On this Saturday before Christmas the weather outside was not even remotely frightful. I felt the need of some outdoor exposure, but was in no mood to roll my bike wheels anywhere. And so I used my mechanized conveyance to convey me to the base of Lake Wichita Dam so as to do some walking seafaring on the shore of Lake Wichita.
Above you are looking at a photo I took today of part of the information signage atop the dam. In this photo you are looking at the pavilion which sat atop the lake for many years, and then burned to oblivion sometime during the 1950s, with all which remains the pilings on which the pavilion sat.
Nowdays some of those remaining pavilion pilings provide a bird perch. I was told these birds are cormorants. I have no way of knowing if this is true, what with not being any sort of aviophile, to coin a word.
Since my last visit to the top of Lake Wichita Dam a new historical marker has been added, telling a brief history of how Lake Wichita came to be.
I read the history on the above historical marker and quickly noted some of the history, well, spelling was erroneous. A fact which I just confirmed via Google when I Googled "Holliday Creek", which the above sign twice spelled as "Holiday Creek", to learn, via the Wikipedia Holliday Creek article "The creek was named after early explorer, Captain John Holliday, who carved his name on a tree by the creek. The town of Holliday, Texas, was named after the creek, as was Holliday Street, a major street in Wichita Falls".
I remember way back when I first read that the creek which runs near my abode was called Holliday I thought a mistake had been made with the adding of an extra "l". I probably Googled way back then, also, to confirm the spelling. A misspelling on such a sign, as in a historical marker sign, is a bit ironic, but quite understandable how such a mistake could be made.
Continuing past the sign.
I was surprised to see water spilling over the Lake Wichita Dam Spillway, what with it having been several days since any rain has fallen, and even then the amount falling was not too copious. Sometimes it seems even after a heavy rain not enough falls to cause water to fall over this particular spillway.
Continuing past the spillway I looked to the edge of the shore and saw what looked like a wooden coffin bobbing up and down. I made my way to the water's edge to see if anything unseemly was in the "coffin" and was sort of relieved to only see that one littered fast food bag was all which was in the coffin awaiting burial.
Looking past the coffin you can see a dock floating on the lake. Let's head there.
Getting closer to the gangplank which leads to the floating dock we can see Mount Wichita on the west end of the lake, sticking up like a little pimple on the horizon.
Boarding the gangplank which leads to the floating dock. A sign warns that only four people, weighing in total, no more than 800 pounds, can safely cross the gangplank at the same time. Today there was no danger of overloading the gangplank.
Now we are on the floating dock, looking south at the aforementioned pier remains of the long gone Lake Wichita Pavilion.
And turning around, still on the floating dock, a look back at the gangplank, and the top of the dam.
A beautiful Saturday. I saw only a couple others enjoying the outdoors where I was located. I suppose most people are engaged in last minute Christmas business of the sort I mostly opt out of participating in.
Monday is the last day for the arrival of Christmas cards arriving before Christmas. Today's mail brought a couple cards. Aunt Alice had asked if hers had arrived. I can now inform Aunt Alice that her card has arrived. As did a cute one from Joey, Monique and my new little nephew, Henry...
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