Driving To Lucy Park Without Elsie Hotpepper To Bike To Wichita Falls

Elsie Hotpepper called last night when I was not available to talk to. So, this morning I called the Hotpepper back to ask if she wanted to ride to Lucy Park with me. But, Elsie was not available, so I drove alone to Lucy Park to take my backup bike on a ride.

Above you can see the bike has arrived at Wichita Falls.

Wichita Falls, the waterfall, is not in Lucy Park. One rides the Circle Trail out of Lucy Park and in about a half a mile one comes to Wichita Falls, the waterfall, not the town. Both Lucy Park and Wichita Falls, the waterfall, are in Wichita Falls, the town. So is the Circle Trail.

I rolled my wheels all the way to O'Reilly Park, which is a short distance from the actual location of where there used to be, way back in the 1880s, an actual waterfall with a drop of a couple feet. And it is that long gone slight waterfall from which the town, Wichita Falls, gets its name.

A century later locals got tired of tourists asking where the waterfall was. So, a fake waterfall was created, which is what you see above.

The town I lived in before Wichita Falls, Fort Worth, had a similar problem.

Fort Worth does not attract many tourists, but those who do visit the town might ask where the fort is, to learn there is no fort in Fort Worth.

I was among those visitors who was perplexed by signs pointing to Sundance Square.

I, and many others, asked, where is Sundance Square? The parking lots by the trail drive mural was the usual answer. The actual answer, I eventually learned, was that Sundance Square was the name given to a multi block development scheme, with none of the schemers realizing, apparently, that calling this Sundance Square was not a good idea. Eventually, after a couple decades of confusing the town's few visitors, downtown Fort Worth turned those parking lots into a little town square, calling it Sundance Square Plaza.

Currently Fort Worth is confusing its few visitors who see signage with Panther Island on it. There is no island. 

Anyway, back to the bike ride. On the way back to Lucy Park I rolled through the MPEC (Multi-Purpose Events Center). I stopped to take the picture you see below.

This pedestrian bridge takes you across the Wichita River. Above, we are heading back to the Circle Trail after crossing the river to where the agricultural building is located, which is part of MPEC. I think this is where farm animals can be exhibited. And other things. Such as I went to a Christmas oriented craft show type deal which was mighty fun. 

You can not see much of it, but to the left of the handlebars, on the other side of the bridge, is MPEC's sports type building, where things like hockey take place. To the right is an exhibition hall.

I should return and photo document all of MPEC.

An interesting thing I saw today at MPEC was flags of different nations. For a couple seconds I wondered why I was seeing the Canadian flag. And then I remembered Sheppard Air Force Base is a NATO training location...