East 98th Street

As often as we drove through here, some things were never photographed. I tried to correct that omission.

I have no idea what this structure is for, if anything anymore. On the opposite corner, early in our marriage, we found an abandoned bar/nightclub. We photographed it, then. Later, it suffered a fire and was partly destroyed and we photographed it again. It was known as Carl's Corner, by the way. We found it again when it was undergoing demolition and more photos were taken. All of those photos are on this blog. Just look through older posts. It was during that time of demolition that we found a limestone slab crudely engraved: "Fort Griffen". Now, my wife, during her second marriage, had visited Fort Griffen in East Texas-- there was a museum there and the fort was mostly restored. We took the stone slab home with us and contacted the curator at Fort Griffin. In a few weeks he arrived with his wife and son to collect the slab and try to solve the mystery of how it got here. I took them to the site of Carl's Corner and we did some exploration. As far as I know the mystery has not been solved.

Traveling north on MLK I got off on a really bad dirt road that led to a dead end. Huge holes and deep ruts. It gave my car a workout! I photographed more boonie-type structures.

This is pretty typical of what you find out in the county, outside the city limits, especially on the east side of town.

East On 98th, North on MLK

This is part of the process of retracing steps and even examining new things in new ways. For one thing, I used a camera with enough megapixels to make zoom cropping feasible. Even better, it had an optical zoom, so cropping after the optical zoom really brought things in up close. First stop was a place that used to be a nightclub, then it was abandoned for a long time and then a church used it, and now it is abandoned again. When I first started the wildflower garden I was so desperate to get things to grow I drove out here with my wife to find the heartiest wildflowers I could find-- stuff growing in asphalt and cracks in concrete and piles of pebbles.  We found some hardy stuff and I dug it up and planted it in good garden soil. Everything died in less than 24 hours. My wife was amused. She might have been pleased, too, because I'd probably dug up and re-planted weeds. Later, I got other things to grow. I do NOT have a green thumb.

It was cloudy and there had been some rain the night before. What a miracle.

See the details? I like details.

 We are out in the boonies.

This is the east side of the building.

 Hardy weeds. If I transplanted them into good soil they would be toast. Go figure.

All kinds of things had been dumped out there. Next, we examine the intersection of 98th and MLK.

Finishing Bayer Museum Of Agriculture, Outside

Yes, with this done, I can move on to another location this weekend.

I guess I could mention that Uverse service for internet and homephone has been quite good so far. I've only had to reboot the modem once. Should probably do that once a week. 

A Sunday drive to Acuff and Roosevelt might be just right. I'll see if I can locate some old landmarks. Or maybe something might actually be new. That would be a surprise.

And after that, I see no reason ever to return to Acuff. It's actually a pleasant drive. But there are other places to go.

That's it. I might visit the Windpower Center on the other side of Broadway someday, too. In fact, I HAVE to do that if I'm going to retrace steps...