Seeing Indian Ghosts In Arlington At The Village Creek Spirit Lodge

The Spirit Lodge in Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area was looking a bit spooky today.

Usually when I walk in the Village Creek zone I don't actually see any Indian Ghosts, I just feel their presence.

But, if those are not Indian Ghosts hovering over the Spirit Lodge, what is it? A big mass of spider webs?

Currently I am at the point in Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee that tells the tale of the bad deeds done to the Ponca tribe by a very confused U.S. government, way back in the 1870s.

It is really hard in 2014 to imagine that at some point in time, long ago, our U.S. government made confused foreign policy mistakes that caused far more harm than good.

If you don't know about the dastardly betrayal that the Ponca suffered at the hands of the confused Americans, Wikipedia does a good job covering the Ponca history.

After paying my respects to the Village Creek Spirit Lodge I continued on my walk.

Eventually I came to the Village Creek crossing. There I saw a large group of guys appearing to be intently interested in something. When I got close enough to inquire I learned it was what they thought was a water moccasin which had caught their attention.

I did not see the snake. It had slithered under rock cover.

I did not ask the snake hunters if they'd seen the Indian Ghosts at the Village Creek Spirit Lodge.....

Rolling My Wheels To Survey Tree Damage In Fort Worth's Mallard Cove Park

On Sunday during the course of my 1st Annual Mallard Cove Park Father's Day bike ride I stopped and took a picture of a tree which I used for illustrative purposes on my 1st Annual Mallard Cove Park Father's Day bike ride.

Today I returned to Mallard Cove Park to roll my bike's wheels and found that half the aforementioned tree is missing, with part of what was formerly vertical now laying on the ground.

I've been seeing a lot of tree damage of late, well, isolated tree damage, as in on Wednesday in Gateway Park and now, today, in Mallard Cove Park. I have not made note of any extreme windiness.

Changing the subject from rolling my wheels past mutilated trees to something else.

What with day after day being heated into the 90 zone each morning the water in the pool is just a little bit less refreshing than it was the morning before. Summer starts up tomorrow with the annual moment when the sun reaches its zenith and then begins its long retreat back to winter.

100 degree days will likely soon arrive, followed by the water in the pool being as warm as the air and thus no longer refreshing.

It's a hellish time of the year......

Spencer Jack Not The Nephew In Danger Crossing A Rickety Methow River Suspension Bridge

I think it was Tuesday Spencer Jack's dad, my favorite nephew, Jason, emailed me pictures of Spencer Jack throwing rocks in the Skykomish River and skiing on a patch of snow near the summit of Stevens Pass, before continuing on to spend the night in Leavenworth, Washington's extremely popular Bavarian themed tourist town.

In addition to the emailed pictures, on Tuesday Jason also emailed a message, commenting regarding my Sunday Father's Day blogging, with a question or two, along with the tentative itinerary of Spencer Jack's drive around the Cascade Loop, including mentioning a stay in Chelan before continuing on to Winthrop.

Continuing on to Winthrop meant Spencer Jack would be driving up the Methow Valley. That had me replying to Jason's email, the germane part of which is the next paragraph...

Doing the Cascade Loop sounds fun. I don't think I've done that since you and Joey took me. Ironically I had a scary flashback to that yesterday when something caused me to remember you and Joey climbing out on a rickety old suspension bridge above the Methow River. Do not let Spencer Jack do that on your way to Winthrop.

Well, this morning in my email inbox I found fresh photos from Spencer Jack's dad, with those photos being pictures of the aforementioned rickety suspension bridge about which I clearly imparted my uncle wisdom regarding not letting Spencer Jack play on that bridge.

The text in the email accompanying the suspension bridge pictures simply said...

FUD-

Found this bridge for you today.   

-FNJason (not in danger)

To translate, FUD is Favorite Uncle Durango. One might look at the picture above and think, what with Jason indicating Favorite Nephew Jason is not in danger, that that is Spencer Jack making his way across the bridge. And in DANGER.

Well, that is not Spencer Jack, that is Spencer Jack's dad in the aforementioned incident from the last century, where Jason and Joey did not listen to their favorite uncle's suggestion that walking out on this bridge might not be a good idea.

