food

A Plethora of Parks: Summit Park and McPherson Park

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Debora

I was chatting recently with one of my SoCal friends who, like me, loves to explore new places and loves public parks. I told her that the kids and I could go to a different DFW park every week and not run out of new ones for literally years. It’s one of my favorite things about the Metroplex.

That conversation got me thinking that maybe other people would enjoy reading about the parks here and what each of them has to offer. Some of them are big, sprawling places perfect for long, scenic walks, while others are more like little picnic spots. I was inspired to start a “collection” of local parks, with pics and descriptions of each one.

We can’t actually visit a different park each week. There’s no shortage of parks, just a shortage of time. But every time we do get to a new one, I’ll add it to my collection.

So yesterday the kids and I were at the Trader Joe’s in Southlake. There are two parks within easy walking distance of the store: Summit Park and McPherson Park.

Summit Park sits on a little hill surrounded by businesses:

The area is a lot prettier in person than it looks on Google Maps. Here’s a view of the park from the top level of the parking garage behind Trader Joe’s:

And here it is as seen from Cafe Express, where the kids and I had lunch:

There’s a little gazebo near the center of the park.

I would classify Summit Park as a picnic spot, because it only takes a few minutes to walk from one end to the other, but it’s a really lovely walk.

Here is the sign, to make Summit Park an official entry in my collection:

If you’re walking from Summit Park to McPherson Park, I would recommend going by way of Southlake Town Square. There is a pretty pond and a gazebo and a fountain…

Plus this guy.

There’s a directory next to the Town Square. Use it to make sure you walk through the courtyard behind Brio Tuscan Grille on your way to McPherson Park, because that’s worth seeing too.

McPherson Park:

There’s not much to say about McPherson Park; it’s basically a pond with a trail around it. It looked so uninspiring that we didn’t even walk around the pond, we just followed the trail far enough to snap a pic of the sign to make it official…

…and then looped back into the shopping district, which is gorgeous and a nice place to spend a lot of money if that’s your thing.

To summarize, Summit Park is a lovely little picnic spot. McPherson Park is nothing special, but I’m glad we went because we saw a lot of cool stuff during the walk there and back.

Hopefully I’ll be adding new parks to my collection at least once a month. If you live in the Metroplex and you have a favorite park that you’d like to see recognized here, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

Happy trails!

Categories: A Plethora of Parks, Family, food, Friends, kids, Life, maps | Tags: McPherson Park, Southlake Town Square, Summit Park | Leave a comment

The Difference a Year Makes

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Debora

Yesterday was our one-year Texas anniversary: one year ago yesterday the kids and I rolled into Bedford to start a new life. We knew, or hoped, that it had to be better than what we were leaving behind, but we had very little idea of what to expect here. It was a leap of faith, for sure. So yesterday, after we registered Luke for his new school year, we went out for celebratory burgers and ice cream sundaes and spent our meal talking about everything we love about Texas and how awesome life has become over the past year. I felt like throwing confetti.

Mahogany, on the other hand, is DONE with this Texas summer heat. I have never seen her looking so thin, sun-bleached, bug-chewed and totally lacking in enthusiasm.

I wormed her to be on the safe side, but most of her pasture-mates look about the same, especially the darker-colored ones. This heat is hard on horses. But today I noticed that her summer coat is starting to shed out, which reminded me that the days must be getting shorter. Funny, that used to be such a big deal back in Anza. Now I live my life almost entirely by electric light and have only a vague grasp of what time the sun sets and rises on any given day.

I did have one little rush of nostalgia a few days ago. I was on the closing crew at work, and when my shift ended I stepped out into the muggy late-night heat and suddenly realized that if I were in Anza I would be up on my roof with the kids, enjoying a cool mountain breeze and watching the Perseid meteor shower that comes around every mid-August. In Anza you can see ALL the stars, and the Perseid shower is always worth staying up for. In DFW, stars and meteor showers might as well not exist at all.

Elizabeth’s registration day was Tuesday. She cannot wait for the new school year to start. I really like her campus.

But I’m writing this all out of order. When I wrote my last entry, Luke was still in California and Elizabeth hadn’t left yet. Luke returned on June 28 and Elizabeth flew out on July 2. With her gone, neither Luke nor I felt much like celebrating on the Fourth, but we were pleasantly surprised by a nice view of fireworks from our north-facing windows.

