Dock Rocking On Lake Wichita With Lightning

This second Wednesday, day before the Ides of September, last seven days of summer, is stormy at my current location in Texas, 15 miles south of the Red River border with Oklahoma.

With rain threatening to drip, I opted, for my daily walking constitutional, to roll my wheels the short distance to the east side of Lake Wichita to do some dam walking.

That is the Mount Wichita pseudo volcano you see to the west on the other side of the lake.

That bridge you see in the foreground, connected to a floating dock, has a sign attached warning that a maximum of only four people, or a total of 800 pounds is allowed on the bridge.

Methinks any random pick of four Texans is going to add up to more than 800 pounds. Texans are a beefy breed of American.

That bridge is a bit active when just one person, weighing less than 200 pounds, such as myself, walks across to the dock. Four people weighing, in total, around 800 pounds would likely make for a very adventurous crossing.

As I stood on the dock, enjoying the rocking motion, to the southwest, I saw a lightning strike, followed several seconds later by a loud thunder boom. With lightning striking and rain starting to drip it seemed like a good idea to cease with being outdoors, so I turned around and headed back from whence I came.

Above is the view from the Lake Wichita dock looking the opposite direction, as in east, at a section of the long earthen dam which holds back the water which make the Lake Wichita reservoir.

By the time I got back to my vehicle's interior the rain was starting to work itself up into downpour mode. But no more thunder booms have been heard, so far.

It is time for lunch now.

Turkey stroganoff, with kimchee and green beans...

Poolside Lounging Before Wichita Falls Texoma Fair

As the days of summer quickly fade to fall, along with falling temperatures, poolside sun lounging will soon be a distant memory.

So with the outer world being heated to a relatively balmy temperature I opted to get some Vitamin D, along with some swim time, in the pre-noon time frame on this second Tuesday of September.

Today, in Wichita Falls, the annual Texoma Fair, also known as the T-O Fair, also known as the Texas / Oklahoma Fair starts up at the Multi-Purpose Event Center, also known as the MPEC.

The Texoma Fair runs from today til Saturday. If I go, and I think I will, I will go on Saturday.

With only a five day run it seems unlikely that the Texoma Fair is going to be as big a spectacle as the State Fair of Texas.

However, sometimes small is better. And in this case I suspect while the Texoma Fair may not be as big a spectacle as the State Fair of Texas, I suspect it will provide me a mighty fine time.

And some corn dogs....

On Top Of Mount Wichita Learning Elsie Hotpepper Is Not In Los Angeles

I was back on the summit of Mount Wichita today, with the mountain totally dried out from the early Saturday deluge.

From the summit we are looking northeast at the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Wichita Falls. I think that is a downtown, sort of tall building, you see on the horizon at the center of the photo.

Lately it seems whenever I get to the summit of Mount Wichita I get a text message from Elsie Hotpepper.

Today was no exception.

The last time I got an Elsie Hotpepper text message on the summit of Mount Wichita it was a cryptic message I have yet to decipher, telling me that Elsie did not like sauerkraut.

Today's summit of Mount Wichita text message from Elsie Hotpepper informed me that she was on her way back from Louisiana.

I thought the Hotpepper was in California, specifically in Los Angeles. Because I saw an Elsie Hotpepper post on Facebook which clearly indicated she was in LA.

I always forget that in Texas LA means Louisiana, not Los Angeles.

I have no idea why Elsie Hotpepper was in LA. I was kept out of that information loop. I suspect alligator hunting may have been involved.

Prior to learning which LA Elsie Hotpepper was in I learned from Miss Mary Not Contrary, also via Facebook, that East Fort Worth was shaken this morning by an earthquake.

When I learned of the Fort Worth quake I texted Miss Puerto Rico to ask if she felt the earth move. She had not.

This morning whilst still in prone position I felt some vibrating that had me wondering if it was from a distant quake. But, I later saw no news of such.

It's time for lunch now. No. I am not going to Nacho Mama's....

Chilly September 11 In Texas With Pepperoni & Tricycles

A chilly 58 degrees when I woke up my temperature monitoring device this morning.

Summer is fast falling away. Fall falls upon us in 11 days.

11.

Today is September 11. How can it be 15 years since that awful morning? So much has happened since that day, much of it not good.

