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Yearly Archives: 2012
Butterfly and Communications Tower
Arbor Hills and Carrollton Blue and Orange
The overlook at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Plano, Texas.
Slowly, I am able to ride farther and farther on my bike. I’m still slow – I am riding an old, inefficient mountain bike (which does have the advantage of being able to go anywhere). I have my ancient road bike which I’m trying to get into rideable condition… but I am struggling with mystery flats. When it is fixed I should be able to up my speed and distance. Right now I am limited not so much by my fitness but by time and the amount of water I can carry. I drink an amazing amount of water in this heat.
What I like to do on weekends sometime is to load up my bike in the back of the Matrix, fill a cooler with bottles of iced water, and set out across the city. I use GoogleMaps on my phone, with the Bicycling option turned on – showing up the bike trails and dedicated lanes bright green. I look for long stretches or connected clusters and give a shot at riding somewhere I haven’t been before.
On Sunday, I headed northwest and the first place I came across was the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve. This is a large Plano park which I had seen a couple years ago when I made a wrong turn leaving the hospital where Candy was getting surgery. It had an odd parking lot, beige rock buildings, and a big ol’ mess of hilly woods. I looked it up online and had wanted to pay a visit ever since.
It was an interesting place to ride a bicycle. First – it does lack distance – only a couple miles of paved trails (I wasn’t in the mood for hitting the dirt). It isn’t a very good place for speed either – the trails are lousy with clots of people wandering around and others walking their dogs.
What is nice, though, is its hills. There are a lot of wooded nature trails in the Dallas area, but almost all of them are located in worthless river bottom floodplain and are as flat as a pancake. Arbor Hills has a good bit of ups and downs – not enough to make it too difficult or even unpleasant, but enough for a good workout.
The trails all wind around and rise up to a stone lookout, a nice destination, a pretty place looking out over the trees and scrub fields with only a hint of the millions of rooftops rising along the horizon – a reminder of the fact that you are not really in a wilderness, but merely a forgotten pocket of vegetation left over somehow when the world was paved over.
I looped around a couple of times, then packed my bike up and drove on. I wanted to go down to Carrollton and check out their trails. I had read about how they had been doing a lot of work on extending their hike/bike trail network. I did a circuit of their Orange and Blue trail routes, about ten miles total.
I applaud their work, and some of their trails are nice… running beside some swampy ponds and wild green creeks. They need to do more to access the network, though. It was fine for some exercise, but the pavement doesn’t really go anywhere – it would not work for commuting to work or shopping.
Sitting at a little shaded bench I gulped down my last bottle of cold water and knew it was time to head back to the car and go home. There is always tomorrow, and more stretches of pavement in a different direction.
Turtles in Leonhardt Lagoon
Foosball with a View
On the roof of the NYLO hotel, Dallas.
A foosball table on the roof of the NYLO hotel in Southside, Dallas. It’s out by the pool. Foosball with an incredible view.
Neighborhood Upgrade
One of my favorite bike trails in Dallas is the Santa Fe Trail, which runs from the south end of White Rock Lake (it connects with the trail around the lake) down an old railroad right of way, ending in Deep Ellum. I rode it the other day and turned the other way – going under Interstate 30 and riding around in Fair Park.
What I like about the trail is that it is a rare urban trail. The northern end starts in the woods around White Rock Creek but the trail soon emerges into a bustling lower-income city neighborhood. It makes for interesting riding.
I have noticed that a lot of the houses along the route, some little more than shotgun shacks, have been upgraded since the trail opened. There is a lot of fresh paint and large piles of trash along the streets waiting to be hauled away. I don’t know if it is because the residents feel that they are now more exposed and want to put a better foot forward, or, more likely, the trail raised property values a bit and the landlords are cleaning up to get higher rents.
At any rate, one property does have an unusual sculptural addition along the rear roofline. There is a four-person bicycle mounted along the edge of what used to be an awning – the roof long rotted away. A satellite dish sprouts out from next to the rear-most tire. It looks pretty odd, sitting there – sort of a shout-out to the cyclists on the trail – “hey, look at me… a quadruple… and you thought you were something!”
But it looks pretty cool, anyway.
I like the different patterns in the chainrings.
What I learned this week, August 31, 2012
A great idea for a bike – take a look and decide if this is a worth project on kickstarter.
The Viaje Bicycle: Engineered for Adventure
How to seperate an egg yolk
The days before photoshop.
I remember well the one with the pickle.
Early 1900s Postcards Show Off Primitive ‘Photoshopping’ Skills
Why I Still Write With A Fountain Pen in This Age of Computers
Allways Carry A Camera & Trust The Force!
I remember Heathkits from my youth. Back then, electronics were not disposable items and you could build your own appliance or gadget after countless hours of painstaking work for only about twice what a new one would cost. They were very high quality, though, in a day when quality still existed and mattered.
The detailed instructions, the carefully labeled parts (especially the myriad resistors) and, especially, the smell of rosin-core solder heated and the sight of the wisp of burnt flux smoke rising from the pool of liquid lead.
A friend of mine across the street even made an entire color television. It burnt out one day while we were watching football (there was always the danger you would make a mistake – I view that as a feature, not a bug).
I still use a Heathkit audio amp I built in 1982. It sounds better than anything made today.
People at the NYLO
Outside Espumoso
Through the door of the Espumoso Caffe, Bishop Arts District, Dallas
I was hanging out in one of my favorite places – The Espumoso Caffe, in the Bishop Arts District, in Oak Cliff, Dallas. I love the music playing there – once I asked the barista what station they were playing and he said, “my Ipod.”
While I was sitting there, I shot this photo through the front door. There is a sign on the door, by the way, that says, “Watch your step.” I didn’t. I should have.
NYLO Hotel Roof
Last weekend, Candy and I drove down to the Bishop Arts District for lunch at Eno’s and on the way back, we decided – spur of the moment thing – to stop off at a spot Candy had seen on the web. There is a new boutique hotel – The NYLO opening up in Southside – and they had a bar and infinity pool on the roof. The person writing the article said the view of the Dallas Skyline from the bar was the best in the city.
We parked and walked up at about one in the afternoon. The place wasn’t even officially open – it was in the middle of a “soft opening.” The woman from the front desk gave us a tour of the lobby and the restaurant. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me – especially the lobby room called “The Library” with a case full of books and funkified seating all around. Then she walked us over to the elevator and took us up to The Soda Bar on the roof.
The article wasn’t kidding, the view from up there is jaw-dropping.
click for a larger and more detailed version
We hung around chatting with the folks that worked there and some customers. They didn’t have any beer on tap – but I made sure they would have some local Deep Ellum Brewing Company products available (they will have the Double Brown Stout and Deep Ellum IPA) when they officially open (which they have by the time you read this).
I kept thinking what the view would look like at sunset, so we sneaked across the street for dinner at Cedars Social and then came back to watch the sunset.
When we finally left to drive back to suburbia we came across the same woman in the lobby that had given us our tour. She said, “Are you still here – I’ve been home and changed and come back again and you’re just leaving?” I said we came back for the sunset.
The place may get too uppity and twee after it gets established – it’s also a bit too far to be a neighborhood hangout – but I’m sure I’ll be back. I could get used to hanging out there. That view is too good to miss.
Bill Chance 