Roller Blading at Quanah Parker Park

Up til about 2 years ago I did a lot of roller blading. It's fun. And good exercise.

On August 11 of 2004 I had a scary roller blading incident that still gives me nightmares. I was up in Washington. On both my birthday and the day I was to fly back to Texas my ex-wife convinced me it'd be fun for me to go roller blading with her riding her bike.

She led me to a nearby park that was an access point to a long paved trail through the woods. She did not tell me the trail started with a long long long steep, very steep downhill.

By the time I realized how steep the hill was it was too late to come to a stop. I rode the brakes as long as I could. When the speed became too fast I had to release the brakes and just try and ride it out. It was awful. I must have hit at least 40 mph. I made it down the hill and started to slow down, to maybe 20 mph, when I came to a wooden bridge. I thought, this is it, I'm gonna crash.

But I didn't.

I was back here in Texas and about a month after my ex-wife tried to kill me I was roller blading at Village Creek Park and had my worst roller blade crash ever. Scraped a huge area of skin off my butt and made the worst bruise I'd ever had. It was months before I got on the blades again.

And then about 2 years ago I had a bike wreck, followed by a minor roller blade wreck. I decided to give up roller blading. Bike wrecks are quick to recover from, roller blading wrecks have always been worse for me.

But, despite resolving to never get on blades again, today I did. I went to the park nearest where I live, Quanah Parker Park. It's got a large paved trail that makes a circle and a connector trail that goes to another paved trail. The photos are from today's roller blading at Quanah Parker Park.

Quanah Parker is a famous Comanche chief. All sorts of things in Texas are named after him, including Parker County. That's where Weatherford is. Quanah Parker's mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was a white woman who had been kidnapped as a young girl and grew up to adopt the Indian ways. There was a battle with Quanah's tribe and after it was over the Texas Rangers discovered Cynthia. They took her back to her family. Cynthia wanted to return to the Indians. Eventually, with a broken heart, she starved herself to death.

Enough of the history lesson, back to the present and roller blading.

I was wobbly at first, but it's like riding a bike, it comes back to you real fast. Some people have a hard time learning to roller blade. Way back when I thought it'd be fun to have someone to go roller blading with. So, I was somehow convinced to buy Gar the Texan roller blades. If I remember right I went roller blading with him one time. At a park right by his house. He made it about 30 feet and then got a case of the vapors and had to sit down on a bench.

After about an hour of sitting on the bench Gar the Texan had enough strength back to want to go to the bar at Chili's. I never went bike riding, hiking or roller blading with Gar the Texan where the physical exertion did not cause a case of the vapors. It makes me wonder how he manages to do his husbandly bedroom duties without these type incidents.