Don't Fence Me In Wichita Falls Art Project Reveal

This Saturday morning of the fifteenth day of July of the year 2017 I made my way an event taking place on the grassy median between Kell West and East, slightly east of downtown Wichita Falls, under the shadow of the giant abandoned towering chunk of concrete known as Attebury

The event to which I made my way was the reveal of the pickets of the Wichita Falls "Don't Fence Me In" art project in which hundreds of Wichita Fallers of all ages, of all sorts, exercised their creative freedom via the fence picket painting medium.

The Don't Fence Me In fence pickets have been being painted for months,  with the creative artistry overseen by a group of about twelve artistic types of various sorts.

Those attending the reveal of the fence pickets were assembled behind a "ribbon" awaiting being cut after multiple speakers speechified about the Don't Fence Me In project, including one of the spearheaders of this hugely successful project, Miss Margie Reese, who you see below speaking to the assembled crowd eagerly awaiting the cutting of the ribbon.

The painted fence pickets have been  assembled in a formation of fences arranged like a maze. Some with windows to allow a peak through. Or a photo op.

Don't Fence Me In attendees on both sides of one of the aforementioned fence "windows", above and below.

And below another attendee looking through a picket fence window. This particular person looks like maybe an attempt to crawl through the window is about to take place.

The fence picket art seemed to be mostly devoid of any political  messaging. I saw nary a Trump mention.

However, the below fence picket message somehow seemed sort of political.

SLA? Symbionese Liberation Army? That notorious group of nutcases who terrorized America, and Patty Hearst, back in the 1970s? I suspect this instance of SLA must mean something else, but what? I have no clue.

The 100s of people who created fence pickets had no clue where their picket was located in the sprawling installation.  And so finding their particular picket was a bit of a treasure hunt.

Above you see a young lady successfully finding her picket, and pointing to it for the assembled photographers.

Some of the artwork on the fence pickets was a bit perplexing to figure out what message, if any, was being conveyed. Above we see a lady in white who appears to be being puzzled by that at which she is looking.

Below is a short video I took this morning whilst walking amongst some of the picket fences and the other attendees...

Careful Rolling Past Unguarded Section Of Wichita Falls Circle Trail

Rolling along the many miles of the Wichita Falls Circle Trail one comes to multiple locations where a semi-steep drop-off has necessitated the need for the installation of a guard rail so as to prevent a wandering walker or a biker in wreck mode from careening off the trail and tumbling down a semi-steep slope.

The nature of the guard rails is different  at various locations along the Circle Trail.

Except for one location the Circle Trail guard rails are made of metal, in variations iterations and degrees of thickness.

The one location where the Circle Trail  guard rail is not made of metal is the section which passes under Midwestern Boulevard.

At the Midwestern Boulevard section of the Circle Trail the guard rail is made of wood. And is very flimsy.

Flimsy with a large section of the wooden guard rail missing, right where it would appear to be most needed, as you can see via the photo documentation above.

What knocked out this chunk of wooden guard rail? A biker careening out of control? A vandal?

I first noticed this missing section of wooden guard rail at least six months ago. So, this is not a new problem shortly to be fixed.

If it was deemed that various sections of the Circle Trail need guard rails for safety sake, why has this section been left unsafe for so long?

And why is it made of wood, not metal, matching the quality of the other Circle Trail guard rails?

Perplexing....

Biking To Wichita Falls Mysterious Towers Of Hercules

With the temperature nowhere near 100, and thus the outdoors being somewhat pleasantly moderate in the heat department, I opted to take my bike on a ride, with no particular destination in mind.

I am finding biking right from my abode at my current Wichita Falls location to be almost as pleasant as I used to experience late in the last century at my old  home location in Mount Vernon, in the Skagit Valley in the state of Washington.

From my abode in Mount Vernon I would exit to coast at high speed down a hill on the cul-de-sac on which my house was situated. No matter which direction I went steep hills were available, including the paved golf cart trail of a hilly golf course called Eaglemont, where Spencer Jack's dad used to have a restaurant he called a pavilion. Paved bike/pedestrian trails cross Mount Vernon, making it easy to get from the east end of town, where I resided, to the west end of town where a river ran.

