Sunday, June 6, 2021

Wichita Falls Dries Up With Lucy Park Golf Tournament


My mechanized motion device took me and my bike to Lucy Park on this first Sunday of the 2021 version of June. I thought I would likely have the park mostly to myself, it being Sunday, cloudy, hot and humid.

I thought wrong.

Way back in 2016, the first time I found Lucy Park, it was crowded. As in finding a parking spot was a challenge. Lucy Park is a big park with lots of parking spots. I do not remember what event, if any, was happening, figuring this must just be the Lucy Park weekend norm.

Well, it was not the Lucy Park norm. In all the years since that first visit I have never seen the park with so many visitors as I saw that first visit.

Til today.

A Disc Golf Tournament drew a lot of people to Lucy Park today. But, I had no problem finding a place to park.

I ended up having a mighty fine time rolling my bike's wheels. Even the muddy, slippery sections of the backwoods trail did not vex me too much.

Eventually I left Lucy Park and rolled the Circle Trail to Wichita Falls. Which you can see via the photo I took documenting the fact that today Wichita Falls is not falling any water.

I have never understood why Wichita Falls would spend millions to build an artificial waterfall, so as to have an answer when tourists ask where the waterfall is after which the town is named, to have a waterfall which has to be turned off when the Wichita River runs high.

Today there were a lot of people walking to see Wichita Falls. Where there was no water falling.

I find it ironic to find myself explaining to people why the waterfall is turned off, and that this happens way too often. Ironic because it was not all that long ago, on that first visit to Lucy Park, that I asked the nice lady who was womaning a Texas Tourist Information Center kiosk, how one got to the falls. She pointed the way, which seems so obvious now, and gave me a complimentary tube of chapstick, which I still have. 

Below is a partial look at the throng of humanity in Lucy Park today.


There were several disc golf vendors lined up next to the Lucy Park log cabin/swimming pool parking lot. The vendors are what you see on the right.

I don't know why more events don't take place at Lucy Park. It would seem to be a great location for something like Seattle's Sunday Fremont Market, where dozens upon dozens of vendors sell their wares, along with multiple food vendors. Or an event like the Anacortes Arts & Crafts Festival.

I don't see why such can't happen in Texas. 

Particularly since the biggest such type thing I have ever seen was in Texas, as in Canton's First Monday Trade Days.

First Monday Trade Days is truly something to behold. I've beheld it three times, and enjoyed it greatly each time...

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