Today We Learn Mount Wichita Is A Growing Dirt Hill With A Facebook Page

Yesterday I mentioned asking a pair of college students who were walking near the base of Mount Wichita if they knew how that mountain came to be.

They knew not.

I did not mention the pair are students at Midwestern State University, the college a couple blocks north of my abode.

This morning I did some Googling attempting to get an answer to that vexing Mount Wichita question.

Previous attempts to Google such were not successful. Today's attempt was successful, using the search term "Lake Wichita Park Hill". My first blog post about this subject shows up on the results, and when one looks at images of the Lake Wichita Park Hill, my first photo I took of the mountain, I mean, hill, is the first on the list.

From the aforementioned Midwestern State University's online school newspaper, in an article from way back on October 8, 2013 I read the following....

Residents visit the park for its running trail, dog park, disc golf course and a mound of dirt unofficially named Mt. Murphy after Jack Murphy, the city’s director of parks and recreation.

“The hill started about 15 years ago,” Murphy said. “It came as a suggestion when deciding how to use the excavated dirt from the bottom of Sikes Lake.”

Murphy said the hill is 83 feet tall right now. He said the plan is to build it up to 100 feet and turn it into a local attraction with perhaps a spiraling trail going up and a metal structure on top.

So, almost three  years ago that which I call Mount Wichita was only 83 feet tall? With a plan to eventually grow the mountain another 17 feet?

Well, Mount Wichita, I mean, Mount Murphy, seems way taller than 100 feet to me. I don't think a 100 foot elevation gain would be as aerobically stimulating as is the climb to the summit of Mount Wichita.

Yes, I am sticking with the Mount Wichita name. Mount Murphy just does not work for me.

After learning how Mount Wichita came to be I saw the search results also included a Facebook page dedicated to Mount Wichita.

Except on the Facebook page Mount Wichita is called The Dirt Hill.

Reading the plethora of comments on the The Dirt Hill Facebook page I learned I am not the only one who finds the climb to the summit to be extremely aerobically stimulating.

Dredging is part of the Lake Wichita Revitalization Plan. Methinks it would be a good plan to take that which is dredged and make a couple more mountains, so as to then have the Wichita Mountains. I think a Wichita Mountain Range would make for a very good tourist attraction.

Another part of the Lake Wichita Revitalization Plan is to make a sandy beach near the base of Mount Wichita.

A mountain range with a beach. Seems like a good plan to me....

A Visit To Mount Wichita Leads Me To Visit A Dam Spillway With Water Fountains

Due to excessive rain I knew Mount Wichita would be Mount Muddy today and hence, not climbable.

But, around noon I drove to Mount Wichita anyway to have myself a walk in the mist, mist which today in Wichita Falls has been like a stereotypical winter day in the Western Washington zone of the Pacific Northwest.

Whilst walking around Mount Wichita I came upon a pair of college students who were engaged in a conversation about water moccasins.

I was not interested in snakes, but I did interrupt the snake discussion to ask if they knew the story behind what created Mount Wichita. They did not know. I then asked if they were in Wichita Falls during the five year drought.

They were.

I asked how low did Lake Wichita get during the drought. The guy of the pair told me it shrunk way back til it was just a little puddle. He got out his phone and showed me pictures of the shrunk lake.

He then said if he remembered right there was a lot of informational signage about the lake at the dam's spillway. I asked how to get there. He told me. By his directions I realized the spillway was closer to my abode than Mount Wichita. So, I left the mountain and headed to the dam spillway.

That would be the Lake Wichita dam spillway you see above, with water spilling over the spillway. Above that is the only informational signage I found, informing about the Lake Wichita Pavilion which used to exist over the lake at this location.

Via the sign I learned Lake Wichita was completed in 1901. Eventually the Lake Wichita recreation area included a hotel, vacation cottages, baseball fields, a swimming pool inside a circular building with a carousel plus the Lake Wichita Pavilion which included a cafe, skating rink and a dance hall. The pavilion burned down in 1955, with all that remains being piers sticking out of the lake which we will see in a moment.

But first I must make mention of something in the second photo above. Near the information sign is that water fountain you see in the foreground.  I have seen several water fountains along the Wichita Falls trails. Quite a nice modern big city type amenity.

Continuing on, let's walk to the top of the dam.

As you can see a paved biking, jogging, walking roller blading trail has been installed on top of the dam. This trail extends all over Wichita Falls, including running right by my new abode.

If you look at the above photo closely you can see the aforementioned Mount Wichita in the distance, on the left.

Let's continue on to the dock we see below.

As you walk to the floating dock you can also see the aforementioned Mount Wichita in the distance. The bridge one walks across to get to the dock provided some pleasing rocking motion.

