Chilly Wichita Falls Circle Trail Walk Finding Trail & Library Closed

Several days ago the local weather forecasters were forecasting what seemed would be an early in the year heat wave.

Well, there were two days which followed which caused me to turn on the air conditioning for the first time this year.

And then yesterday it was back to fire up the furnace mode, which continues today.

I know that with the current situation no one expects anyone to go out of their way to return books, and that no fine would ensue, or book collecting gestapo agent would come knocking on my door due to an overdue book.

But, I needed to return some almost due books to the currently Coronavirus closed Wichita Falls Public Library. And any excuse is a good excuse to temporarily take a break from the sheltering in place.

So, I drove to do so, making my way to the closed library, with an empty, usually full, parking lot, using the primitive, antique book drop means, rather than the modern touch screen moving belt electronic means I usually use, to rid myself of a stack of books.

Leaving the drive through book depository lane I opted to head west to the eastern entry to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area for a walk on the Circle Trail.

After arriving and parking I headed to the Circle Trail and then took a right, walking east under the bridge over the Wichita River where I came to what you see above.

TRAIL CLOSED.

I don't know why such a sign is needed at this location. It looked fairly obvious that I had come to the current end of the Circle Trail, with the new section's construction well underway, with the hopefully soon to open link to Lucy Park.

At that TRAIL CLOSED  location I decided to take a rare selfie photo to photo document how cold the outer world currently is at my location, requiring a flannel shirt and a thick head covering. In the selfie you can not see the long pants or long underwear which completed the keep warm ensemble.

After walking I don't know how many miles I eventually found my way back to sheltering in place. I don't know how much longer I can live this way without having some sort of nervous breakdown...

Wichita Falls Coronavirus Lockdown Ends Lucy Park Swinging

On this, the final Sunday of the 2020 version of March, I opted to return to where I had had myself a Lucy Park Enchanted Forest Mud Bath a couple days ago, to roll my still mud coated bike on a ride through the tulips and other colorful flowers, whilst avoiding any mud traps.

In the first photo you are looking at my bike's handlebars aimed at the Lucy Park Pagoda, and some of those aforementioned colorful flowers.

And behind the Pagoda you are seeing part of the also aforementioned Lucy Park Enchanted Forest.

I do not know why Wichita Falls has so many Japanese inspired Pagoda type structures. I have asked a local or two or three if they could explain, to no avail.

On Friday the local Wichita Falls government put the town on a shelter in place type lockdown, with multiple caveats, such as one could leave ones shelter is one needed groceries, or to take a walk in a park, or on the Circle Trail.

However, judging by the sudden drop in the number of park visitors, and Circle Trail users, as witnessed by my eyes, we went from I had never seen the Sikes Lake trail with so many people on it, as I did on Thursday, and then on Saturday, the day after the local lockdown, Sikes Lake was a virtual ghost town during the same time frame as the previous visit.

Same thing with Lucy Park today. Ghost town. But on Friday, before the lockdown went into effect later on that day, Lucy Park was busy.

And since that local lockdown edict the Lucy Park playground equipment sports a new feature, which you see photo documented below.

Caution tape has been wrapped around all the Lucy Park slides and swings, keeping the little playground players from playing too close to each other whilst sliding down a slide, or swinging on a swing.

When I was a kid I really can not imagine yellow caution tape keeping me and my siblings from doing some sliding or swinging.

Then again, when I was a kid we never had anything remotely as scary as something like the Coronavirus Pandemic happening whilst America was being lead by someone the majority of Americans have realized is an ignorant moron, to put it as mildly as possible.

Scary times.

Wichita Falls On Lockdown With Mount Vernon #6 Per Capita Coronavirus Cases

Yesterday evening due to the stressful experience I suffered in Lucy Park's Enchanted Forest's Mud Bath I found myself tired and in horizontal mode relatively early last night.

After an hour or two of being horizontal my phone made its annoying incoming text message noise. Eventually I got back vertical to check the message.

Waking the phone I saw that it was my primary medical information provider, Nurse Linda Lou, texting me, with the text in the message simply saying...