A short time prior to noon I decided to layer on the outer wear and drive the short distance to Sikes Lake to jog 1.1 miles on the Sikes Lake Trail.

By the time I got to Sikes Lake my vehicle's temperature monitoring device told me the temperature had warmed up to 73 degrees. So, I removed a few layers of outer wear and had myself a mighty fine time running around the lake.

I was soon greeted by a pair of ladies pedaling adult tricycles. I don't know if I remember seeing such before. The tricycles looked fun. But, I don't know how one would transport these devices to ones pedaling location.

The people I see out and about in Wichita Falls seem to me to be in much better shape than much of what I used to see at my previous Texas location.

Yesterday I discovered and joined a Wichita Falls Rant & Rave Facebook group. Does my previous location have a Fort Worth Rant & Rave Facebook group? If not, someone really needs to start one. There are a lot of things to rant about in Fort Worth. Not so much to rave about.

Time for lunch now. Pepperoni is involved....

Today I Did Not Find Katie Holmes On The Lucy Park Suspension Bridge

A nightmare triggered by last night's loud, wet thunderstorm put me in mind to go to the best park in Wichita Falls this second Saturday of September.

In the aforementioned nightmare rain was pouring and I was driving past the entry to Lucy Park, quickly seeing the park in flood mode, with the Wichita River having risen above the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge.

In the nightmare I got out of my vehicle, to find myself in a situation where I was rescuing Katie Holmes from the rising water. Soon I found myself in a bizarre conversation with the ex-Mrs. Cruise where Katie was telling me details of how bizarre that marriage was, including details about the Scientology madness.

I arrived at Lucy Park today sort of expecting to see the park flooded. And maybe Katie Holmes in attendance.

I was disappointed on both counts.

On the way walking to the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge I met a family of three, mom, dad and young son, walking in the opposite direction. The mom asked me if this was the way to the waterfall. I said no, you are heading in the opposite direction. I told them to follow me and I'd get them to the right trail.

On the way to the right trail I told the mom, dad and young son that there was something cool on the way I'd show them.

The young son asked if it was a big snake? No, said I. An alligator? No, again said I. An elephant? Again, no said I.

Soon after the elephant question we were at the river and the bridge. The young son did not hesitate a second before walking across the bridge. I have seen kids terrified of walking out on the Lucy Park Suspension Bridge.

Soon the family of three was on their way to the waterfall.

It struck me as interesting that it was only four months ago that I was first at Lucy Park and had to ask directions to the waterfall. And now, it is me who can give such directions.

I have become a Wichita Faller feller....

Dallas Cheeseburgers At One Of The World's Most Unique McDonald's

Lunch today at one of my favorite fine dining restaurants.

McDonald's.

Specifically lunch at one of the World's most unique McDonald's, that being the McDonald's in North Dallas, at the Monfort Drive exit off I-635, also known at the LBJ Freeway, slightly east of the Galleria Mall.

There is something about McDonald's regular cheeseburger that I have long been fond of.

Is it the dill pickle? The utter simplicity?

Til today the last time I had the McDonald's cheeseburger delicacy was whilst on the move to Wichita Falls, on the last day goods were moved. I was hungry. I stopped at the Haslet McDonald's, off I-287, south of Decatur, north of Fort Worth. Got myself three cheeseburgers, fries and a large Coke, and then got back to rolling the road.

My other favorite McDonald's delicacy is the fish sandwich. Too messy to consume whilst driving. I remember when this item of fine dining cost something like 60 cents. Now one fish sandwich costs somewhere north of three bucks.

The last time I had the McDonald's fish sandwich delicacy was multiple times in the Phoenix zone, in March of 2012, with the first instance soon after my mom and dad and sister picked me up at the airport. Within a few minutes I found myself in a McDonald's where I had, for the first, and only time, a double fish sandwich.

The last time, til today, that I was at the Dallas McDonald's that is known as one of the world's most unique, was in early January of 2009, when my mom and dad were visiting.

Above you are looking at my mom and dad, in their cowboy hats, outside the aforementioned Dallas McDonald's. I do not remember if I had a cheeseburger that day. I do remember my dad getting us all hot fudge sundaes. I also remember this was a stop gap feeding prior to motoring west to Roanoke to have the classic Babes's chicken dinner.

