Thursday, July 13, 2017

Biking To Wichita Falls Mysterious Towers Of Hercules

With the temperature nowhere near 100, and thus the outdoors being somewhat pleasantly moderate in the heat department, I opted to take my bike on a ride, with no particular destination in mind.

I am finding biking right from my abode at my current Wichita Falls location to be almost as pleasant as I used to experience late in the last century at my old  home location in Mount Vernon, in the Skagit Valley in the state of Washington.

From my abode in Mount Vernon I would exit to coast at high speed down a hill on the cul-de-sac on which my house was situated. No matter which direction I went steep hills were available, including the paved golf cart trail of a hilly golf course called Eaglemont, where Spencer Jack's dad used to have a restaurant he called a pavilion. Paved bike/pedestrian trails cross Mount Vernon, making it easy to get from the east end of town, where I resided, to the west end of town where a river ran.

At my current Wichita Falls location  the topography is pretty much flat. But the Circle Trail and the paved alleyways which course all over my neighborhood make for a fun maze of routes to roll around on.

Today I rolled north to Hamilton Park, then exited the Circle Trail to pedal on surface streets, eventually coming to an annoying street made of  bricks.

Why do Texans think it is a cool/good thing to retain old-fashioned streets made of brick? It ain't cool, it ain't good. Fort Worth's Camp Bowie Boulevard is the worst Texas offender of this sort I have bumped across.

The brick street eventually turned into a modern road going by nice homes, one of which looked like it would have made Howard Roarke proud.

Soon I came to Hempstead, which meant I was at the north end of Midwestern State University.

Why is this university so named? It's not in the Midwest. It's in North Texas. Why not Texoma State University? That has a nice ring to it. And the name makes sense. What with this region being known as Texoma, due to sharing space with Oklahoma.

From Hempstead I crossed Taft to the university campus. Soon I came upon that which you see above. An art installation known, for reasons unknown to me, as the Towers of Hercules. I do not know why this 'art' which looks like a row of phallic symbols is known as the Towers of Hercules.

My photo of the Towers of Hercules make them appear to be the Leaning Towers of Hercules. In reality the towers are totally erect, completely vertical, not even remotely resembling that famous tower in Pisa...

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