The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival
April 11th, 2010 categories: Events and Activities
It was a beautiful weekend in Spring Texas as evidenced by the large groups of people who were out enjoying the great weather by attending festivals, cooking outdoors, working in their yards, or attending open houses. Hopefully, you had a chance to attend the 5th annual Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival as it was a great way to spend a couple of hours or the entire day.
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Bluebonnets
April 4th, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas
It is springtime in Spring Texas and spring means wildflowers and lots of them. Due to our colder and wetter winter than normal, this spring we have a bummer crop of wildflowers. Up and down I-45 the medians are filled with blue, red, and pink wildflowers. The most popular wildflower would have to be the bluebonnet which has the distinction of being Texas’s state flower.
You can find big patches of blue bonnets in numerous places around Spring Texas including Rob Fleming Park at the Creekside subdivision in the Woodlands where this video was shot.
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What’s the traffic like?
March 29th, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas, Home Buyer Information
When Rick and I are working with buyers relocating to Spring Texas from another state or maybe just from another part of Houston, a common question we will get is “What’s the traffic like?” This is one tough question for us to answer.
As Spring Texas Realtors, our jobs have us traveling the streets of Spring Texas at various hours of the day and various days of the week. What’s the traffic like on Louetta, FM 2920, Spring Cypress, or Kuykendahl is a question we can answer because these are the roads we constantly travel. What’s the traffic like into downtown Houston or on the Beltway or into the Medical Center in the morning is a question we don’t have enough personal experience to answer.
So how do you get the answers you need to the drive time questions? If you are in the early stages of your house hunting process and still considering areas, a good source of information on drive times is the Houston Transtar Traffic Maps. The maps provide roadway speeds and travel times will you can use to calculate commute times.
The map to the right shows what the traffic was like at 5:15 pm on a recent Wednesday. Click on the map for a closer view or go to the Houston Transtar Traffic website for a current view of traffic.
After you have narrowed down the areas you would like to live in, we recommend you do a test drive from your work to the subdivisions in Spring Texas you are considering. This is the best way to find out what the commute is like and how long your commute will be.
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Mercer Arboretum and Botanical Gardens March Mart
March 27th, 2010 categories: Parks and Recreation
If you haven’t taken the time to visit the Mercer Arboretum and Botanical Gardens now is the time. With low humidity and temperatures in the 70s, the Spring Texas weather is great making it the perfect time to be outdoors.
This is a video of the 2010 March Mart along with some footage of the gardens. The gardens are even more beautiful in person.
Photos of Mercer Arboretum and Botanical Gardens
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Art for the everyman on display in Spring Texas
March 15th, 2010 categories: Arts and Culture
Have you seen the art on display by Felix Gonzalez-Torres? If you frequently drive up and down Louetta in Spring Texas like I do, you have probably seen it. You just didn’t know it. Sound weird? Probably so. That’s because the art was designed to become part of the landscape.
For the next year, 13 images created by Felix Gonzalez-Torres will be displayed on billboards in San Antonio, El Paso, Dallas, and Houston. The display is being presented by Artspace, a San Antonio arts organization, to celebrate its 15th anniversary.
In Houston, the 13 images will be rotated on six billboard locations and we are lucky enough to have one of those locations in Spring. The Felix Gonzalez-Torres art can be found on the Clear Channel billboard located on the south side of Louetta between Theiss Mail Rt and Champion Forest.
The first and current billboard in the series is of a solitary bird flying though a gray sky.
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Welcome Home party for Olympic speed skater, Chad Hedrick
March 4th, 2010 categories: Events and Activities
On March 6th at 6 P.M. Strack’s restaurant is hosting a “Welcome Home” party for Spring Texas’s hometown boy, Chad Hedrick. Chad is returning from his second Winter Olympics where he competed in the sport of speed skating and compete he did. As Chad is bringing home a silver and a bronze medal from the 2010 Winter Olympics.
To have a Winter Olympics medal winner from Spring Texas is just a tad bit unusual because if you haven’t noticed we don’t get a lot of snow. A lot of heat, yes. But a lot of snow, no.
Chad Hedrick grew up in Spring Texas on roller skates. By the age of two, Chad was skating at Champions Roller World. The skating rink that was and still is owned by his parents.
Chad revolutionized inline speed skating with his technique known as the double push. In 2002, Chad switched to the ice. In 2006, he competed in his first Winter Olympics in Turin. He won a medal of every color. Chad won a gold medal in the 5,000 m, a silver medal in the 10,000 m, and a bronze medal in the 1,500 m speed skating events.
Come out and congratulate Chad and wish him well in his future endeavours off the ice. Strack’s restaurant is located at 5707 Louetta Spring TX 77379.
Congratulations, Chad! You have done us proud!