It actually looks worse than the reality. The water, while moving fast, was not very deep. Had the bridge tossed them into the Methow River I'm sure I would have been able to fish them out, downstream a few miles, where the river calms down.

If I remember right the above photo documents the moment when I clearly indicated they were to go no further, which had Jason pleading that they wanted to continue to cross the bridge. However, I was able to successfully use my powers of persuasion to get the boys back on land.

And now, Jason photo documenting that this bridge is still presenting an attractive nuisance tempting tourists touring the Methow Valley.

That is Jason below, not Spencer Jack, taking what is known as a selfie with the rickety suspension bridge behind him.

I wonder if Jason was mortified when he returned to this bridge yesterday, realizing how he and his brother must have terrorized their uncle by trying to cross it.

These type adventures became known, over time, as Nephews in Danger episodes, never revealed to the various parental units til the following century.

I think I webpaged the Nephews in Danger episodes, but I'm not in the mood to try and find it. I'll try and remember some of the Nephews in Danger episodes.

Well, there was the time my nephews Christopher and Jeremy took me exploring the Ice Caves one accesses via the Mountain Loop Highway on the west side of Washington's Cascade Mountains. I don't know if exploring the Ice Caves is still allowed after someone met an untimely end from a falling big chunk of ice.

A Nephew in Danger episode I clearly remember involved only Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey. Joey convinced me it would be fun to climb up Sauk Mountain in a snowstorm with the switchback trail covered with a coat of ice. This Nephew in Danger episode was a bit scary.

One fun Nephews in Danger episode with Jason and Joey happened when they took me to Las Vegas. The nephews thought it sounded fun to drive to Badwater, that being the location of the lowest elevation below sea level in the Western Hemisphere, in Death Valley. The nephews had read that there was a possibility that that day might break the world's highest temperature record. By the time we got to Badwater it was only 124 degrees. No record. Little danger.

I just recalled the episode with Christopher and Jeremy on Tabletop Mountain by Mount Baker. Suffice to say sliding at high speed down a glacier could have gone all sorts of sideways. But it didn't.

Enough with the Nephews in Danger............

Fort Worth's Connie D Has Relieved Me Of My Texas Natural Lakes Ignorance

Yesterday I mentioned in Today Spencer Jack Was Not Wading In The Largest Natural Lake In Texas that I'd heard it repeated repeatedly that there are no natural lakes in Texas, which has repetitively struck me as being unlikely.

On Facebook Miss Julie commented that she thought the claim was that there are no "large" natural lakes in Texas, unless one counts Caddo Lake, which is mostly in Louisiana.

Then the Fort Worth Connie D provided some new information for me, via the website version of the Texas Almanac's short article about the short supply of Natural Lakes in Texas.

Below is what the Texas Almanac had to say about the Texas Natural Lakes...

There are many natural lakes in Texas, though none is of great size. The largest designated natural lake touching the border of Texas is Sabine Lake, into which the Sabine and Neches rivers discharge. It is more properly a bay of the Gulf of Mexico. Also near the coast, in Calhoun County, is Green Lake, which at about 10,000 acres is one of the state’s largest natural freshwater lakes.

Caddo Lake, on the Texas-Louisiana border, was a natural lake originally, but its present capacity and surface area are largely due to dams built to raise the surface of the original body of water. Natural Dam Lake, in Howard County, has a similar history.

In East Texas, there are many small natural lakes formed by “horse-shoe” bends that have been eliminated from the main channel of a river. There are also a number of these “horse-shoe” lakes along the Rio Grande in the lower valley, where they are called resacas.

On the South Plains and west of San Angelo are lakes or "playas," such as Big Lake in Reagan County, that are usually dry.

Now that is interesting. In Texas, in the South Plains region, apparently there are natural lakes without water.

And from this article I also learned that I am walking distance from a natural Texas lake which I have actually walked over. That being an old bend of the Trinity River which got itself cut off from the river, but still somehow manages to get a water supply of sufficient quantity to make it a natural lake.

I do not know if my neighborhood natural Texas lake has a name. I do know there is a dilapidated bridge that crosses the lake, with a "DO NOT TRESPASS" sign on the bridge which is easily ignored....

