Biking With Goslings After Sikes Senter Voting Before Flying To Arizona

A couple days ago I blogged about Wichita Falls Sikes Lake Primrose Duck & Litter Exhibit in which I mentioned seeing some Sikes Lake litter littering up a small section of Sikes Lake.

And that I expected that litter to be gone when next I rolled my wheels by that location, because de-littering litter seems to be the Wichita Falls norm, unlike my previous Texas location.

Today that prediction proved accurate. The littered location you see if you click the above link is now cleaned up, with a white swan, or swan-like bird, floating by, whilst another white bird rests on the nest of leaves washed up against the concrete wall.

And no litter visible to my eye.

And then a short distance later I saw this Sikes Lake scene.

A few days ago I came upon a flock of five goslings floating on Sikes Lake with parental supervision.

Today I came upon a flock of nine or ten goslings being land lubbers grubbing for food, whilst being gosling-sitted by a full size goose, who I assumed to be a parental unit, likely the mother.

To the right, out of the photo, what appeared to be a male goose honked aggressively non-stop whilst I took pictures. I am fairly certain that goose would have goosed me if I got too close for his comfort.

Prior to rolling my wheels to my favorite Wichita Falls goose habitat I rolled my mechanized wheels to Sikes Senter to early vote YES on all seven of the bond proposals the May 5 ballot.

After voting I rolled my mechanized wheels a few miles further north to the Wichita Falls Public Library to stock up on reading material to take with me to Arizona when I fly out of Texas tomorrow.

Oh, I must explain to those who might wonder what Sikes Senter is. It is a mall, which for non-clever reasons not fathomable to me someone thought it alliteratively clever to name the town's mall with an "S" instead of a "C".

Sikes Center would be so much better, name-wise. The mall itself is a bit outdated. Built back, I think, in the 1970s. The interior, where one early votes, looks as if it has been upgraded. The outside, not so much.

Way back in the 1970s the town I lived in before moving to Texas, Mount Vernon, Washington, built two malls of the Sikes Senter sort. The first one on the north side of College Way. The second on the south side of College Way. One called the Mount Vernon Mall, the other the Skagit Mall.

Those malls lasted a couple decades before both were demolished and replaced with more modern strip mall type business venues, whilst a way more modern mall was built in the next town north, Burlington.

Burlington was the town I grew up in. The new mall in Burlington was named Cascade Mall. Burlington was/is a small town, population around 5,000 back in the 70s, a little bigger now. Mount Vernon population was and is around 30,000.

Due to the big changes in the retail industry, brought about my things like Amazon, the Cascade Mall in Burlington is gradually closing, having lost most of its tenants.

In addition to the Cascade Mall, stores like Costco, Pacific Edge Outlet Center, Fred Meyers, Target, K-Mart and even a Krispy Kreme opened in little Burlington. The town became a sort of shopping mecca, swelling the town's population with shoppers, many of them Canadians.

But, nothing ever remains the same in dynamic fast growing, fast changing parts of America and the planet....

Spencer Jack Shows Fort Worth Real Islands While Ditch Digging

Incoming this morning from my Favorite Nephew Jason and Favorite Great Nephew Spencer Jack...

FUD,

Today’s PNW heat wave resulted in FNSJ suggesting that we travel to Washington’s first state park to seek marine air for cooling.

FNSJ really wanted to engineer a stream route on this beach.  

It was a good idea.  We are both slightly sun burnt though, as we have had only cloudy days in recent memory.

This is his fourth, perhaps fifth Spring as a stream engineer at this exact location.

He has mastered the science of diverting water.  

I see a potential career as an Army Corps Engineer in Spencer’s future.

Thought you’d enjoy the pictures.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to roast here in the valley.

Fans are ready.  

FNJ & FNSJ

They have been having themselves a record breaking heat wave up northwest in my old home zone. Meanwhile at my location in the South, I have yet this year felt HOT enough to turn on my air conditioning. I have turned on one of my ceiling fans a couple times this year.

Let's take a look at some more of the photos of Spencer Jack being an Army Corps of Engineer flood channel builder at Washington's first state park.

