Fourth Largest Metropolitan Area In US

New York, LA, Chicago, Dallas. That's the official numbers released over the weekend. From 2017 to 2018, Dallas added 131,000 new residents;since 2010 the area added more than one million new residents.

Today, since it was Easter, the lake would be a nightmare just getting around so I decided to point the car toward Deep Ellum and take the south Dallas route over to Lamar and come in the back door to  Reunion Tower, downtown and made it over to Trinity Groves to Sylvan. The flood gate off the bridge was closed so made it down to Irving Blvd. and the Design District circuit and outbound again  to Mockingbird; made the southern loop around Love Field, out Marsh to Forest and back roaded it into the drive way. For the first time in a long time, every spoke of the wagon wheel circuit had something going on in major changes. Every single spoke. I've been doing this for 10 years and have never seen all the spokes having something major happening in all the spokes. So, today was a good day pretty much for building the storytelling of this blog.

While making the tour, there are some things that deserve mention but for one reason or another, an image can not be published. Almost twenty years ago, now, I worked the  Deep Ellum area and called on the sales department for the Dallas Mavericks. The project came through channels from the CEO of a Fortune One Hundred. As a result, a grant was secured from the Fortune One Hundred for the Deep Ellum Foundation.

While I go to Deep Ellum on a regular basis with one of the spokes, I don't usually go by the Mavs building there as it is a bit off the Elm Main Commerce Streets that flow from Deep Ellum into Downtown and through the tunnels at Dealey Plaza. But, today, I discovered that Dirk has officially made a wall in Deep Ellum. It was is considered street art officially, but the mural was signed and while people do use the image, my editors will not take murals like that any longer, even as editorial and by rights, it is an editorial image with Dirk.It's kind of like a catch-22 situation.

I-30 "the canyon" on the south side of downtown before it hits the I-35E horseshoe

The renaming was done in good taste (pardon the punk WP)Wolfgang operates the restaurant in Reunion Tower, just across the tracks, but you can use the tunnel here to get there..

This was built as the Belo Corportation HQ, the operators of WFAA-TV and Dallas Morning News. The Belo Mansion is cross town on Ross Avenue. It was also a funeral home and Clyde Barrows of famed Bonnie and Clyde lay in state there. It's now home to the Bar Association as in Lawyers.

A big crane is out side First Baptist, multi-block campus downtown. They just finished about $130 Million expansion and the crane is  a sure sign that another project is at hand for the mega church.
One of the near by 10-story open-.parking garage is getting new louvers in an architectural cover to reduce the 'eye sore' of an open 10-story garage with all the construction going on. Dallas Museum of Art had a massive tent on the Ross Avenue side. The Belo Building had the second architectural  awning not only on the ground floor around the building but also on the roof as well. There is a new mid rise building north of Fountain Plaza ( that's the building that has a pointed design), Union Station's been renamed for Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.

For the first time, I got to see the new "small" houses that the city built to some of the homeless. Actually, I wouldn't mind having one of them, myself!! There is a company in Garland that builds them on trailers. I've been looking at them and actully think that I would even like one of those. 

Have A Great Easter

Happy Easter

Metroplex Parking Garages Are Full.

Blue Iris

One guy even said that it looked at Christmas at the Mall. The storms are due to hit between 10pm-2am. Baseball size based on the strength of the storm seems to have everyone freaking out. Just last month, the area received over $100million in damages, plus. The car dealerships spent the last couple of days moving their cars into garages and under hail tents.  There has been so much damage in the Metroplex of late from large hail storm that people seem to be in panic mode. It's a catch-22 situation, too. The weather guys want to warm people and rightly so, but it gets carried to far with the way the news cycles are rigged.

It was even funny during the afternoon news that starts at 4PM here. One guy had covered his car with pool noodles, all tied together neatly. One , had covered in blankets, pillows, even a purse hanging over the door handle. And, a Gardener covered his cars and windows with bags of mulch. Now that seems to be the winner in my book because you don't have to tie those down. The weight of the bags are held in place by gravity and it's gonna keep baseball-size hail from breaking windows and putting dents into the hoods and roof.

One line of thinking came from a guy that said that it was cheaper to pay the $9 parking fee at DFW airport garage than pay the deductible of his car insurance policy for glass and repairs. Several of the large public parking garages had filled up by noon. One family parked three cars in one garage and drove the worse car to collect everyone at the garage from their family and take them home. The garage only had enough space to park one car.