Looking south from the dock we see the aforementioned remains of the Lake Wichita Pavilion.

Do I need to mention that the Lake Wichita Pavilion appears to have been a real pavilion, unlike the imaginary pavilion America's Biggest Boondoggle has foisted off on the hapless citizens of another Texas town, called Fort Worth?

Currently Wichita Falls is in the process of building a new boardwalk type deal over the lake at this location, with a real pavilion eventually added. I suspect this will all be completed long before anyone sees anything worth seeing in Fort Worth's Trinity River Uptown Central City Panther Island Vision.

From the dock I zoomed in for a foggy across the pond look at Mount Wichita, looking like a snow-free mini version of Washington's Mount Rainier.

That concludes today's look at the scenery of Wichita Falls.

I have yet to find anything here that I don't like or am appalled by.

Well, the roads in some of the parks could use some upgrading. The road to the parking lot at Mount Wichita is a bit jarring with the bumps and potholes.

Why Are There No Real Housewives Of Fort Worth With Elsie Hotpepper?

Even though I am now headquartered about 120 miles northwest of Fort Worth I see no reason not to continue the popular series of bloggings about items read in west coast online news sources which I can't imagine reading in a Fort Worth news source regarding something in Fort Worth.

I don't remember if I got this example from the Seattle Times or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

I have no idea what SIFF is, but can you imagine something in Fort Worth called SIFF featuring Fort Worth-centered movies though history?

Sleepless in Fort Worth?

A movie titled Sleepy in Fort Worth might be doable, featuring a famous panther napping in the sleepy town's mostly moribund downtown.

Can you imagine a movie industry magazine indicating Fort Worth to be among the best places to make movies?

I can't either.

Me actually thinks Hollywood is missing out on some rich material.

Like the Fort Worth Stockyards.

There is no other city in the world which has a twice daily cattle herd of longhorns ramrodded down a city street by cowboys and cowgirls.

Is there any other city in the world which encourages hordes of locals to float in a polluted river while drinking beer and listening to music at an imaginary island with an imaginary pavilion?

A Seinfeld type TV show would have a field day of material in Fort Worth. Mayors like downtown gun shooting Moncrief and pedal pushing Betsy Price. Embarrassments like J.D. Granger. And his mama. A plethora of corrupt courts and corrupt court officials. Epic eminent domain abuse. Businesses bragging about having indoor plumbing. City parks without indoor plumbing.

Fort Worth really is a one of a kind American city which Hollywood really needs to take a look at for some fresh material.

Currently Bravo TV is running a new Real Housewives franchise, The Real Housewives of Dallas. Bravo missed an opportunity for some good TV by not going 30 miles west to Where the West Begins to show America and the world The Real Housewives of Fort Worth.

Elsie Hotpepper would make for a great Bethenny Frankel of the South....

Tuesday Lightning Spread A Ground Current At My Electric Location On The Planet

In the dark hours before the dawn of this past Tuesday morning thunder rolled over and around my location.

At one point lightning struck at the same time I was jolted by a concussive jolt of thunder. One of the loudest jolts of concussive thunder I had ever been concussed by.

Moving forward.

Minutes ago I got an email telling me that the Facebooker who sometimes goes by the name of Layla Caraway had tagged me.

When this tagged me type thing happens it always causes me a moment of wondering what fresh hell is this going to be.

So, I go to Facebook and click on the tagged me link to see that which you see here.

A little blurb from the National Weather Service informing that "Lightning struck the green of the 15th hole at Champions Course at Weeks Park in Wichita Falls, TX, early Tuesday morning. Lightning spreads out along the ground in something called "ground current"."

What Miss Caraway does not know is that my new abode abuts Weeks Park and the Champions Golf Course. I look out my windows and can see golfers. Usually. But not right now because we are being a bit damp at this location, with the ground and grounds a bit saturated.

I suspect that that extremely loud boom and thunder boom I was jolted by on Tuesday was the one which made all those current fissures you see in the photo above.

In Wichita Falls Finding Hidden Treasure Under A Mexican Puppet

Last weekend I hauled to my new abode the rest of my stuff which had been quarantined in Fort Worth.

I ended up leaving less in Fort Worth than I had originally intended.

Such as what you see here. I had figured I really did not need to haul this to yet one more location. I think this was among what originally came from Washington way back late in the last century.

The man you see standing in front of the woven basket is a Mexican puppet I got in Algodones, Mexico, I think in 1998.

For the transit from Fort Worth to Wichita Falls I stuck some stuff in the woven basket.

Upon installing the woven basket and the Mexican puppet in its new location, in my bedroom, I removed the extra stuff I'd stuffed in the basket in Fort Worth and discovered underneath the stuff was a silk-like sarong thing from Bali which Singapore's Wee Cheng had shipped to me whilst I still lived in Washington.

