I Love a Parade

I love a parade.  Good thing for me, Garland boasts something like "The largest Labor Day Parade in America in a city under 1 million and west of the Mississippi".  All of that right here in town.

Flags and Boy Scouts march past as The Star Spangled Banner plays
To lead the Garland Labor Day Parade

Sometimes in years past (when in town), we've sat curbside to watch and cheer the local parading participants, but lately I've sat in my shaded spot at Glenbrook and Main all by my lonesome, as I wait for Sue to float on by atop the Garland First Presbyterian entry.  It is not really in Sue's job description to run the church's float, but since she knows what has to happen and since she does have connections as Director of Education to recruit the youth to ride the float, she always seems to have a bigger role in the Labor Day doings than would be expected in a better organized world.

This year Garland FPC's entry got into line early, so they were near the front of the 2 mile parade route.  Being near the front of the line of 150 entrants, she and the float made the 9 o'clock evening news - and it did not hurt that she spotted the Channel 4 cameraman, looked directly into the lens and gave a big ol' smile and hearty wave.  Others no doubt ended up on the cutting room floor, but not photogenic Sue.

Director of Christian Education for Garland First Presbyterian
waves energetically to the crowd and the TV cameras lining Main Street

The youth, DCE and Pastor float along Main Street in the Labor Day parade

All six GISD High School marching bands were present (sans uniforms on this 92 degree morning) along with the always sparkly hosts of allied dancing performers, majorettes and cheer leaders.  It is always great to hear a high school drum line move on down Main Street, I feel it kind of grounds me in local identity and a larger spirit of America.

There were large and very pink flamingos ("Let's Flamingle! - Garland neighbors"), the Shriners with there rock band on a flatbed trailer, an airplane float and their side kicks, a cohort of clowns handing our candy.  A local barber, an organic food store, plenty of Pee Wee Football teams, scouts and brownies, local politicians and at the end the Sheriff walked on by, followed by her mounted deputies.  

Sachse High Swingsters
Swing on down Main Street

Sachse High School - Alma Mater of our daughter Inga (2005-2009)

Garland High School - Alma Mater to our son Grant (2007-2011)

Garland High Step Team

High Stepping Lasses 

Local Color - Pink

South Garland High Senoritas

Mounted Dallas County Deputy Sheriff
rides at the tail end of the Labor Day Parade

After an Hour and ten minutes, everybody who was anybody had passed on bye.  I folded up my camp chair and headed home where I had the Stars and Stripes flying in the hot summer breeze from my front porch.

Show me the Monet!

It is the end of August.  

It is time for a little break.

I asked the wife to clear her schedule for Saturday.  She did, but had a few items to do around home in the afternoon. I told her she would not be at home in the afternoon - when I said clear your schedule, I meant for the whole day. "Oh", was her reply that came with a quizzical smirk.  "I'm dying to know..." - so I told her my plan.

I laid out my plan for a 'European style holiday'; a day of train travel, cafes and museums with master painters.  We would motor the 2.6 miles to the Garland light rail station (DART), ride to downtown Dallas' Union Station, where we would board the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) and ride to Fort Worth, catch the autobus #2 at the Ft. Worth Itermodal Transportation Center to the Kimbell Art Museum.  I had two tickets to see the special traveling exhibition for "Monet - The Later Years".  This exhibition features his famous series of Water Lilies and his garden in Giverny, France from 1896-1926.  It was to be our little day adventure.

A rumbling thunder storm arrived with Saturday's morning light, a nice divergence from the forecast sunny 96 degrees; I remarked that we could pretend this most unlike Texas summer morning was a stormy European summer morning.

Sue purchases 2 regional passes that will be good for
Dart light rail, Express Train and buses 

With a bit of breakfast in my belly, my beard combed and and lift in my step, we headed to downtown Garland to catch the DART Blue Line for the first leg of our Journey.


Sue gets our regional passes at the automated ticket machine and we take a seat to await the DART.  While waiting at the Garland platform, a woman crosses the tracks, wearing just her gold bra and black panties with an unbuttoned shirt draped over her torso.  Sue turns and whispers to me, "Looks like that woman is having one of those days living out that embarrassing dream we all have once in a while."  I nod, there will be plenty to see today.

We wait for the Blue Line in Garland to ride to downtown Dallas' Union Station

Once at Union Station, we get off of the DART and cross over to the waiting TRE and take our seat.  Anthony then comes on board, introduces himself and reminds all of us passengers to "not get twisted" and tells us that he knows all of the cops and that he has just saved a young woman from being raped.  Anthony had some other bits of advice and some conversational points, but I've now forgotten them.

Trinity Rail Express
at Union Station, Dallas

All Aboard!

Ready to ride the rails to Fort Worth

It is about an hour to get to Ft. Worth on the TRE as we pass through some suburbia, some rough industrial back-sections of the mid-cities and some wooded and rural patches.

We scan our Regional Pass as we step onto the bus and take a seat.  The No. 2 Route will bring us within a block of the Kimbell Art Museum in the world renowned Ft Worth 'Museum District'.

As advertised, Claude Monet has a number of his paintings from the end of his career on display.  We step in, the crowds at noon on this Saturday are large, but not overly crowded.  We pick up our complimentary audio tour device and begin to indulge in some culture. 

Here are a few selected works from the Monet exhibition:

Japanese Foot Bridge

Water Lilies 1906

Water Lilies 1904

Water Lilies 1915-17 (Part of Triptych)

Yellow Irises 1914-1917

We stroll through Claude's inspiring garden courtesy of the a large photograph on the
Kimbell's wall. 

We finish touring Claude Monet's garden of water lilies, roses, yellow irises, agapanthus and studies of his Weeping Willow and wisteria covered foot bridge in about an hour's time.  We walk a couple of blocks and slip into get some ramen noodles with a side of fried oysters.  We call it a day of adventure in Fort Worth and take the bus to the train station.

TRE in Fort Worth

We wait almost an hour for the arrival of the TRE back to Dallas as we watch the Amtrack Train pull into the station and board a handful of passengers headed for San Antonio, and eventually arriving in LA.

We remember that we left nothing out for dinner, so we consider our option once we get off DART in Garland.  We settle on Intrinsic BBQ 2 blocks from the Garland station; we're in luck, they still have some smoked meats available.  We order a full rack of ribs and take 'em home and lick our fingers and figuratively patted ourselves on the back.

It was a day of adventure. A good day to be sure.

****************

    We later heard that there had been a great art theft in the museum district - in broad daylight.  A very clever and daring robbery of some great and priceless French impressionist paintings.  The good news is that the authorities caught the art thief just a few blocks away from the museum in his stalled van, recovering every painting inside his old van.  The police question the thief; How did you manage to pull off this brilliant daylight heist inside the museum, yet end up being apprehended on the side of the street just a short distance from the scene of the crime?

The art thief replied, "I did not have the Monet, to buy Degas to make my Van Gogh".

There, did I just ruin your day?