Winds are expected up to 70 MPH. All-in-all it's spring time in North Texas. This is our month before it moves north in May and farther north by June and ding ding ding as the hail will sound. The universities cancelled classes and activities beginning at 6 tonight.

The forecast for Easter is sun, sun, sun and warm 80 degrees. Did I mention clear skies? Don't laugh. It was overcast today and by three o'clock this afternoon the sun was breaking through the thick clouds.That only adds fuel to the instability of the atmosphere and makes the strong storms even stronger The squall line is coming together as I type this. The overall system slowed down and it does seem that the hail cores have reduced in size to nickle, dime and quarter size.

Iris on a Lake

A male wood duck

Thunder,Lightening,Wind,Hail,Flash Flooding

It was a jolt from sleep. Normally, I hear muffled rumbles of thunder and weak flashes of light if  I wake up at all. Last night was something else. The roars of thunder were astonishing as was the flashes of lightening that lit up my bedroom through blackout drapes. It was so unusual, I grabbed my phone and checked the NBC weather App to see a line of storms covering the Metroplex all the way back to Abilene. As it was, tornadoes hit Franklin, Texas south of Dallas.

 While it wasn't as bad sounding after the initial jolt, it still could be heard enough that I cap napped for another two hours before finally giving in to a return to sleep. I slept beyond my usual time to wake up by over an hour and that was interrupted with yet another round of rowdy thunder and lightening. Had that not happened, I might have slept to noon.

It was closer to two before I got out of the house with umbrella in hand. And a troublesome tire picked today to be the day to split at the shoulder and was nearly flat. So, my first stop was to the friendly tire shop to get a new tire. Some days are just filled with surprises and I deal with them as they come up. There is no need to worry about things that you cannot control.

There were still several weather hazards still active of which one was a flash flood warning for White Rock Creek. That is always one that will bring me to the lake even if I hadn't planned on going. The flow of White Rock Creek is like a river, not a creek, and  in the summer, the Trinity River is more like a creek than a river. It's one of those misnomers that is somewhat of a paradox. The flow of plastic bottles and debris is rather sickening. It comes from all the northern burbs and get picked up in the runoff flow of alleyways, ditches then into storm drains and into White Rock Creek.

As I made my way around the lake, the secondary spillway and White Rock Creek below the tidal pool from the main dam and spillway were level with each other. That's normally a 30 to 40 foot drop. The USGS gauges in the tidal pool were all under water. I didn't even check the website because the readings would not be posting or at flood stage or above. But, it was drawing a large number of  people to take photos and selfish with the roaring water behind them.

When I made my way down West Lawther, the parking areas and docks were all pretty much empty but alone the shoreline, the high winds had pushed the debris flow all the way across the lake from where White Rock Creek enters the lake to the west side of the lake's shorelines. The water didn't get as high as I had thought that I would find it and that is a good thing. The clean up of plastic will be confined to the shoreline in a about a two foot wide band of wood and plastic.

This is the tidal pool below the main dam and spillway. Where  you see a line between smooth surface and more rough water is where the secondary spillway steps down that 30 feet drop. White Rock Creek begins again right at the bridge line going south into south Dallas where it flows into the Trinity River. From there its a few hundred miles to the Gulf.

Here comes the water over the dam and down the long and wide spillway into the two channels on either side of the island into the tidal pool before it makes that left turn at the secondary spillway that is big blocks like steps that drops about 30 feet in height where it returns to White Rock Creek again 

The west side of the lake where the debris has collected for several hundred yards.

Found More Big Trees Down Today

The tree was somewhat diseased for sure but it's always amazing to me the directions that they fall. Not as expected and one of the reasons that I can't be found at the lake in super high wind days. If you have ever heard that sound of a cracking tree and then the quck and sudden plop and vibration on the ground, big trees and high winds don't mix. To see people parking their cars right under these monsters, it's only a matter of time before one drops on a car some where.

Even  Found one of the Kestrel Hawks Hanging Out

Although I got a late start today, I still made a shortened trip to the lake by mid afternoon. The sky had started to clear away from the clouds that came with the cold front that was pushing through dry. The wind did return, however. It blew Texas dust into South Dakota and Minnosota where it landed on top of the fresh snow as a brown coating. Imagine that!

I found more big trees that had been toppled by the strong winds of yesterday and discovered a few things as well. It appears that a pair of wood ducks were 15 feet up in a big tree right under our noses and when the branch cracked and fell, mother wood duck flew in and the chicks all bailed out of the tree, bouncing on the ground and waddling off with mom to the lake. Several people saw the event unfold and I think that I just had missed it by a few minutes according to my source that was only a few feet away when the limb cracked and dropped and then the ducks jumped out onto the ground 15 feet below. That's the thing with wood ducks and has always amazed me that the chicks do that as just a happening in nature. It's what they do!