Mount Vernon is #6.

There was an image attached to the message. That image is what you see above. When I saw this image last night I did not see, blurry-eyed that I was then, where Mount Vernon was mentioned.

But, this morning, when I looked again I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that my former Washington home metro zone, that being the Mount Vernon/Anacortes Washington zone was # 6 on a list of "Confirmed cases per capita by metro area" of the Coronavirus.

Methinks this is not a Top 15 list any metro zone anyone anywhere is wanting to be on.

Bellingham is another Washington town I have lived in, way back in the late 1970s.

The Bellingham metro zone, which I assume includes my familial hometown of Lynden, is 15th on this list.

Yesterday the Wichita Falls city council put this town on lockdown, telling us to shelter in place, with a lot of exceptions, like if you desperately need to go to the grocery store.

Sheltering in place is gonna get real old real quick...

Lucy Park Enchanted Forest Mountain Bike Mud Bath

I had sheltered in place for almost an entire day, voluntarily, as doing such is not yet mandatory at my location, though mandatory sheltering in place is being discussed today by those in charge of deciding such things for the people who live in Wichita Falls.

So, whilst still being able to exit my abode without fear of being in trouble with the mandatory sheltering special police I drove my bike hauling vehicle to Lucy Park to do some riding in this sudden return to summer-like temperatures.

90 something was the high yesterday, cloudy and not quite so hot today.

I figured, what with the return of extreme heat Lucy Park, would have totally dried out from its most recent flooding event.

I figured wrong.

Lucy Park has a large undeveloped area which I called the Enchanted Forest of Lucy Park. There are trails, un-paved, un-graveled in the Enchanted Forest. The Enchanted Forest pretty much totally floods when the Wichita River is flowing way too much water. You can sort of see the flood level in the above photo, looking at those trees you see my handlebars are aimed at, that reddish brown color is what remained after the water drained away.

So, I was rolling along, having myself a mighty fine time, and then I came to a section of trail which looked like it was still muddy. But, it has to be dry, by now, what with all these heat, I thought to myself.

I was wrong. I soon found myself rolling in thick mud, tires spinning and slipping, me having to struggle hard not to end up on the ground, in the mud.

I got through that first mud trap and could see more ahead. I thought, maybe I should turn around and go back the dry way I came.

But, this is a mountain bike, this is what mountain bikes are made for. And this current mountain bike has never been on an actual mountain or an actual muddy mountain bike trail.

And so I continued on.

I should have gone with my first impulse and turned around.

After multi minutes of spinning on mud I had traveled maybe 200 feet. I was covered with mud spun up from the spinning tires. The bike gears were covered with mud. The brakes were mud covered. The tires were thickened to what looked like double sized. I had trouble keeping the crank turning and the bike moving.

Eventually I reached dry land and soon stopped at a bench, found a stick and began trying to pry off as much of the mud as possible.

All worked out in the end, well, there is that super muddy bike sitting outside on the patio waiting for rain to give it an anti-mud bath...

Visiting Mount Wichita With Hank Frank In Montana

Most of March I have been slightly ailing, not too miserable, but not in the mood to do much of anything, such as my regular bike riding habit.

This ailing was good timing, sort of, what with this stay at home and away from potential virus carrying humans period we are currently suffering through.

So, what with feeling better, along with the outer world being heated into the 80s I decided to ride the Circle Trail to Lake Wichita.

A lot of other potential virus carrying humans had the same idea. I've never seen this section of the Circle Trail with so many people with so many different means of conveyance, with the majority means of conveyance being the regular non-mechanical assist walking method.

I stopped in the shadow of Mount Wichita for photo documentation purposes, pleased to see the mountain is recovering from the ravages of last summer's wildfire which scorched the mountain's southeast side. Green has returned to most of the mountain. I did not know if this is the result of a re-forestation program.

I do know that we did not have a sufficient snow coverage this past winter to enable opening the Mount Wichita ski lift.

Eventually I made it back to my interior space where I feel somewhat free from the threat of acquiring a potential virus.