Today Spencer Jack Was Not Wading In The Largest Natural Lake In Texas

No, on the left, that is not Spencer Jack at some tropical paradise, or wading into the largest natural lake in the State of Texas.

What you are looking at is Spencer Jack wading into the largest natural lake in the State of Washington.

I have read repeatedly that there are no natural lakes in Texas. This strikes me as bizarre, but after having this repeated so many times I've come to accept it as reality.

There are no natural lakes in Texas.

I do not know how many natural lakes there are in Washington.

Dozens?

Hundreds?

Do the lakes which popped out of the desert, like Sun Lakes and Soap Lake, after Grand Coulee Dam blocked up the Columbia River, count as natural lakes?

That largest natural lake in Washington, which Spencer Jack is wading in above, is Lake Chelan, in Eastern Washington.

Eastern Washington is on the east side of the Cascade Mountains.

Eastern Washington is the HOT side of Washington in summer. In winter Eastern Washington can get quite cold. Eastern Washington is a lot like North Texas, though way more scenic, with way more fruit orchards.

The picture of Spencer Jack wading in Lake Chelan showed up a few minutes ago in my email inbox, sent by Spencer Jack's dad, my favorite nephew, Jason, with the text in the email saying "Spencer Jack wading in crystal clear Lake Chelan."

There is a lot of crystal clear water, both of the fresh and sea variety, in Washington.

I have also seen crystal clear water in Texas, though, apparently, not in natural lakes.

Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas comes to mind as a time when I was quite surprised to see crystal clear water in Texas, what with my Texas experience up til then being seeing works of water like the polluted Trinity River and murky reservoirs.

Lake Chelan is 55 miles long. At its deepest point Lake Chelan is 1,420 feet deep, making it the third deepest lake in America and the 26th deepest in the world.

Lake Chelan is long and narrow, averaging only a mile wide.

The Fall before I moved to Texas I had myself a mighty fine time floating on Lake Chelan via the Lady of the Lake, to the town at the north end of the lake, Stehekin, where I had multiple bear encounters among other good things, all documented here.....

A Cloudy Mountain Bike Ride In Wind Damaged Gateway Park Before Taking To Town Talk

As you can see, via my favorite Gateway Park mountain bike trail photo opportunity location, today I was rolling my wheels under a brooding gray sky.

I did not get the afternoon rain potential memo til this morning. I was still going by the earlier memo which had no rain chance in the current 7 day forecast.

And now the middle of the afternoon has arrived, with the appearance of zero drippage.

For reasons unknown to me I have been feeling a bit punky the past couple days.

Punky is the word I use to indicate feeling not so good,.

But, by this morning I had re-bounded and had myself a mighty fine time having an early morning swim under a bright quarter moon, clearly visible, before the arrival of the blue sky blotting clouds.

Gateway Park currently looks as if it may have been hit with a micro-burst wind event. Multiple big branches on the ground. However, nothing of a trail blockage sort impacted the mountain bike trail.

Since I was in the neighborhood, after I had exhausted myself on the Gateway Park roller coaster, I dropped in on Town Talk for some treasure hunting.

Dozens of all natural chicken legs was the best thing I found at Town Talk today. Along with broccoli and extra sharp white cheddar cheese, plus two bags of brown rice.

Due to visiting Town Talk today I suspect this coming Saturday will be the second Saturday in a row without a Town Talk visit. I don't remember the last time that happened.

Spencer Jack Stones Skykomish River Before Finding Stevens Pass Snow While Staying Away From Fort Worth's Trinity River

According to photo documentation I received this morning Spencer Jack is currently taking his dad and favorite girl friend, Brittney, on a Washington Roadtrip known as the Cascade Loop.

One can Roadtrip the Cascade Loop clock-wise or counter clock-wise.

Spencer Jack has opted for the counter clock-wise option, meaning first over Stevens Pass, to overnight, last night, in Leavenworth, then on to Lake Chelan, then north up the Methow Valley, to Winthrop, before heading west over the North Cascades via Highway 20, which eventually takes everyone home to Mount Vernon.

That white stuff you see Spencer Jack standing on is some snow remaining at the Stevens Pass ski area.