Any now, that they survived, I have to watch and see where they will be swimming. It does concern me some as I had just witnessed the day before a big diamond-backed snake deliver what seemed to be dozens of little snakes that are now roaming for food in that same area. I know, that its part of natures way but I just hate to see cute little ducks disappear one by one until they are much larger. Also, area hospitals have reported their first snake bite of the season already. People, snakes are crawling. Don't go walking through the grass in flip flops.

Once again, the trees are on both sides of the lake. Some more prominent than others as far as being noticed. Parks will get them out of the way in due course. They have so many things going on right now including mowing and tree branch pick up.They do such a great job at keeping the lake in great condition for the size of it.

I'm back to gas rationing with the price of gas at $2.699. It means the number of spokes on the wagon wheel  will either be cut back, cut out or not be visited near as often. Right at the time when the summer shoot schedules are about to kick off, it just might have to be cancelled. And, once again, the threat of closing the website has some long shadows cast on it already.

Next to the Big Thicket Cottage

Deepak Chopra Made Me Go Back

Yes, this is not a blame game. Deepak didn't do anything like making me feel guilty or feel bad to bring on  an unusual action that I have not done in almost 10-years. He does not believe in stress or things that our minds can conger up. We do that our selves.  Not to get sidetracked here with Deepak, but as a result of seeing an interview with him this week, it struck a note that rang clear as a bell in my head.

If you are not an NBA fan, you might or might not know that last nights home game at the AAC was Dirk Nowitzki's final home game after 21 seasons. The big German came to the Mavs from Germany when he was 20 and was a class act on and off the court during those years. His sister and his father were here from Germany to see him score the 30 points in the final game at home. The Mavs had an amazing presentation for him and the emotions were heavy throughout the ACC and across the land and around the world as his fans said good bye. At the end of the game, the team packed up and took the  4 to 5 hour bus ride to San Antonio for tonights game, the last game of the season. Dirk will play that as his final game overall, and last night at the AAC was his final home game and the announcement that he would be retiring. Number 41 has made history many times and his jersey will be retired as well, not to be worn in a Mavs game ever again. While I am more of a basketball fan than I let on, I was set to watch the game tonight from San Antonio. But, something came over me and I really felt a type of anxiety come over me that is not normal for me. So, I dressed again for travel and, grabbed my water bottle and camera case and pointed the car toward the lake. Since this afternoons trip with the high winds, I like to listen to the wind sing on the cords that hoist the sails up on the sailboats; in Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures, mermaids, who lured nearby sailors with their  Alkonost · Banshee · Circe to their death. The vibrating sounds are somewhat soothing to listen to. Often, I will park for a few extra minutes when high winds blow.

In the short drive to the Big Thicket,, I was stunned to see two big limbs (these limbs were the size of  most 60 year old tree trunks are round) down on the parking lots where the kayak rental sets up and a short distance on down the road. They had been twisted off. With high wind warnings, extended to 10 PM these limbs had been brought down since I left the lake earlier this afternoon and my return near sunset. 

So, Deepak had demostrated how to wash away any kind of  anxiety or stress. It was just what I needed and I'm glad that I  made the extra trip tonight. 

At sunset with the approach of the cold front and with contrails from high altitude flights in different vectors the view was stunning.

The colors were spectacular.

Gossomers Backlit by Sunlight, NTD and a Crow

In case anyone is wondering---I'll filling in areas where my portfolios are not balanced. The best time to get caught up on those things happen in spring and fall, Summer takes care of itself and winter is the area that has suffered the most. When we don't get any snow or ice storms and a major parade is sidelined after years and years of Christmas Parades that were syndicated to major TV markets around the country, the Christmas side of the portfolio has been filled  with Christmas displays, ornaments and tree toppers. While that is Holiday category for sure, it does have more holes  than any of the others.

It even seems to me that I am shooting the same thing every time  I go out. But, it's one of those things that falls into that clever saying that TXU uses on its website when they do maintenance when they post, "We've got to change the light bulbs sometime."

Gossomer in Sunlight

May 23rd is National Turtle Day 2019.

A Crow or a Raven?  It's a Crow. Ravens do everything in pairs and have a wedged tail. Crows are in large groups of 6 or more and have a fan tail.