Virtual Tourist - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter 7/3/16

Life has been one giant mass of CHAOS lately! Whee!
Been working a ton of hours at the day job. And doing conventions, and, and, and...
Sorry for the sporadic posting.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
(Bought some Sea Banks to help with the dizziness I get from the game. Hopefully it will allow me to keep playing it. So pretty!)

View from the closed rail road bridge.

A look back the way I came.

As you can see, the bridge is somewhat mangled. With the tracks bent, something pretty bad happened to it.

View of the lake from the bridge. You can see a dam/bridge in the distance. Love the fog!

Forest view from the bridge.

Railroad small service engine. Will get to play with it late. :)

Such lovely details!

A trail of blood from the tracks. Aside from the traps, first real sign things are not well here.

Shore of the lake after following the small trail by the blood. (Also found a dead body.)

Traipsing through the woods looking for clues. Isn't the sky just gorgeous?

Abandoned train station I ran across following the railroad tracks.

Did I mention they have gorgeous views? Heh heh

Getting closer to the bridge. Off overflow section?

I've reached the bridge. There are houses downstream and on the other side. Maybe answers lie there.

Hope you all have an awesome 4th of July Weekend! 

Picture Kaleidoscope 4/8/15 - DART Adventure

Morning, all!

My work place is moving to Las Colinas, which means a much more involved commute. So trying to see how to avoid traffic and all the stress, annoyance, etc that goes with it, I figured I'd check out DART Rail since there's a station right by the new work address.

So I spent a couple of hours doing research, finding out routes, comparing maps, and more. So Saturday, hubby and I set off to check it out and see if it is a viable alternative or not.

This is the view from the DCTA platform off of Hebron in North Carrollton. The A Train stops by here.  As you can see, aside from a roof and some metal chairs and ticket machines, there's nothing here. 

On a day like Saturday, that is not a problem. But any kind of inclement weather and passengers would find no protection here. Also, the big schedule on the marquee is only for weekdays, so we ended up missing the train, because... there are no TOILETS!

Took a panoramic once we got back (before we realized the marquee was wrong and we'd just missed the train).  Wahhhh! (We got in the car and went to the alternate stop.)

Inside of the DART Rail - which we got on at the North Carrollton Station. No bathrooms there either.

Ticket machines and helpful signs. Huge parking lot, big statue, no bathrooms. No real cover.

Incoming DART rail. (We're sitting in the other one.)

And we're off!

Water treatment plant in Carrollton

Some nice views on  the overpasses.

Each station stop had a different decor motif for their columns. Still no restrooms.

A lovely fluffy sky!

Passing strangers

You can see the conductor and the rail map from here. Typical multi transit train setup.

Walnut Hill Station - a nice southern feel to the columns.

The big radar thing/water thing. 

Some more of the stop decor.

Historical Park in Farmers Branch.

They've really fixed it up!

More column decor.

This is the extent of protection at all the stations we stopped at. :( Rain with some wind, and you'd be soaked.

Really can see a long way from up here.

Old Downtown Carrollton

More station decor

Big art thing at the North Carrollton Station. Wish they'd instead put in some bathrooms.

All the stations were clean and so were the trains. But...

We never did go all the way to our final destination. The bathroom situation caused us to hoof it in search of one and after that we were pretty much done. I now know why DART is losing money. I've no idea how the elderly or people with kids could afford to use DART rail without any kind of facilities being available. I spoke to a friend who uses the Red Line and said he'd seen plenty there, but the Green Line seemed to have none. Sadly, the lack of facilities definitely makes this a non-option for me.

Happy Wednesday!

Picture Kaleidoscope 7/23/14

Half the week is almost over and ArmadilloCon lays in the horizon. Woot!

From PetaPixel - These Beautiful, High-Contrast, Black & White Street Photos Are A Testament To Great Composition by Gannon Burgett. Photography by Mahmoud Merjan.

These Women's Portraits Make Use of Emotion and Environment by Alyson Wyers. Photography by  Alessio Albi

Fell in love with this one at Alessio Albi's site - Rebecca. Nice! Lots of gorgeous work! 

Photographer Brings Back The Glory Of Old US Locomotives by Udi Tirosh. Photography by Matthew Malkiewicz

Totally love this one too. Mr. Malkiewicz does incredible work. (I have a friend who LOVES trains. Had to instantly send an email. Heh heh.)

May your day be filled with awesome sights!

Picture Kaleidoscope 7/18/12

Good to see you back!

From Free Thought Blogs  and National Geographic - Nice View

Layered Image Photography from TrewndHunter.

Miniature Tilt-Shift Landscapes Made With Food And Wool from PetaPixel. (You really have to look closely to see it's not real! Dang!)

We don't see trains everyday, but every once in a while you have to wait.

Hadn't done a sky shot in a bit. :P

A friend just opened her brick store for her game shop - Roll 2 Play.

To celebrate the grand opening, members of the local chapter of the 501st came by. I super loved this car!! I want an R2 unit in mine! Hee! (Isn't it fab?)

Some technical difficulties have made this as far as we go this week. Have a good one~!