A Wichita Falls local historian then informed me that the installation takes a long time to install, hence beginning before Halloween, so as to be able to open by the time Thanksgiving arrives.
And now the latest iteration of the Holiday Season is coming to an end.
The older I get the faster time seems to fly.
On this first day of the New Year of 2020 I opted to layer on sufficient outerwear to make for a pleasant bike ride, eventually making it to MSU and the aforementioned Fantasy of Lights.
Above you see my handlebars looking at one of the new installations which arrived last year. Apparently this is Disney inspired by something called Frozen.
The passage of time thing has had me feeling a bit melancholy. As I rolled along today, nearing Sikes Lake, that song with the verse which goes something like "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got til its gone" was haunting me.
That line came to mind as I remembered holiday seasons of years gone by.
Before moving to Texas I always sort of dreaded the various family get togethers that happened the holiday season time of year. Grandma Slotemaker's birthday was December 16. There were many years Grandma Slotemaker's birthday was combined with Christmas. This usually involved going north to Lynden. Or there could be a variation where we'd go to a restaurant in Bellingham. Or my old home in Burlington.
When I was old enough to no longer be under parental control I often finagled to avoid the relative holiday season activities.
I often would take off for Reno. I spent quite a few Christmases in Reno. This sounds pitiful, but it was actually fun. A long drive to get to Reno, several days there, then head to California.
The final time of doing this, to escape the relative holiday fun, was Christmas of 1993.
I spent Christmas day that year in Disneyland. Christmas Eve at Knott's Berry Farm. The week following Christmas was spent having basic Southern California fun, except for playing in the Pacific. Too cold for that.
And then it was on to Las Vegas, leaving Vegas the day before New Year's Eve, making it to Flagstaff by New Year's Eve, with the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on New Year's Day. And then on to Moab, via the Painted Desert.
Crossing the San Juan River into Utah I saw a cool looking lodging location stuck up against a redrock cliff.
The Mexican Hat Inn.
The next day couple days were spent in Moab, hiking a snowy Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
At Islands in the Sky, in Canyonlands, I looked down on the Colorado River below and saw mountain bikers. I vowed right then to get a mountain bike upon my return to Washington, and return to Moab to mountain bike. That happened for the first time two years later.
In October of 1994 what had been a long tradition of me escaping the holidays to head south came to an end. I had been on a long road and houseboat trip, which included staying in that Mexican Hat Inn I had seen the year before, and on the day after returning home, on Sunday morning, my mom called to tell me Grandma Slotemaker had passed away.
The relative holiday season was never the same after that.
And now I look back on it and realize I should have probably not escaped the holidays so often, because nothing like that will ever happen in my life again...
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