Texas Tidbits: Lake Fairfield State Park!

The Best Fisherman on Lake Fairfield

I just checked in with accuweather.com and it looks like that all my rowdy friends in the Metroplex and all of North Texas will be having a beautiful weekend for enjoying outdoor activities. There's a State Park just down I-45 from Dallas that is worthy of your attention. Fairfield State Park offers some good amenities spending a day or a week - lakeside camp sites, electricity, lighted fishing pier and more. We'll get back to the fishing pier in a minute.

From the Park website, here's a 3 minute video, that gives you some great information about Lake Fairfield and all the stuff you can look forward to when you visit. Another good thing about Lake Fairfield is that is a power plant lake, so the water of the lake stays warm even during the coldest of times. Another cool thing is that there are freshwater redfish in them thar waters. Redfish are a saltwater species but they were bred to adapt the to fresh water of Lake Fairfield. let me tell you that when you latch onto one of those big bad boys, you know that you have something at the other end of your fishing line. As a matter of fact, a good size redfish on the business end of your line feels somewhat like trying to haul in a compact automobile. And they taste GREAT when cooked properly. This is where the lighted fishing pier comes into play. Besides redfish, you can catch bass, crappie and catfish as well as panfish like bream.

To me, a park like Fairfield is all about the fishing, but for some reason unknown to the brightest minds in this room (that would be me), some of you are heathens and don't like to fish. I call you "heathens" with love in my heart.  :) There are other things to do besides fishing for you heathens that don't fish, again I say that with love in heart, like "A six-mile trail has connected an older 9-mile trail to provide a continuous 15 miles of trailways that provide multi-use (hiking, mountain biking, and equestrian) access from one end of the park to the other. Much of the trail is adjacent to the 2400-acre Fairfield Lake. There is also a 2-mile nature trail and 1 mile of bird watching trail." Attention Bob Zeller of Texas Tweeties! There's birding at Fairfield State Park!

The park is about halfway between Dallas and Huntsville and if my math and memory serve me well, that's about 85 miles or so from the Big D. It's well worth the drive just to escape the Rat Race, which by the way, the rats are winning, to Fairfield for the peace and quiet of a relaxing weekend of doing what the hell ever you feel like doing, even if it's nothing.

MASSIVE 8.9 QUAKE LEVELS JAPAN! UPDATED! (scroll down for updates)

This kind of story is out of the scope of stories that I normally cover on this blog, but it's too major to not at least mention. 

An 8.9 earthquake shook Japan this morning at 2:46am local Japan time. The temblor is the largest quake to EVER strike Japan and the 7th largest ever recorded anywhere. The quake generated a tsunami that has hit the coast of the island nation with waves estimated to as high as 30 feet. the West Coast of the United States is under a Tsunami Warning with a wall of water ranging from a couple of feet in Southern California to mas high as 6 feet in the Pacific Northwest and in Hawaii.

US Military personnel in Okinawa are all safe and unaffected by the quake and they stand at the ready to assist in any sort of search and rescue or recovery operations in the quake ravaged zone. President Obama has also notified FEMA to be ready to assist the Japanese government as needed.

At least 51 people in Japan have died as a result of the massive earthquake with that death toll expected to skyrocket as the wave from the tsunami recedes and rescue personnel gain access to the affected areas. Nuclear power plants have been shut down leaving at least 4 million homes in Tokyo alone are without electricity. These nuke plants are reported to be completely safe with no radioactive material released as a result of the quake.

These story is changing by the minute and the information along with it is doing the same, so I'll leave you with the information I have as of 7:20 am EST.

I will update as events warrant. If you are so inclined, please say a prayer for the lost lives in this disaster and a prayer of strength for the survivors.

UPDATE: At least 200 bodies found by rescue workers in northeast Japan.