograph. I call those afternoons Potpourri Images. Here are a few.

A soccer ball on a rebuilt dock in late afternoon sunlight.

 

The Awesome Success of..........

the Klyde Warren Deck Park that is the new 5-acre park built over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway that had cut off Uptown from Downtown for years has now united the two parts of the city with success. The park was packed with people playing checkers, using putting greens, playing table tennis, using chess tables, throwing footballs,baseballs, spreading blankets for picnicking on the common areas, and doing a whole lot of eating from the many gourmet food trucks lined up on the downtown side People walking their pets, were everywhere and there was a birthday party happening,too. I was shocked to see that many people downtown in a park and it not being a parade or march or something political or civic.

Klyde Warren Deck Park

The key image of what a united Uptown and Downtown looks like.
Looking North into Uptown from the downtown side of the Klyde Warren Deck Park.

 

The bottom line is that it is safe to project that the new park is already a major success for Dallas. If today's crowd is any indication of what is to come from here on out.......just wait until the pavilion  is ready and the bands and performers begin to take the stage.

Jane's Lane in the Klyde Warren Deck Park.

 

People from Nepal

A couple of weeks ago, I meet four extended family members that are living here in Dallas area. They are from Nepal. The beauty of the country, the culture of the country are two things that I like about their country. While the Democratic Republic of Nepal has only been formally proclaimed since the early 1950s it is difficult to remember that this former kingdom / realm is in a part of the world that has history dating back nearly 5000 years. It is pointed out in history that when Columbus was announcing that he took credit for founding the new world in 1492, the realm in Nepal had been split into three kingdoms some 10 years earlier in 1482. Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur were created in that 1482 political move. So the nation that contains the world's highest point, Mt. Everest, stately noted by so many that scale the 29,029 foot peak from the Nepali side, The Great Himalaya Range is still growing upward on the Euro-Asia plate as the Indo-Gangetic Plain which is on the India sub-continent slides below the Euro-Asian pushing up the mountain higher and higher. Lasers and GPS measurements give the geologist the best and most accurate readings ever taken.

A Nepali Extended Family that now live here in Dallas.

One thing that I didn't know about the region is that  the Kathmandu Valley celebrates the four major seasons  plus the monsoon season which is stopped by the mountain range from going any farther North. The nation, which is a tad bigger than the US state of Arkansas, measures 490 plus by 125 plus miles and the high plain in the Arctic circle starts at a bit more that  the 14,210 feet of Pike's Peak in US Colorado. So there are some unique statistics about the country.

For me, when I was in fourth grade, my teacher gave the class an assignment to tell the class where would be the one place in the world that we would like to visit someday. I had always remembered that lesson more than any other.

In 1985, as my flights departure and climb-out in one of the last departures from Rio de Janiero's old airport,I looked down over the beautiful bay and Sugar loaf, the beaches  of Ipo and Coco, it came to me what the point made in that lesson had been in fourth grade and realizing that at that moment, I had been to my dream place.Then,  my thoughts turned immediately to where I would want to go next. The years have made it more difficult to pinpoint one place specifically. Still-- not having zeroed in any closer on what would be my bucket list now----I came up with (a) Nepal and Kathmandu  (b) Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa before the snow caps completely melt  (c) China or Australia. However, as in anything the list grows to St. Petersburg/Kiev, sunset from the Atlas Mountains, an as strange as it may seem, Paris. My father,a 20 year-old farm boy, was in Paris during the liberation in WWII. I also remember the old song. "How you gonna  keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen P-A-R-E-E". The song came from WW I in 1919 from W.Donaldson,Victor sung by Baritone, Arthur Field.
 

A Few Heavies

American Airlines is obviously a big user at DFW International Airport. Normally, the bulk of the fleet coming in are the workhorse craft, MD-80s. Yesterday, I noticed few MD-80s but a lot of their Regional jets flown by American Eagle. It took me a while to realize that the rest of the traffic was fairly normal then it hit me...what I was seeing was the Hurricane Sandy backlash with equipment stuck in places where they couldn't get out etc. That equipment had to be filled in with something else until the planes could flow back into the system. I have one word for the visual shock.....amazing!
Here are a few heavies arriving.

A China Airlines Cargo 747 on final to Runway 18R

A British Airways Passenger Flight also with 747 equipment.
I liked the old name--- BOAC. It had a romantic ring to it.

 

Airport Firemen at Work

One of the Big Boys rolling on an in flight emergency on final.

You can see the two big boys (21 and 22) and a regular ladder truck and supervisor car on the roll to the runway 13 where the emergency plane will be handled.
Click on any of the images to enlarge

We all dread looking out the window of a jet and seeing flashing lights on firetrucks lined up on a taxiways or runway, but those pieces of equipment and men that man that equipment are there to help whatever the emergency might be--even if it doesn't involve an aircraft. Today, it was for an aircraft that had an emergency on a 10-mile final at Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport.

A Contrast Between Earth and Sky

Yesterday was  the most perfect day to be outdoors. It was 63 F, the sky was deep blue and the humidity was almost now existent. I drove to the lake, parked, got my backpack on and I went for a long and slow walk, stopping to look at wildlife,birds, trees loaded with fruit and  a lake that could have been a mirror. It's about 8 miles from the lake to downtown and the reflection of the high rises made a perfect copy on the water.

The fall prairie grass on a rolling hill

The return of hundreds of pelicans on their annual migration

The interesting part of this post for me is that standing in one spot, I see a field of wild prairie grass  on a rolling hillside and looking from that spot directly overhead is a sky of migrating pelicans with eyes set on the lake. Earlier in the month there was a post that announced that the pelicans were back. Well, the mass directly overhead will swell the population by a several time factors. It was without doubt a contrast between earth and sky in North Texas.