At my current Wichita Falls location  the topography is pretty much flat. But the Circle Trail and the paved alleyways which course all over my neighborhood make for a fun maze of routes to roll around on.

Today I rolled north to Hamilton Park, then exited the Circle Trail to pedal on surface streets, eventually coming to an annoying street made of  bricks.

Why do Texans think it is a cool/good thing to retain old-fashioned streets made of brick? It ain't cool, it ain't good. Fort Worth's Camp Bowie Boulevard is the worst Texas offender of this sort I have bumped across.

The brick street eventually turned into a modern road going by nice homes, one of which looked like it would have made Howard Roarke proud.

Soon I came to Hempstead, which meant I was at the north end of Midwestern State University.

Why is this university so named? It's not in the Midwest. It's in North Texas. Why not Texoma State University? That has a nice ring to it. And the name makes sense. What with this region being known as Texoma, due to sharing space with Oklahoma.

From Hempstead I crossed Taft to the university campus. Soon I came upon that which you see above. An art installation known, for reasons unknown to me, as the Towers of Hercules. I do not know why this 'art' which looks like a row of phallic symbols is known as the Towers of Hercules.

My photo of the Towers of Hercules make them appear to be the Leaning Towers of Hercules. In reality the towers are totally erect, completely vertical, not even remotely resembling that famous tower in Pisa...

Fort Worth Has Most Cranes In Country 2nd Year In A Row?

I have been severely distracted for a month or two, hence slacking on some of my favorite hobbies.

Hobbies such as pointing out something I read in a west coast online news source that I would never expect to be reading in Fort Worth news sources, if Fort Worth actually had real, legit new sources, about something similar happening in Fort Worth.

Such as one would never expect to see a headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram informing its few readers that for the 2nd year in a row Fort Worth has more construction cranes constructing than any other town in America.

How is that bridge construction going at the north end of Fort Worth's downtown? Anyone see anything happening yet with the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision's bridges?

Recently we learned, via embarrassing J.D. Granger propaganda, that after he and "his team" built a scale model of one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's bridges, and then sliced the model in two, supposedly proving the controversial design was viable, and thus the long stalled bridges could supposedly return to construction mode.

I don't think cranes are involved in holding up J.D. Granger's little bridge V-piers whilst concrete is added.

I got the headline about most cranes in the country from this morning's Seattle Times.

Obviously I altered the headline for sarcastic irony purposes.

A few days ago the Seattle Times had an article speculating on what came next after Seattle's latest boom ran its course, as all previous booms had, such as the Klondike Gold Rush boom, the post WWII Boeing boom, or the Dot.com boom.

Several years ago Seattle raised the town's minimum wage to $15, phased in over several years. I believe that phasing in is now completed.

Regarding Seattle, and other town's minimum wage increase, troglodytes around the country spewed troglodytic knuckedraggery regarding the economic foolishness of increasing the minimum wage.

One can not help but wonder how much bigger Seattle's current boom would be if the town had not enacted that minimum wage increase? (that is sarcasm for those who are not able to detect such)

I wonder if Fort Worth phased in a minimum  wage increase to $15 an hour if that town would experience something it has never experienced.

Boomtown Fort Worth!

I can't imagine sleepy Fort Worth as a Boomtown.

Well, there was that short period of time when Fort Worth thought it was booming due to being the location of the world's biggest experiment in urban gas fracking. That "Boom" did not end well.

I wonder if J.D. Granger and the minions responsible for America's Biggest Boondoggle pay their vision workers the minimum wage? Is that the reason why the Boondoggle can't seem to build simple little bridges connecting Fort Worth's mainland to an  imaginary island? Disgruntled low paid workers?

I suspect that even with a worker wage increase America's Biggest Boondoggle will still continue boondoggling along, well into the foreseeable future....