I took out the silk-like sarong thing to find myself being surprised to find a treasure trove of photos I had forgotten existed, including photos of my house in Mount Vernon under construction.

We won't be looking at those construction photos here, instead we will be looking at a couple things which both surprised me and sort of appalled me.

First up, below we are looking at the Goober Twins, Big Ed and Bigger Wally. This picture was taken at my abode in Mount Vernon, Washington, sometime, I would estimate, in the early 1990s.

It isn't just Big Ed and Bigger Wally which are surprising and appalling me in this picture. It's the picture between Big Ed and Bigger Wally.

As I sat in my new humongous bulbous green chair looking at the treasure trove of pictures I looked up on the wall to my right to see that which you see below.

The same picture hanging on my new wall which hung on my old wall in Mount Vernon. This meant this picture got hauled to Haslet, Texas, than a couple years later to Fort Worth and now to Wichita Falls. It is not like I have some sort of fond attachment to this wall hanging, so why am I hanging on to it and transporting it thousands of miles?

A couple minutes later among the treasure trove of newly found photos I found the one you see below. That is the living room of my house in Mount Vernon, looking sort of northeast out a bank of windows.

If it were daylight you would be seeing tall fir trees a few feet from the windows.

This location is where I experienced some of my most un-nerving earthquake experiences, back in the 1990s when a localized cluster of quakes epicentered at Big Lake a couple miles to the east. These were only 3 something Richter scale earthquakes at their shakiest. But due to being so close the shaking was severe. One of the quakes cracked my tile kitchen floor.

The scariest of these quakes occurred whilst I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV. The quake hit with a loud boom and roar. The windows flexed like they were going to burst. And the fir trees swayed violently.

In the below photo make note of the chair in the far corner and the pillow sitting next to it.

I saw that which you see in the above photo and then looked to the left from the vantage point of that aforementioned humongous bulbous green chair and saw what you see below.

That chair and pillow made the same multi-thousand mile journey as that picture above, ending up in Wichita Falls. The pillow is paired with a matching afghan. In the picture you can see another afghan pillow combo which also made it to Wichita Falls.

My Grandma Vera was an afghan making maniac. I think I had six of them with me on my trek to Texas. I believe three of the Grandma Vera afghans were transported to Miss Martha's during the moving mayhem. One may be at Miss Puerto Rico's.

I can understand hauling my Grandma Vera afghans with me, what with there being a sentimental value attached. But that chair? I bought a pair of those decades ago at Dania Furniture in Seattle. The pair made it to Texas. I delivered one of them to the Paradise Center in Fort Worth when myself and CatsPaw had our one and only visit to the Paradise Center.

If I ever leave Wichita Falls, and I am fairly sure one day I will, I won't be taking that chair or wall hanging with me. Just the afghans....

A Long Wichita Falls Night Of Thunder & Hail

Looking out my bedroom window this morning, well after the sun arrived, I was pleased to see my main means of vehicular transport made it through the hellacious night of lightning strikes, hail and rain which kept me awake for hours, hence the post-dawn wakeup.

My usual walking route to that aforementioned means of vehicular transport is currently flooded, necessitating a detour to get mobile.

I likely won't attempt getting mobile until the rain stops dripping. That dripping rain is why the photo looks a bit foggy.

I had planned to go to the Wichita Farmers Market in downtown Wichita Falls today. I have been hearing good things about this Farmers Market. I suspect this Farmers Market is not going to be an embarrassing dud like the little Farmers Market in my previous ultra craptacular corrupt town of residence.

Wichita Falls seems to operate at a much higher quality level than that town I used to live in. All the parks I have visited have modern facilities, including running water.

I likely will not be attempting to climb to the summit of Mount Wichita today. I suspect currently Mount Wichita could be re-named Mud Mountain.

Last night brought the third major storm since my arrival at my new location, with last night's thunderstorm being one of the longest and loudest I have experienced since being n Texas.

Monday Morning Blues Mount Wichita Climb

Friday I climbed to the summit of Mount Wichita a record breaking six times.

Today I returned to Mount Wichita for the first time since Friday, after an exhausting weekend of driving way too many miles and doing way too much, to find myself with the strength to only make two Mount Wichita ascents.

As you can sort of see, looking over the steering wheel at the aforementioned Lake Wichita, the sky is a bit stormy.

Day after day the forecast has been for thunderstorms and rain. I have seen or heard neither. Everywhere I ventured this weekend was dry, rain-wise.

I think I am some sort of recovery mode. Chicken and macaroni and cheese should help with that, right about now....

Back On Mount Wichita Learning A Texas Persimmon Can Produce Blackberries

I was back on Mount Wichita today for the third day in a row. Today I managed to make it up and down to the summit five times.