Very few people in Western Washington have air-conditioning, mostly because days when you wished you had A/C are few and far between. Currently the people I hear from in Western Washington are lamenting having to run their furnaces to keep warm, with one person colorfully commenting on the rain volume by saying it was at "frog strangling levels."

On the way east, up the western slope of Stevens Pass, Spencer Jack had his dad stop at the little village of Skyomish where Spencer Jack had himself a mighty fine time throwing rocks into the Skyomish River under the Skyomish River Bridge.

Can you see how crystal clear the Skyomish River is? But, for more than one reason you probably don't want to have yourself a Fort Worth Trinity River style Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Float in this river, even though it is pollution free.

One reason you might not enjoy floating in the Skykomish River would be due to the fact that the water would be very cold, likely only recently melted. Another reason it might not be a good idea to go inner tubing in the Skyomish River is due to the fact that the river gets a bit wild in places, challenging to even expert kayakers.

Regarding the not so crystal clear Trinity River in Fort Worth, a couple days ago, on the City of Fort Worth website I read the following regarding the Trinity River....

The Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility discharges treated effluent into the West Fork of the Trinity River, a sensitive stream that during dry months may be composed of up to 95 percent treated effluent.

Yikes!

During the dry summer months the Trinity River is almost entirely composed of water which has gone through a sewage treatment process?

Well, that sort of explains the lovely green hue...

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. Happy Birthday, this June 17, to Spencer Jack's dad, my favorite nephew, Jason.

Finding A Horizontal Hoodoo On The Dry Tandy Hills While Thinking About Hiking With Maxine

Today I was back on the Tandy Hills for the first time in what seems weeks to have myself a mighty fine time doing some high speed hill hiking.

I prefer my Hoodoos to be vertical, but I can see where there is some merit to the new Horizontal Hoodoo I found today.

A Horizontal Hoodoo would seem to be not as vulnerable to gusts of wind.

I'd taken the Tandy Hills off my to-do list since recent rains. But I saw no sign of anything even remotely wet today. Tandy Falls looks as if it has been dry for a long long time.

I think I can extrapolate from the dry Tandy Hills and assume the Gateway Park mountain bike trails are also dry.

Lately Maxine of Wild Ass Custom Milling fame has been causing me to remember various hiking venues I used to enjoy regularly in my old home zone, like the hike to Fragrance Lake from Larrabee State Park, the hike up Goose Rock in Deception Pass State Park, and my favorite, hiking the trails in Washington Park in Anacortes.

In my latest email exchange with Maxine, regarding the hikes she's been hiking I found myself saying "This is sure making me once again realize what a topographically zero zone I am currently in, where I think the Tandy Hills is a good thing. Big Ed has often opined if the Tandy Hills existed in WA no one would go hiking there because they'd they'd think it was like hiking in a gravel pit. So true."

Well.

While what I opined to Maxine is basically true, what is also true is that my favorite hiking locations in Washington, while incredibly scenic and varied compared to the Tandy Hills, all were over 25 miles from my abode, while the Tandy Hills is less than four miles from my current abode.

Then again, now that you're making me think about it, I could walk out the front door of my house in Mount Vernon and have myself a scenic hike much hillier than the Tandy Hills. And a short mile to the east I could hike to the top of Big Rock, which is a sort of Gibraltar like monolith left behind after the last Ice Age.

If I still had a house to move to in Washington, I think I'd move back to where only a couple days of the year people wish they had air-conditioning....

The First Annual Fort Worth Father's Day Mallard Cove Park Bike Ride Confusing My Brother

Today was the day of my First Annual Father's Day bike ride on the paved trails of Mallard Cove Park, located on the wild and rugged east side of the Texas town of Fort Worth.

In the picture you are looking at one of many big trees which rise from the open prairie of Mallard Cove Park.

That line of trees you see behind the big tree line the south bank of the Trinity River as it scenically passes Mallard Cove Park.

For some unfathomable reason all access from Mallard Cove Park to the Trinity River has been blocked. So, I am no longer able to roll my wheels out of the park to take pictures of big piles of discarded tires, abandoned beds and vehicles rusting in the middle of the Trinity River.

With access to the Trinity River blocked I had only Mallard Cove Park to look at and find odd stuff which seems out of place. Such as that which you see below.

