The G-Team

Sevfiv and Amanda, how were the mosquitoes when you went out there? Did you see any banana spiders still in their webs or have they gone underground too? I assume the snakes are dug in for the winter, but maybe the mosquitoes still are bad?

The coordinates for the middle of the cross are N29 48.311 W095 37.532. I entered the cross area from the SW section a few years ago with Kevin and I still remember we found what looked like the bones of a boar or something on the edge of the pond area.

The coordinates for the bridge, which is a concrete/cement cattle crossing bridge, are 29 48.233 and W 95 37.770. There maybe something farther west, but I don't remember seeing road markings very clearly so you would just have to start walking.

I don't have the coords for the area (big circle of water with mound in the middle) to the NW of the cross, but if you find the "Terracache" (not geocache, but just another competitor of geocaching) in the tree in the center of the cross and open it up, on the lid is the coordinates for the other circle that is NW of the cross. You can of course also just start walking northwest if you have a compass/GPS. If you want to walk to the mound inside that circle, bring some waterproof shoes or boots because your feet will get wet. It is completely surrounded by water or 10 foot tall reeds that you can't get through.

Last time Kevin and I walked out there, I remember Kevin walking behind me and yelling to me at one point, "Look out...snake!!!!" just as I was about to step on a snake. It looked like a non-poisonous variety, but I'm not an expert. Watch out for snakes. I also saw a devils horse grasshopper which i had never seen before...that was pretty neat. Bring a walking stick or pick one up off the ground if you go...they'll help you knock down the spider webs if they are still up.

Have fun.

Being it is Halloween today, I wonder if the devil worshippers will be visiting the cross site tonight at midnight?

I know I've seen these tall "yellow" looking trees with different colored spikes at the top placed around Houston. There use to be a couple at the intersection of 610 W and I-10 before they started doing construction. There's one or two on the east bound side of I-10 just west of downtown. Has anyone else seen these?

The depression symbols on the topo map (dashed circles) represent a drop in elevation of at least 5 feet, which is the contour interval for this map. The ecology of the circles is probably wetter, a wet prairie type ecosystem rather than a drier forest. The one circle has a dome in the center- but what are the trees? These shapes are common in the pine flatwoods of south florida, and they often have small cypress domes or bayheads or willow heads in the center. The cross shaped trees must be there because of human activity. If there were cross fences at one time, they could represent trees that grew from bird droppings, or they could be planted. Depends on what species they are.

I never did try to figure out what kind of trees they are, but I wish I had now when I was out there last month. I'm not an arborist, but the tree in the middle of the dome is big. I would guess oak or cypress. The other little trees that line the cross look like they just got there by birds dropping seeds. There doesn't appear to be any symmetry in the plantings and the trees aren't that big, so either they're not old like some of the bigger trees or because the area is very wet, maybe they can't get that big or maybe they're just trees that only grow to be medium size. From the pictures above they look like maybe cottonwood trees?? I'll go back out when it starts cooling down and I'll have to see what kind of trees they are. I almost stepped on what looked like a juvenile water moccasin so I want to wait until they go back into hibernation before I go out again. Saw too many snakes last time.

One of Marvin Zindler's favorite restaurants is the Los Tios in Meyerland. I've been there on several occassions where he walked in and knew all the employees by name. That was about 5 years ago now - I've moved since then so I don't know if he still frequents the place or not.

Now that it sounds like the quest for answers is over I am going to make suggestion. I thought this would have been obvious to SOMEONE. If I had any REAL interest in this area I would have done it myself, but I don't.

Call the Army Corp of Engineers field office for the reservior and ask them. I can promise you a very detailed survey was done of that area before the levees were built, that is why they show on the topos.

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if they built the areas to screw with peoples minds. Hey...it worked!

I just got off the phone the corp of engineers. They said, "yes, we surveyed the area....indeed there is a small spacecraft buried under the hill, but we're trying to keep it hush hush".

I promised I wouldn't tell anyone what they told me, but I lied.

I tried doing a search on the forums for this building, but didn't have any luck. Apologize if there's already a thread going, but appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.

There's a building on the NW corner of Franklin and Bagby across from the old fire alarm building. Its been there at least a few years now, but still doesn't look occupied from my vantage point. Anybody have any ideas as to why its still empty? Did they build it and then realize they forgot to install plumbing?

THanks,

Hello G Team what was the view like up there on the 12th Floor? I once had a bank account there when it was Mbank or Bank one but I never got past the Lobby level. How was the Inside Styled, Frank Lloyd Style fixtures or anything note worthy. Besides all the bad stuff any great Memories? Were you Freaked out during high Wind days and feel the Building Sway as a earlier post stated.