Today is the first time I have successfully done the blogging thing on the road, using my phone's Google Blogger app. My previous attempt to do so, two years ago, did not work. Partly due to, I think, me not being all that used to doing the typing on the phone thing. That and the app has improved.

I think I will be able to make it back to Wichita Falls without needing another McDonald's cheeseburger break.....

Looking At Lake Wichita Revitalization & Fort Worth Devitalization

This second Thursday of September I once again found myself on the summit of Mount Wichita.

Unlike yesterday, today there was no extremely tall man on the summit screaming some sort of religious epiphany of unknown denomination.

In the view you see here, from the summit, in the distance, you are looking southeast at the Lake Wichita Dam, and, on the far right, the Lake Wichita Boat Ramp.

The Wichita Boat Ramp has been in the news the past day or two due to the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project getting a half million dollar grant, with that grant going to pay for part of an upgraded boat launch, with added docks, restrooms, a plaza and concert stage venue. Total cost over a million for this part of the revitalization.

Below is a screencap of what is proposed for the upgraded Lake Wichita Boat Ramp...

If I remember right I have previously verbalized the fact that I have not been in Wichita Falls long enough to know if the town has a history of getting public works projects done in a timely fashion, or if the town dawdles along, ineptly, in slow motion, with a public works project, such as was, and is, the case with my previous location in Texas,

Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision has been dithering along for most of this century, dithering to the point where that project has become known far and wide as America's Biggest Boondoggle, currently stalled on building three bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Fort Worth's Boondoggle is short on funding, eagerly awaiting J.D. Granger's mama, Kay, securing around a half billion dollars, via pork barrel federal funding earmarks, which Fort Worth's corrupt congresswoman hopes to attach to the spending bill currently winding its way through the House, so that her son can remain gainfully employed for another decade or two, til he is old enough to retire.

The Fort Worth Boondoggle has never been voted on by the public. The funding for the Fort Worth Boondoggle depends on federal handouts and various grants and schemes. No bond issue voted on by the public is funding the Fort Worth Boondoggle, hence limping along as The Boondoggle receives a trickle of funding.

The Lake Wichita Revitalization Project is a relatively small public works project compared to Fort Worth's economic development project masked as an un-needed flood control project.

Fort Worth's Boondoggle currently is estimated to cost in the billion dollar zone. The Lake Wichita Revitalization Project is a fraction of a billion, somewhere in the 25 to 40 million dollar range.

The Wichita Falls project seems much better thought out than Fort Worth's project. The Wichita Falls project actually addresses a problem, that being a sick reservoir, restoring the reservoir to being a recreational amenity, likely generating a huge return on the investment.

So, I do not understand why Wichita Falls does not fund the Lake Wichita project in the way progressive towns in other parts of America fund public works projects, but instead is funding the Lake Wichita Revitalization Project in the Fort Worth Way, as in begging for handouts, with the project not fully funded and thus not underway.

It would seem to me that the Wichita Falls voting population could easily be sold on the idea of taxing themselves to fix Lake Wichita. It would seem a very small increase on the local sales tax could easily raise the money required.

I really hope I am wrong and Wichita Falls turns out to be a different Texas city than what I experienced in Fort Worth. So far that has totally been the case. Have I mentioned before that, unlike Fort Worth, the parks in Wichita Falls all have modern facilities, including running water?

Extremely Tall Man Screaming Allah Akbar From Mount Wichita Summit

My new regimen of ginger tea, kimchee and kava kava seems to be working wonders.

For one thing my aching joints have pretty much ceased to ache. I do not know which part of the new regimen, or maybe all of it, accounts for the aching abatement.

And then there is the energy level.

I was already a little over the top in the being energetic department. I seem to have reached a  new level of over the top.

This morning, after swimming, whilst doing my regular yoga routine, Facebook kept making its notification noise. I found myself making multiple retorts to an ignorant right wing racist nut job who thinks that which she thinks and shares is not racist.

Being really stupid and racist have always seemed, to me, to go together, from what I have experienced.

Anyway, feeling way too energetic I rolled myself to Lake Wichita again, to do some mountain climbing on Mount Wichita.

Upon arrival at Mount Wichita I saw an extremely tall man at the summit, with his arms outstretched, as if reaching towards the sky.