We fell into a pattern during the eight weeks that one or the other kid was in California. None of us at home wanted to do anything fun that the absent person would miss out on, so we kept putting off all significant outings and family activities until we were all together again. By the end of the two months, this had a seriously negative effect on my overall happiness. Stuff that I usually shrug off at work was stressing me out, I was losing patience with poor Luke at home, and I started having trouble concentrating on even simple tasks. I didn’t feel like myself again until Elizabeth came home and we fell back into our comfortable family routines.

Luke and I did have one nice little hike while Elizabeth was away. We had been wanting to explore a particular trail ever since we moved into our apartment, and a sudden stretch of cool weather made it too tempting to put off.

Yesterday, after the anniversary sundaes, we showed Elizabeth the trail.

It felt like the perfect casual celebration of our first year in Texas.

We’re looking forward to Year Two!

Categories: Animals, Family, food, Horses, kids, Life, School, Weather | Leave a comment

Monthly Wrap-Up

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Debora

A few weeks ago I was walking through a field and saw this guy on a trash-heap:

I whipped out my camera, but I needn’t have hurried.

I think I’ve seen more random taxidermy since I moved to Texas than in all of the rest of my life put together. I don’t know why, but Texans really, really enjoy stuffing animals and pieces of animals. I mentioned this phenomenon to a coworker here, and her eyes lit up with delight and nostalgia as she told me about the first creature she ever taxidermied (a mouse) and how she still proudly displays it in her home. I am not making this up.

Summer is in full swing now, but I don’t want to forget to mention how gorgeous Texas is in the springtime.

Everything was in bloom, everywhere. I didn’t get a lot of photos, because working full time in retail kind of swallowed up my life for a while until I adjusted to it. On the plus side, this job is getting me into better shape than I’ve been in in years.

It’s like getting paid to go to the gym for eight hours a day.

The horses that run wild down by the Trinity River have added some new babies to their little herd.

They keep their distance now and scamper off if Mahogany and I get too close.

Farther up the river, there’s a nice park area where I can work on training Mahogany to cross moving water. We haven’t gone there much, because getting to it involved crossing a narrow road-bridge with no way to get out of the way of traffic. But we braved it today, and discovered that the culvert has been reconstructed to allow for crossing beside the bridge. Now I have TWO places to train Mahogany on water crossings!

And the park is great for just galloping at full speed across the open meadows.

School is out for the summer. As per our custody agreement, Luke and Elizabeth are each spending four weeks in California with their dad. Luke went first; he’ll be coming back to Texas this weekend and Elizabeth will fly out to California few days later. It’s their first experience with flying, so that’s kind of exciting. Selfie at the airport:

An out-of-state Facebook friend came out to Arlington on business this week and invited me to have breakfast with him yesterday morning. Neither of us were familiar with that area, so I got some restaurant recommendations from a local friend and we ended up at a colorful little dive straight out of a grainy ’70s movie. So much food was piled in front of me that I ended up bringing most of it home home for lunch. The company was very nice, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. This was the first date I’ve been on since my marriage ended six years ago, so it feels like a milestone.

And that’s all the news for the month. Life is good. Oh! How To Train Your Dragon 2 is an amazing movie, go see it!

Categories: Animals, Family, food, Friends, Horses, kids, Life, trail rides, Travel | Leave a comment

Fall Stuff

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Debora

Anza sits at 4,000 feet above sea level, so temperatures go up and down with the sun. In the summer it’s not uncommon to get into the triple digits during the days and down into the 50 or 60s at night. Winter nights there are always cold, but winter days might feel like January or July.

DFW isn’t like that, at least from what I’ve seen so far. Summer felt like summer, whether the sun was up or not. And now that the weather has turned to fall, it has stayed there instead of getting all fickle and whimsical. Now the colors are creeping in, and squirrels are gathering acorns everywhere I look.

Signs of fall are all around.

