“Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.”
― Orville Wright
Little Arkansas River, Wichita, Kansas
The Secret of Magic
Tag Archives: river
Flinging Itself To Pieces
“Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas
All The Rest Is Other
“Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other–outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women & wilderness, to be used as I see fit.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
The Trinity River bottoms are an odd place – a juxtaposition of wildest land – apparently untouched by man kept wild by the periodic surge of water. This is the flood plain, full of weeds – both human and otherwise.
But beyond this strip of muddy water and watery mud rise the crystal buildings of man, lawyer, and developer. It is a crazy jumble. From the wilderness you can’t help but look up at the architecture – a line of ziggurat superstructures that seem to exist in a fog of magic and mystery.
But from inside the buildings themselves – a hundred thousand souls wander in the artificial atmosphere unaware of the tracts of undeveloped earth right outside their sealed and curtained windows.
The Anatole Hotel, the Renaissance Dallas, and the new Parkland Hospital, from the Trinity river floodplain,
Dallas, Texas
“The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Mason and Dixon</blockquote>
Shade Structures
“since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
Shade structures on the Continental Avenue Bridge Park, Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas
Continental Bridge,
Dallas, Texas
My Xootr folding bicycle, Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas
Geometry and Nature
“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.”
― Galileo Galilei
Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas
Trinity River and Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas
There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.
—-Pythagoras
Downtown Dallas, Texas
The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
—-Federico Garcia Lorca
View From the Levee
The City of Dallas is slowly working on developing the long-neglected river bottoms along the Trinity River. In conjunction with the opening of the Continental Avenue Bridge Park a limited system of hike and bike trails were opened up in the river bottom called the Dallas Skyline Trail.
Map of the Dallas Skyline Trail
(click to enlarge)
These trails will eventually be extended to the south to connect up with the Santa Fe Trestle trail once the work on the I45/I30 “Horseshoe” project is finished (if we all live long enough).
For the time being, the 4plus miles in place will have to do. I took the DART train down there to explore. The biggest problem right now is lack of access on the downtown (north) side of the river. I had to ride across the Continental bridge where there is a steep ramp down the levee into the floodplain and the trails. The limited (2) trail heads open now, with one more to open in a few months, is fine if the trail system is used for recreational riding, but if it is to help with car-free transportation, they need more access points.
I rode the whole system and wanted to check out another possible point – on Commerce street, behind the city jail complex. The trail climbs the levee and it may be another spot to get to the system – though it’s hard to find and there isn’t any parking very close.
At any rate, the view from there is nice – in all directions.
Part of the Dallas Skyline Trail. The Commerce Street Bridge, Old Railroad Trestle, Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.
(click to enlarge)
The paved trail climbs the levee. That’s the Commerce Street bridge in the foreground, with graffiti on the pillars, a bit of the old railroad trestle, and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in the distance.
Top of the levee, with the Dallas Jail in the background.
The top of the levee is paved the short distance to Commerce Street behind the sad monoliths of the Dallas Jail and its parking garage.
Dallas Skyline Trail on top of the levee.
In the other direction the trail is paved for a short way along the tip of the levee. Beyond is a gravel road which is rideable with a mountain bike.
Trinity River Floodplain
The open floodplain of the river bottoms, across to Oak Cliff. The construction of the Horseshoe can be seen in the distance.
Nice levee top view of Downtown from the Dallas Skyline Trail.
(click to enlarge)
To the North, there is a great view of the downtown skyline from the top of the levee.
Natural and Artificial
The Santiago Calatrava designed Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge rising over the trees of the Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas.
Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas, Texas
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein
Water and Stone
The angry water rose until the earth was scrubbed down to bare stone. Still the flood mounted – but all they could do was stand around, watch, and engage in surprisingly upbeat, pleasant, and polite conversation.
(click to enlarge)
On the Levee
Trinity River Bank, Fort Worth, Texas
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And Shipping is Always Free
(click to enlarge)
After church the three ladies liked to buy sack lunches from a truck and a bottle of Chianti from the shabby old liquor store on the way down to the river. They would sit on the bank by the rapids with their lunch and catch up on the weekly gossip.
There used to be old men fishing down there. The fishermen would sometimes whistle or shout at the ladies, which they, correctly, took as a complement. Now, though, the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls in the fish have been determined to be unsafe and the fishermen have been run off by the police. Sometimes the women miss the fishermen a little – but they also enjoy the quiet.
The ladies have a little pool going. Every week each kicks in a ten dollar bill and the first one to spot a body floating down the river wins the pot.
“There's one!” the lady in the middle shouts.
“That doesn't count, that's a swimmer.”
“It's a body isn't it?”
“But the bet is on a corpse, and you know it.”
“OK.” She sounds disappointed.
“There's one!” the lady furthest upstream calls out.
The middle one is not happy. She gives the object a close look. “Wait, I don't think it's a body, I think it's an inflatable woman.”
She pulls her Sig Sauer P229 out of her purse and lets off a round. She is an expert shot. The inflatable pops and shrivels up into the churning water. The ladies hear giggling from a copse of willow trees upstream. The ladies have been pranked.
“Those kids! At it again. Where did they get that thing?” They shout at the kids. “Where did you get that thing?!”
A reedy voice, hard to hear over the roar of the rapids, comes giggling back from the willows. “Dealdash Dot Com.”
“Children now-a-days. What is this world coming to?” the lady in the center complains. The other two nod in agreement. She pulls a little kit out of her purse, screws the handle on the end of the aluminum rod, and begins to swab out the barrel of her handgun.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness. That's what my mother taught me.”
The other two nod in agreement again, but don't move their gaze from the water. They want to win the pot.
Bill Chance 