When I read that Spencer Jack had taken his dad to Washington's first state park in order to escape the heat and have some beach fun, I did not remember which state park was Washington's first. Deception Pass State Park? I Googled Washington State Parks to find it taking a few link clicks to finally learn which state park was Washington's first.

The scenery in the photos of Spencer Jack digging a creek channel did not look like Deception Pass to me. I do not recollect any sandy beaches on any of the Deception Pass State Park beaches. The Deception Pass beaches are rocky beaches, covered with little pebbles.

I went to the state's Washington State Park website's History page figuring that surely would tell me which Washington State Park was the state's first. Nope, no luck there.

From Wikipedia's Washington State Park's page there was a link to another Wikipedia page listing all Washington's State Parks.

On that list of Washington's State Parks I saw another suspect within easy driving distance of Spencer Jack's Mount Vernon home location.

Larrabee State Park.

And that was it. Washington's first state park was Larrabee State Park.

This sort of surprises me. Larrabee is an incredible location. But I would think that way back when it became a state park in 1923, the Larrabee location would have been quite an adventure to drive to. Even well over 100 years later the drive to Larrabee, called Chuckanut Drive, is one adventurous road, full of tight corners high above steep cliffs.

But, maybe back when the Larrabee became a park the Interurban already existed, that being a train which connected Mount Vernon in the south to Bellingham north of Larrabee. The rail bed of that long abandoned Interurban still exists, currently as a fun trail to hike and bike, taking one all the way from Larrabee to the Alaskan Ferry Terminal in Bellingham.

If I remember right the last time I biked the Interurban from Larrabee to Bellingham was with Spencer Jack's Uncle Joey.

Trying to find out which state park was Washington's first I learned a thing or two in addition to that bit of information. Such as what the word "Chuckanut" means. I've heard that name all my life and never thought to wonder what it meant, beyond assuming it was a Native American word.

The Wikipedia article about the Chuckanut Mountains educated me as to the meaning of the Chuckanut word and also includes the Larrabee being the state's first state park info...

The Chuckanut Mountains (from "Chuckanut", a native word for "Long beach far from a narrow entrance", or Chuckanuts, are located on the northern Washington state coast of the Salish Sea, just south of Bellingham, Washington. Being a part of the Cascade Range, they are the only place where the Cascades come west down to meet the sea. The Chuckanuts are considered to be a part of the Puget Lowland Forest Ecoregion. The range contains Larrabee State Park, the first State Park to be designated in Washington (1923).

The article about the Chuckanut Mountains lists all the mountains considered to be Chuckanuts. One can drive to the summit of several of them. Or mountain bike on the mountain's logging roads. I do not think there is any location within hundreds of miles of where I currently am located where one can go from playing on a beach to climbing a mountain.

Well, there is the shores of Lake Wichita and the trails to the summit of Mount Wichita.

For anyone who may be reading this who is located in the landlocked Texas town called Fort Worth. In the photos above those outcroppings of land you see rising out of the water behind Spencer Jack? Those are what are known as islands.

Islands are chunks of land surrounded by a large body of water. The water can be either the saltwater or fresh water variety. As in the island can be surrounded by the saltwater of an ocean, sea, bay or sound. Or a lake.

Digging a cement lined ditch and filling this ditch with polluted river water does not an island make. Thinking such makes anyone thinking such appear to be either foolish, or ignorant, or both. Building three simple little bridges over dry land to connect a town's mainland to an imaginary non-island and thinking this makes sense to so, also makes one appear to be either foolish, or ignorant, or both.

Vote NO on May 5 if you are among the few allowed to do so in Fort Worth, to put an end to the Panther Island madness.

And if you want to get an idea of what it is like to drive on Chuckanut Drive to Larrabee State Park, watch the video below...

Miss Tess Takes Me Home To Skagit Valley Tulips

I saw that which you see here, this morning, on Facebook, via Miss Tessie Sakuma.

Miss Tessie's comment is "We lived right near there. Our whole area was beautiful."

The caption below the tulips...

"Only in Washington".

And...