Along the Circle Trail as it circulates through Lake Wichita Park there are several informational type signs with little factoid blurbs, like the one you see here.

I took a picture of this particular sign, which is stuck  in the ground between Mount Wichita and Lake Wichita because the sign has an  eagle's eye view of Mount Wichita on it.

With no explanation as to why Mount Wichita is on this sign, or how the mountain came to be. A mini-volcano? A pile of dirt dredged from the lake? One would think the sign would have some information about the mountain directly to the north.

Instead the sign informs us that the Texas persimmon can produce black berries.

I thought only a blackberry bush produced black berries.

Three Times Today To The Summit Of Mount Wichita

I decided to go mountain climbing again today, what with Mount Wichita being so close to my abode.

In two days I've seen more people climbing Mount Wichita than I usually saw in a month of hiking the Tandy Hills.

In the first picture you are looking down a western slope of Mount Wichita at what appeared to be a senior citizen carefully making his way down the steep slope.

Yesterday I managed climbing to the summit of Mount Wichita twice. Today I managed to do so thrice.

Methinks if I keep up with this new mountain climbing regimen eventually I am going to get in good shape.

Apparently summer is HOTTER at my new location than my previous location. Wichita Falls holds the Texas record for most consecutive days over 100 degrees. If I remember right the record is 100 days in a row over 100.

When I was making my final descent I saw what I assumed to be a dad with his son walking towards Mount Wichita.

As I watched the pair begin their ascent I remarked that I don't think that little guy is going to be able to make it. But, he managed to get about halfway to the summit before his dad picked him up to continue the climb. The photo above manages to convey how steep the climb up Mount Wichita is.

When they reached the summit I zoomed to the maximum to take the photo above.

The climb down Mount Wichita is far more treacherous than the ascent. I stayed long enough to see the dad and son begin the hike back to ground level, with the boy back on his feet. I did not stay long enough to see if dad had to pick up the kid part way down the mountain.

I should be feeling good what with all this new type aerobic stimulation and the endorphins such stimulation causes....

Are Alligators Preparing To Invade Fort Worth's Imaginary Island?

I saw this this morning, on Facebook, brought to my attention by Elsie Hotpepper and her Doppleganger.

So, alligators are being seen enjoying Lake Worth again. Isn't this sort of a regular occurrence?

With the reptiles visiting Lake Worth from their home in the marshes of the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, where one sees signs warning visitors not to disturb the gators.

The Facebook poster, Libby Barker Willis, is suggesting that perhaps Panther Island should be renamed Alligator Island.

That same suggestion cropped up last year when an alligator showed up in the area where the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats take place.

I don't know how a gator could get from Lake Worth to the Rockin' the River zone, what with the Lake Worth dam seeming to be a bit of a water transit impediment.

Changing the subject ever so slightly.

I really think America's Biggest Boondoggle needs to stop with the Panther Island nonsense. There is no island. There may never be an island. And even if the un-needed flood diversion ditch is ever dug and filled with water, the area currently being called Panther Island still won't be a real island.

Fort Worth has a history of misnaming things. Like for decades confusing the town's few tourists by calling its downtown Sundance Square, where there was no square, til a couple years ago when a little plaza was built where parking lots used to be. With those parking lots being what many people long thought were Sundance Square.

And now we have The Boondoggle nonsense. Re-branding that hapless slow motion "project" over and over again. Trinity Uptown. Central City.  Trinity River Vision. With Panther Island being the latest. And then slapping that absurd Panther Island nomenclature on all sorts of things, like Panther Island Pavilion.

Where there is no Pavilion. Or island.

Currently I am in Wichita Falls. I'm liking Wichita Falls. Pretty much each day I've been here I see something which impresses me, which I never saw in Fort Worth.

Yesterday as I drove to Walmart, driving by the park nearest my abode, about two blocks distant, it being a park with a big pond and regular park facilities, had dozens of kids fishing in the pond. I read this morning this was some sort of after school program.

The signage all over Wichita Falls is very well done and useful, and so far I have not had the signs point me to something which does not exist, like a square, an island or a pavilion that can't be found.

Wichita Falls did have a serious problem with misnaming something and confusing tourists. This problem went on for about a century. I'll let Wikipedia explain via a paragraph in its Wichita Falls article....

A flood in 1886 destroyed the original falls on the Wichita River for which the city was named. After nearly 100 years of visitors wanting to visit the nonexistent falls, the city built an artificial waterfall beside the river in Lucy Park. The recreated falls are 54 ft (16 m) high and recirculate at 3,500 gallons per minute. They are visible to south-bound traffic on Interstate 44.

I visited Wichita Falls in Lucy Park on Saturday. I was impressed.