Under the Mall
After having gone to the mall in Irving a number of times over the past five years or so, I don't believe I ever noticed this tunnel under the weekend before Dani and I visited it.  We happened to be out this way a week earlier, but had left our cameras in the other car.  Ah, preparedness!
As you can see, this canal runs through the parking lot and right underneath the mall.  I suppose they bought the property for cheap as a result of this natural division, but the developers managed to get around it.

There are a couple bridges over the canal on this side of the mall, one behind me as I took this shot and one ahead, just before the tunnel.

I have no idea why Dani is making that face here.
Just inside the tunnel was a dead bird.  Too bad we had already eaten!

There were a number of pigeons roosting on the I-beams above us.
The dimensions of this passage were absolutely huge.  Of course, it really didn't seem as long as it was since it was so large.  I would love to see what it is like in a heavy rain, but obviously this tunnel has no trouble passing the contents of even the worst downpour.
Here's a look at the top of the tunnel.  Or the underside of the mall, if you prefer to view it that way.
Near the end of the tunnel you can see where it opens up at the far edge of the parking lot.  Just past that, it splits into eight parallel tunnels that run beneath H-Way 183.
Naturally, we went under 183 as well.  Oddly enough, the tunnels zig-zagged through this section. 

We were surprised to find that you couldn't hear much noise from the traffic above.  Which was good, because we didn't want to be distracted from our interpretive readings of the sexually explicit graffiti in this part of the tunnel.
We exited on the other side of the highway, but quickly doubled back via a parallel tunnel.  There were car dealerships on either side of the canal, and we didn't want to look like we were sneaking into those.
Alexplored 10/17/04.
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