"An abundance of colorful tulips in Mount Vernon. I can almost smell the sweet air".

When Tessie says she lived right near there, that is sort of accurate. The precise Tessie location was a bit to the northwest from the location in this photo, with most of the Sakuma Farms Empire being located on the Skagit Flats on the other side of the Skagit River from this location.

Mount Vernon was the town I lived in prior to moving to Texas.

That mountain in the background is known as Mount Baker. Mount Baker is a volcano. I was able to see Mount Baker from my kitchen windows at my Mount Vernon location.

I can not see the Mount Wichita pseudo volcano from my current kitchen window. Or any other mountain.

A few days ago I saw an article on CNN about America's scenic wonders that Americans might not know about. I scrolled through the 25 examples of such, some of which I had been to. And then a click popped a familiar sight into view which I had seen multiple times over multiple decades. That being the Skagit Valley Tulips.

Currently I believe the month long Skagit Valley Tulip Festival will soon be underway, or maybe already is underway.

The Tulip Festival draws around a million tourists to the valley, creating a bit of a traffic nightmare at many locations in the valley. The traffic jams have improved over the years with better control of the vehicle flow, bus tours, toads turned into one-way traffic flows, helicopters overhead to monitor and spreading the attractions to various locations on the Skagit Flats, such as Tulip Town.

This morning I am driving to the D/FW Metroplex. On the way there I do not expect to see any tulip fields. I may see some wildflowers. For sure I won't be seeing any mountains or volcanoes...

Biking Smooth Red Brick Wichita Falls Speedway

Today I went on a long rolling of my bike's wheels. Twice around Sikes Lake, through the MSU campus, north on various roads til eventually reaching Hamilton Park and the Circle Trail return to my starting location.

The furthest north part of today's trek was on a road called Speedway. I don't remember if this is Speedway Road, or Speedway Drive, or Speedway Avenue, or what.

I suppose I could look at a map and find out, but finding out whether Speedway is a road or a drive, or an avenue, or something else seems un-important right now.

Okay, I shall go find out the precise name of this Speedway.

All right. Speedway Avenue is the winning name.

So, that is Speedway Avenue you see my bike parked on above.

Note the red color of this avenue.

This section of Speedway Avenue is made of red brick. There are several roads in Wichita Falls with sections make up of red brick.

No big deal, you are thinking. And I agree.

Except early on in my time in Texas, before I learned that being perplexed by various things in Fort Worth was going to be a chronic condition, I was bum puzzled by this road called Camp Bowie Boulevard, in Fort Worth.

A long section of Camp Boulevard is made of red brick. At the time of my first exposure to this red brick road I was appalled by the bone jarring bumpy experience of driving on it. This has since been somewhat made smoother.

When I verbalized to Fort Worth locals my being appalled at this bizarre bumpy red brick road I was told that this road was unique, one of a kind, of special historic significance.

I remember this as being the first time I wondered do these people ever visit any other parts of America? Because a red brick road did not seem at all unique to me. Other than the fact the Fort Worth version was in the worst shape I'd ever seen such a road.

I thought, at the time, maybe the Fort Worth red brick road is the only one in Texas, hence the Fort Worth locals thinking it to be something special.

And then I attended the Ennis Polka Festival and Parade, where I  saw that the Texas town of Ennis had a well maintained, not jarringly bumpy, red brick road.

Since Ennis I have seen many a red brick road in Texas towns, including the one I was rolling my bike on today...

Wichita Falls Sikes Lake Primrose Duck & Litter Exhibit

Bike riding today eventually took me to Sikes Lake where I saw that which you see here.

I must say, that which you see here has been a rare sight to see in Wichita Falls.

I refer not to the ducks or the pink primroses.

I refer to the litter collection washed up against the concrete structure which crosses Sikes Lake, the purpose of which I do not know.

A litter collection of this sort was a frequent sight in my former Fort Worth location, particularly when the Trinity River was in flood mode.

Heavy rain flushes litter into the creek and storm drains which send water to Sikes Lake. I have seen one extreme littering example of this, with so much litter it made the local news. I recollect getting interviewed about the subject by a TV news lady. She stopped me whilst I was on my bike, asked what I thought about the litter, to which I told her that it was cleaned up almost as soon as it arrived.