Ignoring Trail Closed Sign Finds Nothing Happening In Dry Wichita Falls Construction Zone

I needed to do some book checking this morning. Doing so entails venturing to downtown Wichita Falls to the town's library.

I do not know if such has become the norm in libraries across the planet, but the Wichita Falls public library is the first where I have experienced automatic robotic type devices facilitating both returning and checking out books.

Extremely efficient. Freeing up librarians to do more elevated librarian tasks than checking out books.

After returning some books and checking out some new ones I ventured west to Lucy Park, with the goal for the day to roll my bike's wheels to Wichita Falls to see if I could see what is holding up the remodeling of the falls' bridge and trail upgrade, a remodeling which has rendered Wichita Falls a dry falls for months.

I am fairly certain I recollect reading that this Wichita Falls remodeling renovation would only take about a month.

As I got my bike on the Circle Trails and aimed towards Wichita Falls I was not rolling long before I came to a trail blockage with a sign saying "TRAIL CLOSED".  I could see by the path worn around the blockage that others before me had scofflawed past the Trail Closed sign.

When I got to the currently dry falls I saw that which you see above and below. As in, nothing going on. Nobody to  be seen working  on this project. There were multiple indications that working on this project has been dormant for some time. Indications such as undisturbed mud. And no construction equipment in evidence.

What you are looking at above is the new bridge which replaced the bridge which had been deemed not worthy of approval by the criteria of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Past the bridge the old version of the Circle Trail has been removed, exposing dirt awaiting the installation of the new pavement of a wider trail.

No clue as to what has stalled this project, leaving Wichita Falls dry at that time of year when a lot of tourists pass through town, wondering where the falls in Wichita Falls is located...

Sunday Evening Wichita Falls Circle Trail Bike Exploration Ends With Log Jam

Yester Sunday morning a thunderstorm downpour nixed my plan to roll my wheels on the section of the Wichita Falls Circle Trail I had not previously seen, and thus did not know the route by which the Circle Trail made its way from my abode to the Wichita River.

By yester Sunday evening the sky had returned to being mostly blue and the morning moat which had surrounded my abode had drained, thus allowing access to the Circle Trail and the aforementioned rolling of my wheels where they had not rolled before.

Previous to yesterday's revealing rolling I erroneously assumed the Circle Trail somehow made its way north through the massive maze of highways intersecting at the southeast side of downtown Wichita Falls.

Instead of going under that maze of highways the Circle Trail heads much further east than I figured it did, continuing to follow Holliday Creek and the Holliday Creek Gorge, in the same manner as the Circle Trail follows Holliday Creek as it passes my abode.

The only major highway the Circle Trail goes under is Highway 287, just a short distance west of the Castaway Cove Waterpark.

Continuing north from Castaway Cove the Circle Trail passes under Scott Avenue, which was the main drag through Wichita Falls prior to freeways coming to town. I knew I was coming up on Scott Avenue because I saw the abandoned motel eyesores I had previously been appalled by, gone out of business due to the traffic diversion onto the freeways.

A mile or two after passing under Scott Avenue I came to the scene you see at the top. A gazebo overlooking an incoming creek joining Holliday Creek on its journey to the Wichita River. This gazebo has a bike repair/tire pump station. There are several of these located on the Circle Trail. The incoming creek is to the left in the picture, a bridge takes the Circle Trail over that creek with the Circle Trail then beginning a long descent on its way under a railroad bridge.

Soon after passing under the railroad bridge I realized I was nearing Williams Park.

Last Thursday after doing some after hours art walking in downtown Wichita Falls I biked to Williams Park from the MPEC (Multi-Purpose Event Center). Prior to reaching Williams Park I made the surprising discovery of the site of the original Wichita Falls.

Last night I pedaled through Williams Park, then past where I had turned around on Thursday, but I did not pedal all the way to the location of the original Wichita Falls. The sun's light was beginning to slightly dim, so I stopped at the location you see below, then turned around to start the roll back to my abode.