Exiting my vehicle I could hear the man shouting Allah Akbar, followed by words which sounded Arabic, to my untrained ears.

I was wary of climbing the mountain with a man at the top seeming to be having some sort of religious experience.

So, I walked around the perimeter of Mount Wichita, figuring by the time I got to the southeast route to the summit the religious experience would be over and the screaming man would have made his descent.

I figured wrong.

He seemed to be pacing across the summit, keeping his eye on me as I continued to walk around the perimeter.

I suppose some of my wary sense of caution was due to the nearby shooting a couple days prior of a pair of young girls, with one of the girls dying, with the murderer caught and claiming Satan made him do it.

I suppose I was nervous as to what that man on top of Mount Wichita might be thinking Allah was telling him to do.

Or Satan.

When I completed my walk around the perimeter I went back to my vehicle for some needed hydration.

At that point the praying man was not to be seen at the top. It did not seem to me he had had time to descend on the trails I was looking at. That left only the trail on the southeast side from whence he may have descended.

I headed to the southeast trail to the summit with no sighting of the Allah worshipper en route. I do not see how he could have gotten past me. And no vehicles had left the parking lot. Where did he go? The only possible exit was skyward.

I decided to bravely make my way to the summit, via the southeast trail, nervous I would find the extremely tall man prone on the ground in the midst of some sort of tongue speaking ritual.

I got to the mountain top to find myself alone.

Did Allah ascend the extremely tall man to Heaven?

That really seems to me to be the only logical explanation for the disappearance of that extremely tall man in this crazy mixed up world we live in....

Windy Walk Around Sikes Lake Thinking About Texas State Fair Fried Jello

I needed a break from mountain climbing and web page editing, so today when my noontime regularly scheduled time to be vertical came about I headed to Midwestern State University to have myself a walk around Sikes Lake.

Extremely windy today, which somewhat mitigated the temperature being in the upper 90s.

As you can see, via the view through the Arch de Sikes, today is less stormy than the last time I looked through this Arch in this blog venue.

Among the web page editing was finally getting around to this year's State Fair of Texas annual Big Tex Choice Awards.

This year's Big Tex Choice Awards shows up on one of my other blogs in State Fair Of Texas 2016 Big Tex Choice Awards With Fried Jello & Cookies.

The Big Tex Choice finalists had the usual mix of possibly tasty and a bit disturbing. Among the possibly tasty was Fernie's Down Home Chicken Pot Pie Pocket with Mac ‘n Cheese Dip, along with Southern Fried Chicken & Dumplins and  Injectable Great Balls of BBQ, oh, and Deep Fried Bacon Burger Dog Slider.

The two winners were the contenders I found a bit disturbing. The winner of the Big Tex Best Taste Award went to Fried Jello. A deep fried cherry jello concoction. The winner of the Big Tex Most Creative Award was State Fair Cookie Fries.

I am not much of a jello or cookie fan. Frying either of those items seems more than a little bizarre to me.

Take Labor Day Hike With Me From Mount Wichita Summit

On this Labor Day of 2016 I was back on the summit of Mount Wichita for the second day in a row.

In the view you are looking at here you are looking slightly southeast. That long line at the far end of Lake Wichita is the long dam which holds back the water which makes the lake.

Someday, I hope soon, Lake Wichita will be drained and the Lake Wichita Revitalization will be under  way.

I have not been in Wichita Falls long enough to know whether or not Wichita Falls suffers from the same civic sickness as my previous Texas location, Fort Worth, where big plans, known as visions, are foisted on the public as a done deal.

And then nothing much happens year after year.

I suspect Wichita Falls and the surrounding area will be enjoying the revitalized Lake Wichita long before Fort Worth manages to complete even one of its three bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision recently added a "Houseboat District" to the little lake at the south end of The Boondoggle's imaginary island. Fort Worth's Boondoggle keeps adding "features" to a project which has been boondoggling along most of this century, with very little to show for the effort.

I wonder if the Wichita Falls Lake Wichita Revitalization people have thought of adding a Houseboat District to Lake Wichita. I suspect not. Wichita Falls seems to exhibit a lot of common sense.

Common sense is not a virtue my previous Texas location is known for.

Anyway, below is a YouTube video in which you descend with me to ground level from the windy summit of Mount Wichita....