I did not understand why she was asking me this, so I pointed out the fact that I was seeing no litter.

Apparently that TV news station had received calls complaining about the flood of litter. I recollect telling the TV news lady that I had been impressed with how litter-free Wichita Falls is compared to my previous Texas location, and that I had no clue as to the reason for the difference.

Maybe the litter difference between the two towns is caused by the same phenomenon which causes Fort Worth to have so many streets without sidewalks, parks without running or modern restrooms, but plenty of outhouses and which serves as host to America's Biggest Boondoggle, which has sort of become litter on a grand scale...

Finding Sunday Dry Blue Spot Above Mount Wichita

What with Saturday's torrents of precipitation precipitating in copious amounts I figured a day after the deluge wheel rolling on the Circle Trail along Holliday Creek would see the creek roaring running rapids in flood mode.

And that by the time the Lake Wichita Dam spillway came in to view I expected to see water spilling over the spillway.

Instead on this Sunday after yesterday's extreme drippage one would think not a drop of rain dropped the day before, with Holliday Creek barely moving any water and the Lake Wichita Dam spillway bone dry.

The sky condition predictors had predicted limited clouds and mostly clear sky for today at my location on the planet. However, the clouds seem reluctant to leave, as witnessed by the photo documentation of what the sky above Mount Wichita looks like today, with a tiny spot of blue managing to peak through the dark threatening looking clouds.

This is now the third Wichita Falls North Texas weekend in a row where winter has rudely made a return visit, thought this weekend's visit was delivered without freezing.

On Wednesday I make my monthly return trek to the Dallas/Fort Worth zone. Rain and wind is in the forecast for that day. On Saturday I return to D/FW via the flying method, to get on a plane to fly to Phoenix.

I am hoping Arizona is warmer than what I have been feeling in Texas. I suspect it will be. And that day after day, for several days, I will be having myself a morning swim with the Ladies of Sun Lakes Swimming Club...

Is Fort Worth The Vancouver Of The South Yet?

Saw this Is this the future of Seattle transit? A look at Vancouver, B.C. — a city that figured it out years ago article in yesterday's Seattle Times and thought, for more reasons than one, this is the type article I would never expect to be reading in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

First off, the article is well written, detailed, full of facts, maps, photo documentation and intelligent analysis comparing public transit development in Vancouver and Seattle.

Oh, and the article is totally honest and reality fact based, with no embarrassing chamber of commerce type Fort Worth delusional puffery.

Both Vancouver and Seattle have a transit problem for similar reasons. Limited land due to the towns being hemmed in by mountains and water. And being fast growing boomtowns.

Seattle made a big goof way back in 1969 when a rail transit proposal failed with the voters, delaying for decades light rail coming to Western Washington.

Meanwhile Vancouver opened its first rail transit line, called Skytrain, by the time of their world's fair, Expo 86. Over the decades since, the Skytrain has greatly expanded.

By the 1990s Seattle voters knew something had to be done, and so voters began approving transit measures, one after another, with the latest passed a $54 billion bond approved in the November 2016 vote.

Seattle is now playing catch up with Vancouver, public transit-wise.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier in this century a bizarre public works project was foisted on the public, without a vote, called the Trinity River Vision, which, in its original propaganda, was supposedly gonna turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

I am not making that up.

Landlocked, saltwater-free, mountain-less Fort Worth was gonna be the Vancouver of the South.

The pitifully pathetic effort eventually became America's Biggest Boondoggle.

In all the years of boondoggling, Fort Worth has not even managed to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island which was/is supposed to be part of the Vancouver of the South.

And now, this week, we have learned that that imaginary island is so contaminated with toxins it makes workers sick to work on it.

And something of concern to modern locations in North America, like public transit, is not even remotely on the Fort Worth radar screen, as the city builds more and more sprawl without adequate modern transportation infrastructure.