Soon after locking my entry door the phone made its incoming text message noise. It was from Hank Frank's grandpa, my little brother Jake, with the text asking if I was keeping adequately isolated during these trying times. That and saying the attached photo indicates that it is already the lawn mowing time of the year in Montana.

Above Hank Frank looks like he is about to drive the lawnmower out of the garage. Hank Frank's maternal grandparental units live on a ranch near Helena, Montana. So, I think I can intuit from knowing that fact that Hank Frank is visiting his Montana grandma and grandpa.

Of all the big towns in Montana I think Helena is the only one I have never been in. Have overnighted in Missoula, Great Falls, Billings, Bozeman and Butte. Have driven though Lewistown and Kalispell, but have never seen Helena.

Awhile back Hank Frank's papa, Spencer Jack's uncle Joey, asked me if I'd been to Helena, which caused me to try and remember if I had, eventually coming to the conclusion I had not visited Montana's capital city after perusing the town's location on a map.

Each passing day makes it seem more and more unlikely the Coronavirus will abate enough for the planned trip to Washington to take place this summer, a trip which will include meeting Hank Frank for the first time, if it occurs.

The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics seems to indicate the level of trouble the world is in. I think the only time the Olympics have been cancelled has been during one or both world wars. And that long period of a few thousand years between the original Olympics in Greece and their revival and return to Athens in 1896.

Enjoying The Dry Falls Of Wichita Falls With Linda Lou

Two days in a row, for the first time in weeks, I managed to go on a bike ride.

Yesterday's ride was chilly, requiring full coverage. Today's bike ride was not chilly, requiring limited coverage.

Two days from now the temperature prediction is somewhere in the 90s.

Today's bike ride started in Lucy Park. I rolled my wheels on the Circle Trail from Lucy Park to the Dry Falls of Wichita Falls.

When a lot of rain falls, causing the Wichita River to rise, Wichita Falls is turned off, rendering it the Dry Falls of Wichita Falls.

It seems just a little ironic, to me, that after a century of visitors to Wichita Falls asking where the falls was that the locals decided to have a fake falls built, so as to have an answer to that probing question. But then did not deem it necessary to have the fake falls engineered in a way which allowed the falls to fall all the time.

I have been in towns in the Valley of the Sun desert zone of Arizona where there are multiple fake waterfalls, which I never saw turned off, even when the desert goes into flash flood mode.

Other than that problem with going dry way too frequently the fake Wichita Falls is a well designed installation, looking almost natural, until it goes dry, or when one hikes the trail to the top of the falls to see that the falls has no source of the creek or river sort, but instead mysteriously flows out of the edge of a massive cemetery.

My primary medical care professional, Nurse Linda Lou, called whilst I was rolling alongside the
Wichita River. It was not convenient to answer the phone at that point in time. I suspect Linda Lou was calling to verbalize about our Dear Leader's latest Coronavirus briefing embarrassments. That seems to happen daily nowadays...

Theo & Ruby's Harstine Island Fairy House Village

Yesterday I blogged about the Tacoma Trios Deer Corona Isolation With Harstine Island Bridge Over Water Unlike Fort Worth after incoming email brought six photos documenting some of what David, Theo and Ruby have been doing whilst they are unable to go to school.

Number six of the incoming six photos is the one you see above.

The text explaining that which you see above was...

"The kids built fairy houses in the forest behind the cabin. This is Theo's, with his path leading toward Ruby’s".

Fairy houses? I had not heard of such, previously. And so I Googled to see fairy houses are a big deal, with one of the explanations explaining fairy houses simply and succinctly...

"Fairy Houses are small structures for the fairies and woodland creatures. Ranging from simple to intricate 'Fairy Mansions', these whimsical habitats are built by children, families, gardeners and nature lovers reflecting their creativity, joy and pride".

Since I first saw Theo's Fairy House every person I have asked if they had heard of Fairy Houses had heard of Fairy Houses.

When I Googled "Fairy Houses" the Amazon extension on my web browser popped up with Fairy House kit products available on Amazon. Apparently the whole world knows about Fairy Houses.

So, this is yet one more thing about which I have been ignorant...

