It’s a rainy, grey day here in Big D, so I thought I’d post some more photos of White Rock Lake that I took while running this week. Enjoy:
Ducks by the Boathouse
Filter Bldg
Fences Heading up to the Retaining Wall
Silhouette on the Retaining Wall
See, Dallas Has Seasons!
Teetering Teens
A Bit of Surmise on a Weekday Afternoon
Marina
This day is actually shaping up a bit. I may head out to fire off a few rounds at Elm Fork…
Without much to do on a particularly beautiful day, I headed over to White Rock Lake in our rented Corolla – we have yet to decide on a car to buy. The drive is fairly easy, though the park is not necessarily marked well leading up to any of the entrances. Without too much difficulty, I found a place to pull in, park, and reassemble my bike which I’d taken apart to put in the trunk. It’s times like these I miss my Jeep.
White Rock Lake reminds me a bit of the camp I went to during the days in the summertime. It was a sort-of country club with an enormous man-made “lake” (it was a pool). The place seems artificially wild. That is not the same as wildly artificial. The paths are generally well-kept though the concrete is splitting in places and are not, as a whole, well marked. I took a couple of wrong turns, ending up on a rough hiking trail at one point, and nearly biking onto a highway on another. As fast as I can pedal, I try to steer clear of freeways, you know? This is especially true in the Great State of Texas where, despite our friend Lance Armstrong calling it home, drivers are pretty much oblivious to anyone not driving a pick-up, let alone using a non-petrol-fueled vehicle.
Despite a few minor navigational mishaps, I liked WRL. There were plenty of other bikers present, though there were the requisite number of clueless dogwalkers wandering the path much as there are on the Katy Trail. I am often flabbergasted at the way people behave on running/bike paths. Instead of treating it like a thoroughfare, they act as though they are walking down a corridor in their own homes. I am all for sharing the road, but if you were in your car on the highway, would you just stop in the middle to change a tire? No, you would pull to the side. Why not do the same to tie your shoelace?
This is a problem that is pervasive across the human race, not just in the Great State of Texas. In fact, New York is notorious for this form of idiocy. Think of Central Park, where people walk into oncoming bike traffic. Would they do that if cars were coming at them? I think not. Would they randomly veer off course if they were on the Deegan? Well, maybe. The Deegan is like Road Warrior, but you get what I’m saying.
Anyway, enough ranting. Here are a few (Blackberry) photos of WRL:
Downtown D from WRL
WRL in Autumn
I am spoiled having lived near Central Park my whole life. However, I’ve run in some runner-unfriendly cities and don’t need a lot to get in a decent outing. The relatively new Katy Trail supplies 3.5 miles of close to serene running. However, on my third day in Dallas, I was going for a run to test out my legs a week before a marathon. As I hit mile two or so, I saw a cat. No big deal, I’d seen a few on the trail on my previous run.
Not two minutes later, another cat ran across the path in front of me and leapt out of sight. This one was a black cat. I try not to be superstitious, walking under ladders and opening umbrellas at the slightest hint of indoor precipitation, but this did not bode well leading up to a marathon for which I felt ill-prepared.
At the 3.5 mile mark – the end of the trail – I had to turn around, but I wanted to check out the view of the freeway, which is very close to the trail at this point. I walked up the small grassy knoll, past the power line strut, and … what was that? Is it raining? No, it was a group of grackles, clicking away on the power lines. Crapping on me.
I dodged a few shots, but got nailed on the front of my chest. Well, they say that a bird pooping on you is good luck, so maybe the black cat and the bird poop counteract one another. I still never understood that. If I was so lucky, I would have been shat on