Since I last visited Mallard Cove Park a giant white straw has been inserted into Mallard Cove. My limited imagination could imagine no possible explanation for this unnatural insertion.

After I had had enough of riding my bike I sat at a picnic table under the Mallard Cove Park Gazebo and text messaged "Happy Father's Day" to most of the dad's entered into my phone, including my dad and my brother.

I'd not called my brother in a long time. A really long time.

Within less than a minute after sending out the Happy Father's Day text messages the phone twice made its incoming text message noise.

The first one was from my dad, simply saying "Thank you".

The second was from my brother, simply saying, "Thanks who is this I don't know this number or area code Go Hawks".

My brother is very avant garde with his punctuation.

I replied back saying, "This is your big brother, calling from Fort Worth, Texas. Are the Seahawks already playing football again?"

I have received no subsequent message from my brother, so I don't know if the Seahawks are back playing football. Seems like only yesterday Seattle won the Super Bowl. Is it already time for them to start making that happen again.........?

Happy Father's Day To All The World's Dad's Especially My Pa

On Friday my dad's favorite grandson named Jason, he being the father of my dad's one and only great-grandson, Spencer Jack, partially named after my dad, whose name is Jack, emailed me the photo you see here, with the question accompanying the email asking me what was the occasion where this photo was taken.

First off, from the top, that would be me, looking all bloated and tied on the far left, next to my favorite brother-in-law, also named Jack, next to his wife, my favorite sister, Jackie, next to my not so favorite sister, Clancy, next to Spencer Jack's dad, and then his dad, my little brother Jake, next to his first wife, Spencer Jack's favorite grandma, Cindy.

In the front row we are looking at Christopher, aka CJ, sitting next to my dad, sitting next to my mom, with my favorite nephew, Joey, behind my mom, with my favorite nephew, Jeremy, aka JR, sitting in front of his big brother, CJ.

So, Jason's question was, why were we all in this picture? And where is Aunt Michele?

Well, I told Jason this picture was taken via my antique Nikon camera's self timer on November 3, 1994 prior to all of us heading north, to Lynden, for my grandma's, my dad's mom's, funeral.

As Jason later so eloquently put it, his Aunt Michele is not in this picture due to her tendency to always be late.

With today being Father's Day, I am just a bit sad that I am not one of those getting Father's Day cards today.

Being a good dad is a tough job.

I was a lucky guy because I was blessed with a very good dad. I don't think I would have managed to do as good a job as my dad did, raising five kids.

I found taking care of a cat to be taxing.

I learned a lot of good lessons from my dad which my time on the planet has taught me others were not so blessed to learn.

Things like staying calm when something goes awry.

I was only 13 when we took our first family vacation trip to Disneyland. The level of anticipation regarding going to Disneyland, for me and my siblings, was unlike anything we had experienced before.

Only a few miles into our trip to Disneyland we experienced a major malfunction with our vacation trailer's wheels.

Dad pulled off what was then not quite Interstate 5. Dad then removed the broken wheel part. He then un-hitched the car from the trailer. We then drove south, to Marysville, to find someone to weld the broken part. My dad found a fixer, the fix was made, we returned to the trailer, installed the fix, re-hitched the trailer and were on our way, with mom making us a ham on potato roll lunch on the road which to this day has me feeling fondly at any mention of potato rolls.

Mom and dad made something difficult seem like just part of the adventure.

Years later I found myself back in California. I'd gone to a taping of the Laverne & Shirley sitcom at Paramount Studios. Leaving Paramount my troubled 65 Mustang Fastback decided to cease working its clutch. That night was spent stuck in Hollywood. The next morning the malfunction was fixed. I stayed calm and sort of enjoyed the bizarre experience, thanks to lessons learned of going with the flow, from my dad.

Years later, long after the Laverne & Shirley debacle, I was driving through Death Valley when suddenly it became obvious I had a flat tire. The others in my tour group went in to full panic mode. While I just thought to myself, worst case scenario, we have to walk 6 miles to Stovepipe Wells to seek help.

Turned out switching out the flat was no big deal, and then repairing that flat in the town of Bishop, California, turned out to be fun, benefit of lessons learned from my calm dad.

Anyway.....

Happy Father's Day, and thank you for being such a good dad, Dad!!!!