Another huge difference in this Seattle Times article as compared to anything one would read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is the number of comments, intelligent, thoughtful detailed comments. Not dozens of comments, hundreds of comments. The comment flood happens over and over again in Seattle Times articles.

A Star-Telegram article may generate a comment or two, sometimes, and often the comments are, well, embarrassing in their ignorance and wrongheadedness.

Methinks that until Fort Worth gets a real newspaper the town has no real hope of ever lifting itself up from being an American backwards backwater.

Seattle has more than one newspaper, in a town smaller than Fort Worth. I don't know how many newspapers Vancouver has...

Fort Worth's Imaginary Island Boondoggle Makes Workers Sick

I first saw that which you see here via a blog post comment...

Matthew Hunter has left a new comment on your post "Questioning Fort Worth's TRWD Imaginary Flood Control Bond Levee Vote":

This is in addition to a story that came out in today's Star-Telegram and was buried among various fluff-pieces on their Facebook feed. It seems the company hired to widen the North side of the river for this project ran into some toxic oil refinery waste, which has contaminated groundwater that now flows right into the river. The city, meanwhile, blew it off, and has apparently tried to cover it up. Because, of course, they don't want people to know that they're tubing in a toxic toilet that cost over a billion dollars to build. What benzene? Oh, THAT benzene...oh, that's nothing. Here, look at the pretty fireworks and have a beer! See? Fun! 

Contaminated soil made construction workers sick. Fort Worth's river runs alongside it

_________________

Over the years of this current century, years where what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle has been boondoggling along, I have opined a time or two or three that if the point in time is ever reached when actual construction begins on Fort Worth's imaginary island that serious ground pollution will likely be discovered, most likely of a level requiring an EPA Superfund cleanup.

A couple bloggings from years ago verbalizing this contaminated pollution concern...

From July 19, 2009, Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Gets Contaminated and from December 15, 2014, Tacoma's Foss Waterway Development Authority vs. Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Authority Boondoggle.

I am not much of a fan of saying I told you so, but I told you so.

The first few paragraphs of the Star-Telegram Contaminated soil made construction workers sick. Fort Worth's river runs alongside it article...

FORT WORTH 
About 30 construction workers were exposed to hazardous materials in their work as part of the Panther Island project, and it all could have been avoided, the company's CEO said.

But as the agencies involved point fingers at each other over who is to blame for not telling the PennaGroup that the soil contained cancer-causing benzine, among other things, CEO Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga still waits for $2.9 million he said he's owed for cleaning up the mess in the area just east of downtown nearly eight years ago.

At the very least, Evangelista-Ysasaga said, the soil condition should have been included in the bid announcement. Instead, Evangelista-Ysasaga said he was told only after he pressed the issue.

That was after a construction supervisor alerted him when some of the workers began feeling nauseous and dizzy and he pulled them from the site. To date, none of the workers has suffered any illness, he said.

_______________

An apropos comment on Facebook this morning about this latest iteration of Fort Worth's ongoing massive boondoggle....


Blake Woodard: Thanks to Sandra Baker for writing this story. It’s a miracle it made it past Star-Telegram management, as the Star-Telegram is TRWD’s unpaid public relations department. Bud Kennedy must be on vacation.

On Bud’s next vacation, maybe Sandra would like to write an article on what a scam the IPL is. I will be happy to show her the TRWD’s own consulting engineering firm’s report on how IPL will bring no new water to Fort Worth.

_____________

The IPL referred to is the Integrated Pipe Line, I think. Yet one more TRWD boondoggle.

Regarding the contamination on Fort Worth's imaginary island. Is this not yet one more good reason for a big NO vote on May 5?

The pollution cleanup cost should long ago have been figured into the budget for this boondoggle. If this ineptly mismanaged project goes forward who knows how many more millions, or billions, will be needed to clean up this mess?

And at this point in time what investor is going to be willing to invest in building anything on the imaginary, polluted island? Even that relatively puny $55 million apartment complex which J.D. Granger has been touting for years as being about to be under construction, would this investor proceed with construction with this contamination debacle looming with its extent unknown?

Isn't the TIF related to the May 5 quarter billion buck bond somehow predicated on development on the contaminated imaginary island somehow generating enough value to pay for the bonds?

