Episode #22: A Collection Of Drone Pictures

My buddy Rip Case got me interested in flying a drone a few years ago. He had a really nice one and I was intrigued but not to the point of spending that much money on a new hobby. So I go out and buy a $100 drone just to see how it goes. I might as well have just wadded up a $100 bill and threw it in the trash. It was junk, the drone would not respond to the controller and it was frustrating. So I try once more and bought a small drone made by DJI called a Spark. It was very compact (smaller than my cell phone) and slow, but it was easy to fly and I could control it very well. The pictures and videos were great and I really liked it. The only thing I did not like about it was the battery so small. When it was windy the battery would run down in about 6-7 minutes. A few years later I upgraded and bought a DJI Mavic Pro Platinum. I still have that one and while it is technically old, it is still a very good drone. 

The picture and video quality from these little drones is very good, I just have not figured out how to format a video that will embed in a blog post. I am still working on that and may have to find the right software to be able to do this. Hopefully I will be able to figure that out one day. In the meantime, here is a collection of what I think are a few interesting everyday pictures, or at least some everyday pictures from an interesting view.

BTW if you know of an interesting location and is within an hour or so of where I live, or if you would like to have a drone shot of your home let me know. I am always looking for places to fly and photograph or video and since I am a drone hobbyist only, I do it for free.

This is restored but not an operational Gulf service station located in downtown Gainesville Texas next to the railroad depot with my 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass posing in front.

This is a picture of the historic train depot in downtown Gainesville. This depot is the catalyst for the annual community festival Depot Days held in October each year.

This non-working and abandoned microwave tower just south of Hwy 82 (visible in the back ground) is about five miles east of Gainesville. This tower was built for use during the cold war to be used for communications if the United States were to be attacked and conventional communications were disabled. I have seen several towers around the country of this same configuration and they would have been linked together at one time. An interesting side note is there are no warning beacons (lights) for aircraft on this tower anywhere. The FAA has so many rules about so many things, I am surprised they have allowed this for many decades now.

This water tower is located on Hwy 82 in Gainesville. It was draped for sandblasting and repainting.

The first southbound Texas Tourist Bureau on Hwy 75 in Denison Texas just immediately south of the Red River.

The I35 bridge crossing the Red River north of Gainesville looking north into Oklahoma. They don't call is the Red River for nothing 😳.The water tower for Winstar World Casino can be seen in the distance on the horizon. 

Speaking of Winstar, I took my drone there one day to take a few pictures of the casino building and the surrounding areas. As I was connecting the drone to the controller, a guy walks up behind me asking what I thought I was doing. Before I turned around I said I know what I'm doing, I don't have to think. When I turned around I see it is a security guard in his golf cart. He said you can't fly that here. I said I could because I had already notified the local airport as required. He said I cannot fly here because this is sovereign Chickasaw land. I said I could have sworn I was in Thackerville, Oklahoma in the USA. Nevertheless, he said if I fly it, I will lose it and receive a fine or worse. I chose to fold it up and leave. Who would have thought?

This view of the Red River is just a few hundred yards west of the I35 bridge in the prior picture. The iron trestle bridge seen here is used for north and south bound train traffic, both freight and passenger rail. Just beyond the iron bridge you can see someone is operating a small sand plant on the Oklahoma side. Any operator that is dredging the Red River basically has an endless supply of sand since the river constantly carries sand as it travels from its origin in eastern New Mexico and travels 1325 miles where it enters the Atchafalaya River just northwest of Baton Rouge Louisiana.

This is the first Texas visitors center just south of the I35 bridge seen above. This view is looking south toward Gainesville. Not much traffic that day. That has certainly changed!

This picture that of a water treatment facility that is still under construction near Leonard Texas. Water will be transported 60 miles by an 8' pipeline from the new lake in Paris Texas (Bois D'Arc Lake) to this facility under the authority of the North Texas Municipal Water District. The water will be treated and used for human consumption then pumped through a pipeline to an area serving the north and east area of Dallas including McKinney to Mesquite. 

This solar farm which claims to be 400 acres is just off I35 between Gainesville and Valley View. I am standing on the service road to capture these views from about 300'.

The two bridges seen here are the old iron trestle bridge which is a bit of a monument of days gone by and now for foot traffic only and the new concrete bridge that crosses the Red River at Carpenters Bluff into Oklahoma. This is also the location of one of my earlier blog post about my drone getting captured in a tree top and how I got it back.

You will notice the river water here is not red because it is a few miles east of the Denison Dam. 

Speaking of Denison Dam, here is a shot with the flood gates open after a substantial week long rainfall event. You can see Lake Texoma in the background.

These old 'top hat' style water towers are so cool I think. 

The Cooke County Courthouse in Gainesville looking east down California Street on the left and the old bricked portion of Main Street on the right. The lift was there for some work on the exterior of the building.

This shot is from above a wind turbine at a windmill farm near Muenster Texas. For perspective you can see my pickup parked on the road at the entrance cattle guard in the background.

The previous four pictures show some of the remains of what once was known as Camp Howz in Cooke County just west of Gainesville. This 59,000 acre Camp was not only a training camp for the US military but also served as a Prisoner of War encampment for 3000 German soldiers during World War II. It was closed in 1946 and classified as Surplus. You can still see the remnants of the structures and foundation piers in the pictures, this was a massive camp. 

These Big People statues were a staple landmark of the area outside of Gainesville for decades. People would come from all over to see, pose next to them and take pictures for years and years. Glenn Goode had a sandblasting and fiberglass company he operated in the shop next to his home. Glenn purchased several of these damaged Big People over the years and repaired or remodeled them. This type of Big People was an advertising oddity of the 1950s and 1960s. Glenn has since died and his daughter Glenda (who asked me to take these pictures) lived there for years until she recently passed away and now the famous Big People are all gone.

These three pictures above were taken in the small rural community of Madill Oklahoma. The first one is their cute little county courthouse. The other two pictures show how the some of the downtown buildings are built on the same angles that the streets are on. The straight down view of the building in the last picture is a very different perspective than the street level view.

From 400' above the shore looking north out on Lake Conroe while visiting Jacob and Lauren.

From about 400' the dam at Lake Kiowa, Texas just outside Gainesville.

Looking north along Jamaica Beach toward Galveston Island. This picture was taken in January, that is why there are no tourists around. It was pretty cool that morning.

This picture was taken a couple of years ago. Looking south at my place from across the road and up about 400'.

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