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T.C. Jester connection from Louetta to Spring Cypress completed
February 22nd, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas
Getting around Spring Texas has just gotten a little easier with the completion of the extension of T.C. Jester. At an estimated cost of over $3.4 million, the Harris County Precinct 4 project, extends T.C. Jester from Center Court Dr. (the last street in the Spring Creek Oaks subdivision) to Spring Cypress.
The project also included the addition of a must needed traffic light at the intersection of T.C. Jester and Spring Cypress. Previously attempting a left hand turn during peak drive times into the WindRose subdivision required a lesson in patience.
The T.C. Jester connection from Louetta to Spring Cypress coupled with last year’s extension of T.C. Jester over Cypress Creek has created another major North – South route in the area. As T.C. Jester now connects F.M. 2920 to F.M. 1960.
Click on the map for a closer look at the Spring Creek Oaks subdivision and the surrounding area.
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Relocating to Spring Texas?
February 5th, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas
Thinking about relocating to Spring Texas? Then you will want to learn about Houston Texas because Spring Texas is located in an area that is often referred to as Northwest Houston.
Here’s an excellent video created by Texaplex that highlights the many things Houston has to offer and why so many people have decided to call Houston and the surrounding areas “home”.
Want to know why I have decided to call this part of the U.S. “home”? Here’s my Top 20 reasons to live in Spring Texas. The main reason I live in Spring Texas is due to its high standard of living. The after tax living cost is 12% below the national average and the housing costs are 26% below. Search homes for sale in Spring Texas to discover just how far your housing dollar goes.
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Smile, you’re on red light camera
January 28th, 2010 categories: Discover Spring Texas
Since 2003, over 46 cities in the State of Texas have installed red light cameras and Houston has its fair share of red light cameras too … some 70 cameras at 50 intersections. There’s significant debate as to whether the cameras decrease traffic accidents and save lives or if they are just a money maker for the city of Houston. My personal opinion of what the truth is “it depends upon who is providing the answer”. It seems very similar to if you contact four roofers and ask them if your house needs a new roof at least one of them will say “Yes”.
Where exactly are these red light cameras? The Texas Tribune has a cool interactive map that shows where all the red-light cameras are located in Houston Texas and the surrounding areas.
They also have data on a per light basis of the quantity of red light citations issued, the estimated revenue of these citations, the number of crashes, and the number of red light related crashes.
The closest red light cameras in the Spring Texas area are located by the Willowbrook Mall (one of our regional malls). The cameras are located at F.M. 1960 & Texas 249 Southbound and F.M. 1960 & Texas 249 Northbound. The data available for these locations was from the time period of July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009.
I have first hand knowledge of the traffic around the Willowbrook Mall area but I was still surprised with the quantity of citations issued. At the F.M. 1960 & Texas 249 Southbound intersection 2,147 citations were issued for an estimated revenue of $112,718 and at the F.M. 1960 & Texas 249 Northbound intersection 4,121 citations were issued for an estimated revenue of $216,353. During a 12 month period 6,268 citations were issued at these two intersections. That’s a lot of tickets issued for running red lights.
One more thing to know about the red light cameras is you do not receive a pardon just because you performed a rolling stop before turning right on a red light. As far as the camera is concerned stop means stop!
Read also:
- Tips on navigating the roads in Spring Texas
- State Law prohibits cell phone use in Spring Texas school zones
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Who has the best cheese fries in Spring Texas?
January 24th, 2010 categories: Dining and Entertainment
Cheese fries have to be the best pig out and comfort food of all time. They probably have a gazillion calories and a high percentage of fat content but they are so good that I don’t know how anybody could resist them. At least not all the time.
If you are going to eat cheese fries you want them to be really good otherwise they are just wasted calories. A good example of wasted calories is Sonic’s cheese fries. Their cheese fries are limp fries with a small amount of cheese sauce on top. After you have eaten the first layer all the cheese is gone and all that remains are fries. Even the fries with the cheese are not that good.
So who has the best cheese fries in Spring Texas? Cheddars. Before Cheddars opened its doors for business at 21001 Interstate 45 in Spring Texas in spring of 2009, Outback Steakhouse had the best cheese fries. But that was in the past and now the best cheese fries are at Cheddars.
What makes Cheddar’s cheese fries so great? For starters, you get a lot of cheese fries for a very reasonable price of $5.99. But price isn’t everything. If they don’t taste great, it doesn’t matter how reasonable the price is.
The fries part of the cheese fries are crispy and thin but not too thin like Steak n Shake’s fries. Next they are covered with two types of melted cheese. Not cheese sauce but melted cheese. Plus there is enough cheese to have cheese with the first layer of fries and the bottom layer of fries. Then they are topped with crispy bacon and served with ranch dressing.
Crispy fries with enough melted cheese to cover all of the fries with crispy bacon and ranch dressing makes Cheddars the place for the best cheese fries in Spring Texas.
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