111 Wichita Falls Degrees Feeling Not As Hot As Death Valley

This morning whilst perusing the news I saw that the temperature prediction for today was to be over  the century mark by around 5 this afternoon.

It was 8 minutes prior to five when I did made the temperature screen shot, via my phone, which you see here.

Only 99 degrees, not the promised 100. And now the time has passed that 5 o'clock mark and is still 99.

I do not know why the weather predictors can not be more accurate.

Due to that 99 apparently feeling like 111 I think I will forego the afternoon bike ride I have been enjoying of late, what with being borderline elderly and thus, apparently, more susceptible to heatstroke than someone younger and in better shape.

Earlier today I did get in some HOT endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation by walking the Circle Trail in the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, which is photo documented via two photos below.

A fork off the main trail forks again, terminating in two swinging benches. I am the only person I have ever seen swinging on either of these benches. But, looking in the trash barrel you see at the fork in the trail I saw multiple empty drink containers of various sorts, which indicates to me that those benches must be seeing some use later in the day, such as during the colorful sunsetting time.

A short distance from where the above spur trail joins the Circle Trail I came upon a disturbing instance of urban destruction.

What sort of vandalous madman would smash to smithereens a work of sculptural art like the tall hoodoo which stood at this location a couple days ago?

These acts of destruction seem to have no dampering effect on the rock piling spirit of the mysterious hoodoo builder. If history repeats itself, as it always seems to do, soon a new hoodoo will soon rise at this location.

Maybe the hoodoo builder should consider using super glue to render the construction less easy to topple.

Just checked the phone again. We are still stuck at that relatively chilly temperature of 99. I do not remember if we hit 100 last summer at my current location.

I do remember the last time I was super heated well above 100.

It was way back in August of 1998, when Spencer Jack and Hank Frank's paternal parental units flew me to Vegas, and then drove me out to Death Valley because the news that morning told us a temperature records might be set that day at Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet below sea level.

I do not remember what the temperature was when we made it to Badwater Basin or Furnace Creek. I do remember it did not break the record, which is somewhere above 130.  I also remember it was extremely HOT.