Tag Archives: Fairview TX

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Needing some answers about all this highway work

Photo by Michael O’Keefe/First Response Photography.

My wife and I moved to Collin County a year ago, then relocated within the county from Fairview to Princeton.

We’ve learned a good bit about Princeton since we planted our roots deeply into a subdivision under construction just south of U.S. 380. One of the things we learned is that the community is in a major growth mode.

How do we know? The highway is under reconstruction and I am getting the word from some of my snitches that it ain’t going to stop any time soon.

They built a median along the highway to curb the number of crashes that were occurring, or so I have been told. The raised concrete median aims to keep people in their own lane.

I am now in search of some answers about the highway makeover and what it means to residents who live here. I am hearing some grumbling about folks who are upset about all the construction; they are frustrated by the constant heavy east-west traffic along U.S. 380; I am hearing about residents griping about the inability to enter the highway from side streets … meaning they want more stop lights.

I have developed a couple of sources at the Texas Department of Transportation, the state agency that is rebuilding the highway. The Princeton city manager has told me that as soon as the median is finished through the length of the city that TxDOT will commence work adding a lane on each side of the highway; they will turn it from a four-lane to a six-lane thoroughfare.

My wife and I figure we bought our house at just the right time. The city is small at the moment; it won’t stay that way for very long. We are reckoning that our real estate investment will pay off handsomely … whenever we no longer are living in the house.

However, the traffic does present some immediate concern. The snoopy part of my emotional makeup compels me to ask around.

I need to know what in the world is going to happen with this highway work. When will it end? And to what end is this work going to finish?

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Let there be water!

One of life’s occasionally uncomfortable experiences involves the unexpected disruptions in the flow of a most valuable — the most valuable — commodity of all.

Water. You turn on the spigot, flush the toilet and you expect the water to flow. It didn’t this morning in our residence in Fairview, Texas.

Our first thought was: Oh, crap! The pipes froze! It was nominally below freezing when we rolled out this morning. The water was trickling out of the sink faucets. Then it stopped altogether.

This is just great! Ah, but then came news that a water main had broken. Virtually the entire town of Fairview was high and dry.

The city got to work. Quickly, indeed. Less than an hour after we awoke, we got word that the water had been restored.

Great day in the morning!

So, what’s the lesson here? It is that the people who fixed our city’s water main — not to mention the city manager, the mayor and the town council — have skin in the game, meaning that their water flow was disrupted, too!

Therefore, they got right on it!

Many thanks from one household. Well done.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 114: Learning our way around

We have settled in our new digs just north of Dallas.

Our dwelling is comfortable. My wife has done a miraculous job of assembling it and putting everything (mostly) in its place.

Now the next big challenge awaits us: learning our way around in a community that bears little — if any — resemblance to the community we left.

Fairview is a busy place. We live just a stone’s throw from U.S. 75, aka the Dallas Central Expressway. Collin County comprises nearly 1 million residents. We’ve been fortunate to be able to avoid the freeway at times when virtually everyone in this county is on the road at the same time.

We’ve checked out local routes that enable us to get from place to place with zero hassle. We haven’t yet ventured too far away from our digs. We’ve located several grocery stores, a nice shopping area, some very nice eating establishments, entertainment venues.

What we haven’t yet mastered is how we travel from our small community to destinations some distance away. We know how to get from the Metroplex back to Amarillo; we also know how to get from Fairview to the Hill Country, or from Fairview to Gulf Coast.

We’re going to figure out how to transit easily from our dwelling to, say, Love Field or to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. There a number of communities nearby: Plano, Frisco, Sherman, Carrollton, Richardson. They’re all clustered in the region just north of Dallas.

We’ll find our way around in due course. Hey, it’s gone pretty swimmingly so far.

Until we commit these routes to memory, we’ll just have to thank goodness for Google Maps.

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Let’s make every day a Sunday

I have come up with a fantasy I know will never be achieved, but I need to express it anyway.

Is there a way to make every day a Sunday? I guess when you’re retired, as my wife and I are these days, every day is a weekend of sorts. We lose track of time occasionally.

What day is it? Is it really Thursday? Gosh, it feels like a Saturday.

We’re getting acquainted with our new surroundings in Fairview, Texas. This morning, we awoke and then headed out for a Mother’s Day breakfast and a little shopping at the grocery store.

We took our Prius to a busy east-west thoroughfare and noticed that there was nobody on it. We made the turn west to U.S. Highway 75, then turned south.

No one was on the freeway, or on the frontage road, either.

We pulled in to the restaurant. We ate our meal. Then we drove the store that was just a few hundred yards away.

No one in the store!

Sunday morning is the time to do whatever it is you want to do, providing the businesses you need are open at the moment.

And with the legendary traffic snarls that occur in the region just north of Dallas, we enjoyed the morning of our first full day in our new digs just fine, thank you very much.

Why can’t every day be so quiet and peaceful?

Monday awaits. Oh, boy!