Methinks this May 5 vote is just the latest, most blatant iteration of what has become, and will likely continue to be, America's Biggest Boondoggle.

That is, unless somehow responsible qualified adults take over the project and somehow turn this embarrassing mess around. And that process may start with that big NO vote on May 5...

Voting YES May 5 On Honest Texas Town Bond Propositions

And vote NO on fraudulent, misleading Texas town bond propositions.

This upcoming May 5 I know of at least two Texas towns which are putting bond measure propositions before their voters.

The two Texas towns I speak of are Wichita Falls and Fort Worth.

In Wichita Falls every voter in town, gets to vote on seven propositions, should they choose to do so.

In Fort Worth only a select few in a select area get to vote on one proposition, for a quarter billion bucks.

The Wichita Falls ballot specifically details seven propositions, A to G. The Fort Worth ballot erroneously claims the quarter billion bucks is for flood control and drainage. When the quarter billion bucks is actually a last ditch effort to rescue what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Responsible adults seems to be in charge in Wichita Falls. Not so much in Fort Worth, a town where the local congresswoman's unqualified son was made director of the project he has turned into an embarrassing boondoggle. With river floats in the polluted Trinity River, ice rinks, failed wakeboard parks and a litany of other nonsense.

Yesterday's mail delivered a simple one page mailer asking me to VOTE YES to FINISH THE TRAIL. That mailer details Wichita Falls Propositions A & B....
.

Proposition A
One of our most unique assets is the Circle Trail, and it’s so close to being finished.  Proposition A will get us 99% of the way there (and Prop B will finish it).  With your approval we’ll finish the segments from Loop 11 to Lucy Park, from Seymour Highway near Smith’s Gardentown to Barnett Road along the railroad tracks, and from Lake Wichita Park to Larry’s Marine.  We’ll also build two new trail connectors, one from Holliday Creek up to Sikes Lake at MSU, and one from the Ohio Street Bridge out to the main gate at Sheppard Air Force Base.  This will give thousands more people at MSU and on base access to the trail and everything else connected to it.  Proposition A also includes new turf fields for the Sports Complex and a resurfaced parking lot at Lake Wichita by the trail.

Proposition B
Proposition B picks up where Prop A left off, finishing the last segment of the Circle Trail from Larry’s Marine to Barnett Road.  This will provide many more people with access to Lake Wichita, connecting to the trail from points all over the city. Once they get to the lake, Prop B will provide them with a new boardwalk at the site of the original one lost to us many years ago.  Finally, this proposition will develop a new veterans memorial plaza next to the Kemp Street boat ramp, complete with a brand new Vietnam Memorial.  The boardwalk and veterans plaza both have matching grants that will pay for the majority of their costs; we just need to find the rest.  If we don’t, those funds are lost forever and we’ll have missed out on a great chance to improve our community.

_______________________

I have not seen it, but I have been told that those few voters allowed to vote on TRWD Trinity River Vision issues have been mailed an over the top publication full of misleading propaganda urging those voters to vote YES to the May 5 $250,000,000 bond issue to pay for imaginary flood control and drainage in an area which has not flooded in well over half a century.

Vote NO on the Fort Worth bond proposition, Vote YES on the Wichita Falls multiple propositons....

The Windy Cold Caribbean Route To Sikes Lake With Five Goslings

Once again a cold wind from the north is blowing into North Texas, blowing out the hot air which had blown in recently from the south.

Yesterday was hot, I think in the low 90s.

Today, when I went for a bike ride, the outer world was barely 60.

And blowing hard, real hard, making, I am sure, for a chilly wind chill factor.

So, I rolled around my Caribbean neighborhood, past Haiti and Grenada, and then took the Montego route direct to Sikes Lake, where, for the first time at this location, I saw recently hatched birds floating with what I assume were there parental units.

The flock of five goslings seemed to have no trouble keeping up with the floating adults paddling against the wind.

I heard no gosling honking or whatever the communicative noise baby geese make. Then again, if they were honking I likely would not have been able to hear it over the howling wind...