in Texas!
Well, I'm in Denton. It was 108 when I got in and that was apparently the high, with a heat index of 110. That may have been the hottest temperature I've ever experienced, though not the highest heat index -- I remember as a young teen one August where the heat index hit 115 for a week straight on temps in the low to mid 100s. Tomorrow's revised forecast predicts 108 again rather than the original reprieve of 105.
My host, William Cherry from UNT, picked me up from DFW airport and drove me to a bar and restaurant where we met another colleague, Richard, a logician from UT Dallas. It wasn't quite dinner time yet, so we killed time with a few drinks since it was happy hour. I hadn't had lunch and actually hadn't eaten since having a small sandwich at 8am that morning, so the alcohol went right to my head. I at least forewarned them that might happen. Finally the restaurant began serving complimentary quesadillas with its happy hour, so I had a couple of those and felt much better. After that, I had a full dinner of blue crab and shrimp chipotle enchiladas, which were actually fairly good. I could taste the crab! But by then, this was such a big portion that after eating it I felt I was going to explode. I only felt worse looking around me and seeing the ginormous plates everyone else was having. I saw a salad bowl big enough to serve four that was set in front of a single person as her meal. SOOOOO much food! Remind me to never fly direct from France to Texas: the portion shock would be too much.
On the drive to Denton from the restaurant, I got all disheartened by what I saw: enormous highways cutting up the land and hundreds of new housing developments popping up in ranching fields, with the other fields being posted as for sale. I don't know how anyone could want to live there: the houses fill up practically the entire lot, so they're one on top of the other, yet you're living way out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing's within walking distance and the only local shops are little strip malls that pop up at regular spacing along the main road (which was six lanes across, no less). The tracts that were undeveloped showed a really pretty landscape, so these ever-expanding suburbs of Dallas (each development bearing its own name as a village) felt like an unimpeded virus. I couldn't help also being offended by the artificiality: many strip mall areas had two- to three-story buildings made of brick and mortar in a classic design from dense cities. Yet rather than be along a crowded street with other buildings of the same kind and little room for parking, these were islands in a vast sea of parking lots, the modern shopping blight under the ruse of classic locally owned, small shop commerce.
My opinion changed when we got to Denton, since it was far enough away to not be part of Dallas (though that might not last much longer). The main drag along the country road had been preserved from the 60s: old, cheesy stand-alone buildings with fairly small parking lots. Then we turned into the downtown, which was super cute: old buildings right up to the sidewalk, all in a row. No new buildings like fast-food joints or Blockbusters with their ring of parking lots. The main square and side streets actually looked hospitable to walking and many people were out and about. It's reassuring that such areas still exist in places like Texas -- little pockets where the car culture hasn't overridden common sense urban design.
---ETA Thu 7:23am
The officially recorded high for yesterday was 109. Blech!
My host, William Cherry from UNT, picked me up from DFW airport and drove me to a bar and restaurant where we met another colleague, Richard, a logician from UT Dallas. It wasn't quite dinner time yet, so we killed time with a few drinks since it was happy hour. I hadn't had lunch and actually hadn't eaten since having a small sandwich at 8am that morning, so the alcohol went right to my head. I at least forewarned them that might happen. Finally the restaurant began serving complimentary quesadillas with its happy hour, so I had a couple of those and felt much better. After that, I had a full dinner of blue crab and shrimp chipotle enchiladas, which were actually fairly good. I could taste the crab! But by then, this was such a big portion that after eating it I felt I was going to explode. I only felt worse looking around me and seeing the ginormous plates everyone else was having. I saw a salad bowl big enough to serve four that was set in front of a single person as her meal. SOOOOO much food! Remind me to never fly direct from France to Texas: the portion shock would be too much.
On the drive to Denton from the restaurant, I got all disheartened by what I saw: enormous highways cutting up the land and hundreds of new housing developments popping up in ranching fields, with the other fields being posted as for sale. I don't know how anyone could want to live there: the houses fill up practically the entire lot, so they're one on top of the other, yet you're living way out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing's within walking distance and the only local shops are little strip malls that pop up at regular spacing along the main road (which was six lanes across, no less). The tracts that were undeveloped showed a really pretty landscape, so these ever-expanding suburbs of Dallas (each development bearing its own name as a village) felt like an unimpeded virus. I couldn't help also being offended by the artificiality: many strip mall areas had two- to three-story buildings made of brick and mortar in a classic design from dense cities. Yet rather than be along a crowded street with other buildings of the same kind and little room for parking, these were islands in a vast sea of parking lots, the modern shopping blight under the ruse of classic locally owned, small shop commerce.
My opinion changed when we got to Denton, since it was far enough away to not be part of Dallas (though that might not last much longer). The main drag along the country road had been preserved from the 60s: old, cheesy stand-alone buildings with fairly small parking lots. Then we turned into the downtown, which was super cute: old buildings right up to the sidewalk, all in a row. No new buildings like fast-food joints or Blockbusters with their ring of parking lots. The main square and side streets actually looked hospitable to walking and many people were out and about. It's reassuring that such areas still exist in places like Texas -- little pockets where the car culture hasn't overridden common sense urban design.
---ETA Thu 7:23am
The officially recorded high for yesterday was 109. Blech!