Did a Walking Discovery Around An Old Stomping Grounds.....

 where I had watched the complex being build from my office before retiring completely. From the distance, of a couple of blocks, I had watched the old mid rises fall to the demolition implosions to the rising frames of the Iron Structural Skeleton of what I saw from my parking lot and had even made an abstract from one of the images, where I had shot a sunset shinning through the I-beams as the structures grew. Then, I had it blown up in size and framed, which I still look at daily. 

When the  first part of the development was complete, I had driven into the maze of parking structures and stores that opened initially shopping at Dick's Sporting Goods and Whole Foods, which at the time, Whole Foods was the largest Whole Foods in total square footage in the system. It was set up to where it had parking below the store and  parking up on top that was raised above grade level by some twenty feet more or less. 

The two core buildings that were there before the mid rise fell are still there today. One being the Art Institute of Dallas and the Culinary School next to the Art Institute, behind or across the way originally, but now is right in the heart of all the residential mid-rise living, shops, restaurants etc. The landscaping is exciting and one of the neighboring buildings (a high rise on the south side of the complex now is home to A&M Commerce, part of the Texas A&M University's Commerce,Texas campus which now has a presence in Dallas besides the Dental School near Deep Ellum and the new campus being created in Ft. Worth. 

If any of my readers are familiar with the fabled North Park Mall, this complex sits across North Central Expressway on the East Side connected directly from North Park with a bridge crossing US 75 (North Central) between the two complexes. So, in short, the complex is Park Lane south to Blackwell, between US75 and Greenville Avenue. Dart has a rail station across Park Lane at Greenville that runs a shuttle bus to North Park Mall. I walked the blocks just mentioned plus I walked  down Blackwell to Shady Grove to a bus stop just before Park Lane and rode it back to the train station. That was 7,000 steps for a total of 2.8 miles. It felt good to be out and walking again.

Found a good example of water-wise plants and the butterflies that they draw

                                            Yucca Plants with blooms and soon-to-be seed pods

                    There are like an orchid in their blooms and also a very much water-wise plant

A yellow swallowtail butterfly taking minerals from the ground.

The Orange Butterflies were all over this dense area that

was about 50 feet down to the tree tops. Without changing a lens, the shot was

made anyway. There are at lease a dozen darting in and out

of this thick dense foliage

 

Since my last post, nothing changed in the heat except that it is still hear.

 And, of course, I remember a few years back when this same setup gave us a record number of days above 100°F. Now, it's just AC almost 24/7. I don't even like the extended forecast any more because all you can see is a week of triple digits after having just ended  the previous week stretch. 

Tonight on the news the rescue squads are saying that they have seen an uptick in cases of out of town visitors who don't know how to deal with the heat. And while the dew point and humidity have somewhat dropped a bit, guess what?  That combo is prime for grass fires and there are 7 burning as I type this. The largest of those fires today was a 100-acre fire that seems to be under control, but the others are still up for grabs the reporters and the powers to be are saying.

So, I have been and have stayed busy working on my stores that are on Zazzle. Getting ready for the last half of summer and into early fall sales. My editorial stock and some others have been active with sales. That, I am very pleased. I've always said that once you create the beast, you have to feed it. And, when you don't the beast gets out of the barn and the sales decline. Over the years, the word decline is one word that I try to keep harnessed. 

Based on history, I have figured that there will be about 6 more weeks of this stuff before we get some fall -like weather. For certain, it's not the type of early fall in the Great Lakes, that is for sure. I can only hope that the lowering of the sun in the sky toward its move toward fall, will bring that shift toward more normal and seasonal temperatures and that it arrives quickly!

It's Been Several Days Since My Last Post of July 3, but-------

 the heat has been relentless already this year. It began with the first 112° F heat index the first day of Spring and it has not let up since, with some areas getting 120°F index several times. In fact, today, we are under an "EXTREME HEAT WARNING" from the National Weather Service. With that, it's for sure that I am not going out today. Yesterday was a delightful morning with cloud cover, a good wind and later outflow boundaries as thunderstorms fell apart. It was actually a good camera day until about 2 PM when the clouds gave way to full blue sky and sunshine. By the time I got home, it was hat rim and shirt back soaked with sweat. Not something I prolong. It took me a while to cool off with the AC back on and a couple of cold bottles of water. By the time I made it to bed, I crashed and crashed hard. It was after 7 when I awoke this morning. Refreshed and somewhat restored, but I already knew that it was going to be work at the computer all day. Some of that time was processing images while the other part of the morning was creating  abstracts for our three stores on Zazzle. 

Someone Forgot Their Towel at the Train Station

More cranes in addition to these are at SMU west campus

Free Shred Day I attended

When it was held this year, I totally missed the event and I had a few boxes to shred,too.

In The Land of 3212 Bridges, Two new ones are going up in North Dallas #3213 and #3214

 One of the bridges is a pedestrian hike and bike bridge that will span US75 aka NCX or North Central Expressway, just south of the Dallas High 5 Interchange;  connecting the Cottonwood Trail to the North Haven trail while the other one corrects a major point of confused drivers for decades aka the Skillman Audelia Mess. Which is at Skillman and LBJ IH-635 just east of the Dallas High 5. 

The new hike and bike is the second pedestrian bridge for hike and bike that also crosses NCX US75 at Mockingbird Lane. The first one at Mockingbird is a cable stayed an cost more or less about $12 Million. It connects the Katy trail with University Crossing. All the trails get heavy use and are part of the Dallas Park and Recreation master plan in partnership with Ft Worth, bringing the total mileage about 100 miles between the two cities and around the Metroplex. The bright white steel structures are hard to miss and as is the Mockingbird cable stayed and its three mask.

The above images are of the Hike and Bike Bridge that will span US 75 NCX North Central Expressway as it nears Forrest and the High 5 Interchange of IH-635 and NCX North Central US75

 

Below is the new Skillman Bridge crossing LBJ IH-635 at Audelia in a straigh line alignment instead of the twist and turns and stops signs, yeild signs and a bunch of penned up frustration with drivers

The Second Half of 2023 Is about to get under way.

Finally, the first day of July will be below 100°F. More importantly, the dew point will be a bit lower as well and we can get back out from under the AC and do some shooting. While inside (I've been out only twice in the past ten days) I have been covering security issues, checking the archives for theft and working on designing curio items for our stores on Zazzle. June will close out a very good month of sales. 

While it will be nice to be out again, there is a doctor's appointment to attend to. But, it is one that is a must so all things considered, it's not that bad going into. It's the answers I get coming out of it that sometimes give me a bit of pause.

Also in the heat downtime, I took the Union Pacific Test identifying the types of railcars. Aced It!! When I was off from college between my freshman and sophmore year, I spend one full day unloading a boxcar filled in brown paper wrapped boxes of  jell-o. If my memory serves me well, I think there were 96 boxes to a wrapped bundle. The problem: the car was stacked from floor to ceiling front to back. Unbelievable numbers of jello-boxes. To this day, I have a box of jello-o in my pantry just to remind me how small those little boxes are and every time I see a box car on the rail, I think about that box of jell-o and will not eat jell-o to this day. When I went home at night I smelled like strawberry for a week  and that was after shower after shower. I will not even go down the jell-o isle in any grocery store. None!

 

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