Tacoma Trio Deer Corona Isolation With Harstine Island Bridge Over Water Unlike Fort Worth

David, Theo & Ruby, also known as the Tacoma Trio, are now in, I think, week three of their school being closed due to the Coronavirus nightmare.

The Tacoma Trio's parental units have also been sent to homebound social isolation for the duration.

I do not know if the Tacoma Trio and their parental units are spending all their isolation time isolated on Harstine Island, where they have a cabin retreat, or if they have been going back and forth between Tacoma and the island.

What I do know is in that first photo we are seeing Theo leading his favorite herd of island deer on a bike ride around the island.

In the next photo we can plainly see that Washington geographic feature Washingtonians refer to simply as The Mountain. Non locals refer to this volcano as Mount Rainier.

As you can see the early Spring weather in Western Washington can be quite pleasant, when Mother Nature deems it so. Above we are seeing Ruby filling in a hole in which Theo is being buried.

Next summer, if life on the planet returns to some semblance of normal, I hope to be on a Washington beach with David, Theo and Ruby, where the Tacoma Trio will show me the sand castle building skills they learned whilst attending sand castle building school in San Diego last July.

Above we are witnessing David extinguishing the fire he built for the weenie and marshmallow roast he enjoyed with his brother and sister and the parental units.

No, that is not one of Theo's deer on the left. That is the newest member of the family, Raven, the full-sized poodle. The Tacoma Trio and Raven are sitting on a bench with the Harstine Island lagoon behind them.

And now on to something one finds on Harstine Island which is difficult to find in landlocked Fort Worth, Texas.

An actual bridge built over actual water connecting an actual mainland to an actual island. What a concept!

Even though the Harstine Island bridge is a cool looking bridge, mostly due to the scenic setting, over actual saltwater, no clueless local is dumb enough to refer to this as a "signature" bridge. Or claim it to be a complex feat of engineering.

The Harstine Island bridge was built over actual tidal water which moves with the whims of the moon.

And when the Harstine Island bridge was built there was no TNT exploding celebration to mark the start of construction. Nor did the bridge have a ridiculously long four year project timeline. Nor was any local politician's unqualified son and daughter-in-law put on the public dole to the tune of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars, year after year after year.

That landlocked Fort Worth, Texas town, mentioned above, has been trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land ever since a big TNT exploding ceremony way back in 2014.

The simple little bridges are now projected to possibly be ready for water sometime in this decade.

For well over a decade Fort Worth's favorite grifter, Kay Granger, has had her son, J.D., un-gainfully employed by what has become one of America's dumbest, biggest boondoggles, with J.D. currently paid over $200K a year, plus perks, along with also employing J.D.'s most recent wife.

In the past year J.D. sort of got fired from his imaginary Executive Director position and then put in charge of imaginary flood control in an area which has not flooded for well over a half a century. With no pay cut.

J.D.'s mother has failed on delivering the federal pork that the hiring of her son was intended to motivate. And yet the scandalous nepotism continues.

And now another look at the Harstine Island bridge.

That looks like Mama Kristin behind Theo and Ruby, under the Harstine Island bridge.

Methinks it clearly obvious that if Fort Worth is ever able to finish building those three simple little bridges over dry land that the final result will not be any where near as scenic as that which we see above.

A real island, natural water, not a cement lined ditch with polluted river water diverted into the ditch.

And no matter which direction one looks, one will never see a mountain from any location in Fort Worth.

Jason's Skagit Version Of The Corona Virus

Yesterday I text messaged Spencer Jack's dad, Jason, who is also my eldest nephew. I was curious how Jason and Spencer were weathering the Coronavirus storm.

By late afternoon I was in Walmart with the hordes of masked zombies, when my phone rattled my pant pocket, which had me answering a call from Mount Vernon's Linda Lou.

After several minutes of talking to Linda Lou my phone made a new noise, indicating another call. I somehow accidentally connected the two calls together, and so I then found myself talking to both Linda Lou and Jason.

Linda Lou's Mount Vernon home is about two blocks from Jason's.