On weekday afternoons I like to go for walks. I take a slightly different route each time and explore new streets. I enjoy looking at the houses and businesses; I just really like the way things are built here. Someone told me that the reason most of the buildings have so many different angles on their roofs is to deflect high winds and make it harder for tornadoes to get a grip on them. Someone else told me that that’s not the case, that people here just like funky roofs. Whatever, I like them too.

On yesterday’s walk I stumbled onto a dedicated system of walking and bike paths. I started out walking next to roads, but ended up on a trail that followed a line of massive power poles.

At first all I could see was those enormous poles, but by the end of the walk I barely noticed them. They’re almost kind of pretty, if you squint and tilt your head just right.

I’m looking forward to showing the kids those paths, it’ll be nice to have a trafficless place to walk that doesn’t involve driving first.

Tomorrow we set back the clocks. The spring time change feels like years ago on a different planet. So much change crammed into eight months.

I’ve begun to really miss my garden and orchard. Today I bought a young sage plant so I can have fresh sage for cooking; hopefully it will have time to get established before winter sets in. I think I’ll get some lettuce and kale seeds next, if the weather stays mild. It’s funny the things I miss and the things I don’t miss at all. If I could just find a local, organic pomegranate orchard my autumn would be complete.

Categories: Animals, environment, Family, food, Gardening, kids, Life, trees, Weather, Wildlife | Tags: autumn, squirrel | Leave a comment

Suddenly: Autumn

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Debora

The weather here has turned to fall. It rains at least once a week, usually on the weekends. This is mildly frustrating, because weekends are when the kids and I do our exploring, and we’ve been mostly limited to indoor stuff for awhile now.

Elizabeth and I went to see “Gravity,” and liked it a lot. If you haven’t seen it, and plan to, do see it in 3D. This movie is all about the visual spectacle, it’s incredibly immersive.

As we were walking from the parking lot to the theater entrance, I had a déjà vu moment. I stopped and looked around, trying to figure out why I felt like I’d been to that theater before (I hadn’t), and then I realized that it wasn’t the theater I recognized but the Italian restaurant next to it. The kids and I had met up with friends there for dinner on our road trip in 2007, and had a fantastic time. Got a nice little rush of nostalgia looking at it.

So, speaking of restaurants, this seems like a good time to mention that I have a very minor complaint about Texas, or at least my little corner of it. The Chinese food. It is not like California Chinese food. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, it’s just not what I’m used to. Okay, it’s worse. There, I said it. I miss orange chicken that tastes right and has the right texture.

But! Elizabeth and I tried Genghis Grill after our movie, and that was great. Does Genghis Grill count as Asian food? What I like about it is that I can put together the kind of meal I used to eat fresh from the garden back in Anza, and then someone else cooks it for me. Sweet!

Mahogany’s winter coat is growing in dark and glossy. I’m surprised at how well she’s doing just on pasture grass and coastal hay. No alfalfa, no grain, but she’s shiny and bursting with energy.

On our last ride we were accosted near the river trail by a wandering-loose group of horses.

Sorry for the blurry, they caught me by surprise.

Oddly enough, Mahogany wanted nothing to do with them. She just wanted to get back to her own buddies in her own pasture. I shooed the strange horses off, and they left us alone.

We’re still working on Mahogany’s reluctance to leave her herd-mates. I mean, I’m glad that she loves her new home and her new friends, but her unwillingness to EVER leave them is getting tiresome. It would be easier if we could find someone to ride with, but so far I haven’t seen any other riders out on the trails.

I don’t have any wildlife pics for this post, but I did see the biggest coyote I have ever seen a couple weeks ago. I was driving and didn’t have time to whip out my camera, but this guy was huge. Living large on suburban life, I guess.

The DFW area is such a beautiful paradox. I love that it looks like this…

…and this…

…and this.

I love the laid-back, down-to-earth vibe, and the fact that jeans, boots and tee-shirts are considered perfectly fashionable attire here. I love that most of the people, including the teens I’ve seen at my kids’ new schools, actually make an effort to look clean and wholesome rather than sexy or dangerous. I love how friendly nearly everyone is.

If I could just get some decent orange chicken here, this place would be pretty close to perfect.

Categories: Animals, Family, food, Horses, kids, Life, Road trip, trail rides, Weather, Wildlife | Tags: coyote, Genghis Grill, Gravity | Leave a comment