The rocking bench you see above overlooks a big log jam on the Wichita River. I have no way of knowing if this log jam is a permanent feature, or something which was the result of a recent high water event. Log jams such as this have been known to go from jam to dam.

I have greatly enjoyed my newly expanded look at the Circle Trail. It would be nice, however, if the Circle Trail actually made a circle, with its missing sections filled in, so that one could make a round the town trip rather than having to backtrack from whence one came.

That and it would also be a good thing if some other paved trails were added, providing additional ways to roll around town, in addition to the Circle Trail which will eventually, literally, actually roll all the way around town...

Thunderstorm Downpour Nixes Sunday's Wichita Falls Bike Ride

Anticipating a long bike ride this Sunday morning, when I checked the weather forecast I was pleased to see nothing wet or booming was on the menu for the time frame I expected to be rolling my wheels.

But, despite the forecast and what was on the weather menu, the sky this morning looked threatening from the time the sun began illuminating.

And then sometime around ten I heard booming in the distance, which grew louder as the minutes passed.

A unexpected, unpredicted, unwanted thunderstorm had come to town.

Eventually I opted to sit outside to watch from my patio venue the lightning striking in the distance.

As time passed the lightning grew ever closer and the booming ever louder.

And then one bright strike and simultaneous boom, along with a downpour, caused me to seek interior shelter.

I retreated to the location of my camera to retrieve it and then returned to the patio exit, sliding open the door to take the deluging photo you see above.

Until the rain ceases and drainage occurs I am now surrounded by a moat, whose passage past requires a floating device or getting wet wading.

I have a floating device in the form  of a  kayak, but I enjoy wading.  I do not know which means I will use should I decide to escape before the moat subsides...

After Hours Artwalk Leads To Closed Circle Trail With Original Wichita Falls

Yester evening after an hour of walking around the downtown Wichita Falls After Hours Artwalk I got my bike out of its truck bed storage location and pedaled to the Circle Trail, intending to head west to Lucy Park, checking out what I thought would be the newly re-furbished Wichita Falls, with a new bridge and trail improvements.

Instead I came to what you see here, a Trail Closed sign with another sign behind that sign saying Falls & Trail Closed for Construction.

I thought this construction was supposed to be done being constructed. Don't I remember reading the project would take about a month? And that I read that months ago?

The closed trail soon turned from a lemon into lemonade when I turned my bike around and headed the other direction, with the Circle Trail passing through landscape which created the illusion I had left the city to enter a verdant, lush jungle of green following the Wichita River.

Within a half mile I found myself passing the Wee-Chi-Tah Sculpture on the opposite bank of the river. Shortly after that I began hearing the sound of water flowing in rapids mode.

And then I came to something I did not know still existed, much less expect to see.

Those rapids I was hearing were at the location of the original Wichita Falls, which I thought had long totally disappeared during a flood way back late in the century which preceded the previous century, as in sometime in the late 1800s.

My weak photographer skills did not do justice to the Wichita River water which was moving rapidly behind the sign which tells us...

THE ORIGINAL FALLS ON THE BIG WICHITA RIVER FOR WHICH THE CITY WAS NAMED

One of the Circle Trail's swinging benches overlooks the site of the original Wichita Falls. I sat and swung for awhile before continuing in a easterly direction.

I was not long back rolling my wheels, or so it seemed, when I was surprised to find myself already at Williams Park. I think at that point it was only four miles, give or take a mile or two, back to my abode's location adjacent the Circle Trail.

But, I needed to reverse direction so as to return to my bike hauling vehicle.

As I started to head west I realized the illuminating orb was beginning to retreat from its daily lighting duty.

The impending setting of the sun caused me to increase the speed I was rolling my wheels. Even so, I stopped at the Original Wichita Falls for one more photo.

A sunset view of that aforementioned swinging bench overlooking what remains of Wichita Falls.

Why did I not know that one could still find the original Wichita Falls, and that such was marked by signage? I have perused multiple publications about Wichita Falls and never came upon this information.