Wonders of our modern pandemic infested world. Me, isolated in Wichita Falls, Texas, basically in the middle of nowhere, talking, long distance, to two different locations in Mount Vernon, Washington, with the long distance call not costing any long distance toll charge, no matter how long we talked. And with Linda Lou asking me to text her a photo documenting a condition I had used words to describe to her.

Twenty years ago being asked to send a photo over the phone would not have made any sense. And now, doing such, is totally ordinary.

So, by early Friday evening I was back in home social isolation mode, and checked email to find incoming, from Jason. When Jason called me and Linda Lou in Walmart he told me he had emailed me, and then decided later to call. And then even later Friday evening another incoming email from Washington,  Harstine Island to be specific, brought a plethora of photos, which I will blog in a blogging following this one.

And below is the text of the email from Jason, telling me about the current pandemic state of my old home state, along with a couple photos, including the one above documenting that Jason's Fidalgo Drive-In is open and feeding the locals.

And now Jason's email...

I'm going to reply to your text, via e-mail, as it is much easier to do such.

Spencer was dad schooled all week. He is very diligent about starting his homework immediately after breakfast. The teachers at his school have provided him with a lot work that needs to be done on a daily basis. He uses the computer to complete at least half of the assignments. Both yesterday and today he used Zoom to have a virtual meeting with his teacher and classmates.  She has also called to check in with us. So with all of that I am very impressed.

With regard to the restaurant, business has been really steady. I just got lucky, that my drive-in is easily set up to send orders out the door in paper bags.   And that's what we have been doing. 

Driving around the PNW has been quite eerie. Downtown Mount Vernon is a ghost town. And so was Lynden.

After homework was completed the other day, Spencer and I went up to Birch Bay to get some much needed UV rays.

It was a cool crisp sunny day, but the beach was full of young moms and dads and their children who have been kicked out of school.

We then headed east to Lynden for lunch. We took our lunch to the Lynden City Park, which was again filled to the brim with school children.

After lunch we did some house shopping in Lynden, before visiting your father and making our way back home.

Driving home the past couple days around dinner time, I cannot express how busy the parks are. With most everything boarded up, must be the only escape for Skagitonians. People are taking their meals to the parks.

Spencer would really like to go back to school and 'just wants this all to end.'

Jason.

David, Theo & Ruby Isolated Socially From Coronavirus On Harstine Island

Incoming last night from Puget Sound's Harstine Island, with the text accompanying the photos saying "Corona Crazy --- We finally got the kid's bikes to the cabin..."

School has been closed for a week now for David, Theo and Ruby. And their parental units have also been home, working remotely. I suspect some level of stir crazy began to manifest itself.

And so the Tacoma Trio took their social distancing to their cabin on Harstine Island, along with their bikes.

That would be Ruby and Theo with their bikes on the island, above. No photo documentation of David on his bike was included.

July and August are less than half a year in the future. Who knows if this Coronavirus nightmare will be over by then. So, I currently do not know if traveling to the Pacific Northwest is going to be doable this coming summer.

On Thursday I was in Walmart and saw the wiped out toilet paper supply phenomenon for the first time. The next day I was in the ALDI across the street from that particular Walmart and was surprised to see ALDI did not seem to have even a dent in their toilet paper supply.

Then late Saturday afternoon I was back in ALDI surprised to find all paper products wiped out, no canned goods, the meat section totally gone, along with many other items no longer available, including oatmeal.

Across the street Walmart was even more wiped out, with almost all produce gone, except for a random fruit or vegetable remaining. The bread shelf was bare. The meat section pretty much wiped out. In the cleaning supply area even the dish detergent section was empty.

I am currently beginning Day 11 of experiencing what seems to be a mild cold. Or allergies. Nurse Linda Lou called yesterday and when I described my symptoms she insisted I needed to be tested. Later Linda Lou texted a link to a local location where I can get my symptoms checked. I do not think Coronavirus testing is available, yet, at my relatively isolated American location.

Sunday I escaped Texas temporarily to drive north to Oklahoma. I find driving in a pouring rain and listening to the windshield wipers keeping time to be relaxing, for an hour or two...