The view from the balcony was of Southmore, but the walls around the balcony were like 4-5 ft high and seemed like about 1 or 2 ft thick so it was hard to get a street view unless you kind of climbed up and looked over. My office had the view of intersection of Pasadena blvd. and Southmore. It was a good view because there were always accidents at that intersection, plus when it rained real hard it would flood and you could watch the crazy drivers try to drive through and then get stuck. I had forgotten about the building swaying until you mentioned it, but yeah, I do remember you could feel the the bldg move in high winds. As for the interior, it was about as plain jane as you could get on our floor. Of course, each tenant could build out the floor however they wanted and I think there was a lawyer office that had pretty nice decorations. I always thought the lobby was neat because it was so dang big and the ceiling went way up. It seems like I also remember there was no 3rd floor...the elevator went 1, 2, 4,5....12. I think the 3rd floorw as maintenance and they could get there by putting a key into the elevator or something like that. There were good times of course. The best part of being in the building was we WEREN"T DOWNTOWN with the ivory tower boys so we could kind of do our own thing.

Its a little early to predict what the weather will be, but a trip out to the pagan cross might be in order this saturday at 8am. Anyone interested in meeting at bear creek park to make the trip together? Again, I will be looking for a very sneaky geocache as well so I'll need your help.

PS. It'll probably not be cold outside.

The G-Team

Which side of the bayou are they on? There were a couple of nasty apartment buildings along the bayou that used to flood all the time that finally got torn down a few years ago.

These would be on the north side of the bayou south-southeast of the maintenance bldgs for memorial park. As a matter of fact, I guess they could be really old abandoned maintenance bldgs., but I'd like to imagine they were something more interesting.

If I remember correctly, it seems like it was foundations for 2 or three little buildings and they might've all been connected. They were way too high up (deep drop off a cliff down into the bayou) to flood.

I tried doing a search on the forums without any luck so I'll ask here. In the southern part of memorial park right next to the bayou are a couple of old foundations (looks like there were bldgs there once with basements). I assume these are vintage WWI bldgs when camp logan was there, but wanted to know if anybody knew for sure.

I worked in the bldg about 6 years ago. We had the penthouse suite and it was great. Our big boss had the giant corner office and rigged up his door so that he could push a button under his desk and the door would close so he could light up his cigar. It was of course against company policy to smoke at your desk, but who was going to be brave enough to tell him. We also had the only balcony in the bldg being on the 12th floor. I thought about eating lunch out there once. Walked out and it was way too windy to sit down at the picnic table (that we hauled up the wood and built). There was a little space in the basement for a deli and I always felt sorry for the people who tried to open up an eating establishment there. They'd always close in about 1 month after opening because they had no customers. We had about a dozen 5 gallon buckets up there because every time it rained, the roof would leak in about a dozen places. In addition, the toilets were always breaking every other week. The a/c wouldn't work good in the summer and the heating wouldn't work good in the winter. Basically, the place was miserable and we couldn't get the owner to spend any money on maintenance so we left after our lease was up. I don't think anyone moved into the space after we left.

"trees and vegetation (other than grass) do not grow on the

mounds/depressions due to a layer of solids or mineral debris

added when the land was changed."

I think Torvald said it correctly here. There are no trees and not much large vegetation due to the nature of the environment and not to human interaction, ie big weedeater. When you see them in person, you see that they are depressions and have similar characteristics as retention ponds here in Houston - no trees and not much of anything else except water and grasses that grow in this type of environment. But they do appear to be man-made. The mound looks like all the dirt from around it was piled high in the center (thereby creating a depression around the mound where the dirt use to be). Same thing with the cross. THe cross looks like it is created by piling up dirt from the surrounding area thereby creating the 4 quadrant depression with the cross.

Looks like it is suppose to rain all weekend so I may put off going out there until next weekend or the weekend after. So far only one brave soul has offered to come along, but maybe the following weekend is better for folks since it won't be Father's Day.

Mike

I may go out to the area this Sunday morning (June 18th) between 8-9am to TRY to find a nearly impossible to find geocache. Probably take about an 1 1/2 hrs if I go to both sites and walk around a little. If anyone is interested in walking out to the location and learning about geocaching, I could sure use an extra set of eyes to help. I think it is about a 15-20 minute walk to get there if I remember right. Send me an email if you're interested and we'll figure out where to meet before hand, but probably meet up at bear creek park by where the buffaloes are caged and just take one or two cars, depending on how many folks want to go.

The G-Team

I've been out to both sites a couple of times. I wouldn't go after a big rain. You can get around the water at the cross for sure and you can probably get around the water at the "hill" if you enter the hill from the northwest side. Depends upon how much rain we've had. The cross had a skeleton of a dead animal nearby when I went last about 2 months ago- maybe a hog or something. I couldn't tell , but I figured it was from the pagan rituals that probably go on here.

I parked on Lamb Road, although I didn't know it had a name before this thread, and crawled over the gate. Take a GPS or compass because its easy to get lost in there. If you walk all the way down the road, you'll eventually get to an old cement cattle guard bridge that must've gone over some little creek that is now dry. I think I even ran across what looked like a foundation for a small building, but I could be confusing that with the old WWII bldgs at memorial park.

The"hill" is really a big tree and it has a big grove of what looked like bamboo around almost the entire part except for the northwest part where you can enter from.

If you go, please don't disturb the geocaches that are there. Or if you do, please put them back the way you found them.

Have fun.

P.S. Bring mosquitoe repellant and water

The G-Team