The main thing I discovered, besides Wichita Falls, from yester evening's bike ride, is that doing such late in the day makes for a pleasant, shady ride, unlike doing the same thing in the middle of a HOT day.

I think I will be making visiting Wichita Falls a monthly thing after I walk around the monthly downtown Wichita Falls After Hours Artwalk...

Wichita Bluff Nature Area Looking Good Nearing Completion

Yesterday after watching the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade I decided Independence Day was a good day to check out the current state of construction of the Wichita Bluff Nature Area and that area's extension of the Circle Trail which circles Wichita Falls with a few gaps.

Well, I was pleased to see there has been a lot of progress with the Wichita Bluff Nature Area.

When completed this will give the Circle Trail something it lacks on all its other miles.

A hill.

Not a steep hill, but an elevation gain which will require some gear shifting whilst pedaling uphill and some braking whilst coasting downhill. In addition to the Circle Trail this Nature Area also has the possibility of hiking trails being added, meandering up and down the bluff, maybe all the way to the Wichita River.

Below you are looking at part of the new section of the Circle Trail, sloping downhill. Railing will need to be added due to the fact that there is a steep drop off on the left side of the trail.

Below we have walked down the slope to the bottom of the gorge, to the new bridge taking the Circle Trail across a creek the name of which is not known to me. Wichita Bluff Creek? Sounds good to me. From the bridge we are ascending back up the slope, hence the view you see here.

I do not know if when it is completed the Wichita Bluffs Nature Area will be a natural area of the caliber of the one I miss in Fort Worth, that being the Tandy Hills Nature Area.

It has been well over a year since I have had the pleasure of experiencing one of the few things unique about Fort Worth, that being a wild natural area so close to the sleepy town's downtown.

In a few months my monthly trip back to D/FW will shift west from Euless to south Haltom City, which is near Gateway Park and the Tandy Hills. I suspect I will be returning to the Tandy Hills in the near future for some salubrious hill hiking and nature communing.

In the meantime I hope the Wichita Bluff Nature Area finally finishes being constructed, with a grand opening celebration. Likely with no TNT explosions.  Wichita Falls is a much more sane, sensible town than the previous Texas town I lived in....

2017 Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade

The 2017 Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade is now history.

This year's downtown Wichita Falls 4th parade experience was much more pleasant than last years, due to the temperature being perfectly pleasant this year, while last year was hot and humid.

This year I arrived at the parade location later than last year, thus a shorter wait til the parade began parading by.

Whilst waiting I called my mom. About one minute into talking to my mom the parade started up, two blocks to the north from my parade viewing location. Leading the parade were police and fire truck vehicles in blowing their horns and sirens mode. So loud mom heard it all the way in Arizona.

I have never been to parades, anywhere, where I have seen so much candy tossed to parade watching kids, as what I have witnessed in Wichita Falls. It is like Halloween without the trick or treating.

And kids come prepared with bags to hold their candy loot. In addition to candy I also saw beads being tossed, like Mardis Gras in New Orleans.

I took no photos of the Sheppard Air Force Base contingent as they marched by. My camera was in video mode at that point in time. You  can watch the video of the military marchers below.

Before we get to the video let's take a look at some of what I saw parading today.

I do not remember horses with cowboys and cowgirls in last year's Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade. Or maybe they were there and it was a marching band I remember missing. Which was also the case this year. With several high schools in town one would think there would be a marching band  or two, such as I always heard whilst viewing the Arlington 4th of July Parade.

I like the multiple homemade family float type entries in the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade. Such reminded me of years ago when my dad would build us kids elaborate floats for the Burlington Berry Dairy Days Parade. We often won first place.

I also like entries such as the above pickup with a couple candy tossers riding on the tailgate. I believe these type things are known as Classic Americana.

Above we see some of the candy scramblers in action.

Cub Scouts were doing the flag waving on this entry. Red, white and blue seemed to be the dominant color theme for the day, for obvious reasons.

And now the video where you will hear the loud start of the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade and see the flags of multiple nations march by carried by Sheppard Air Force Base Airmen and Airwomen...