Big Lake 4th Of July With Spencer Jack & Hank Frank

A couple minutes ago whilst scrolling on Facebook I saw that my favorite ex-sister-in-law, Spencer Jack and Hank Frank's grandma Cindy, had posted several photos documenting the 4th of July as experienced at grandma Cindy's Big Lake abode.

Big Lake is a little lake located a couple miles east of my old home location in Mount Vernon, in the state of Washington.

Among the grandma Cindy photos was one of my eldest great nephew, Spencer Jack, along with one of my youngest great nephew, Spencer Jack's cousin, Hank Frank.

Which would make that Hank Frank you see above with the giant watermelon.

Earlier this year I was pretty much 100% sure I would be meeting Hank Frank for the first time, later this month.

But, COVID-19 put an end to that happening. Last week our reservations to stay at Birch Bay were cancelled. And a couple days ago, whilst talking to Spencer Jack and Hank Frank's grandpa Jake, I learned grandpa Jake had canceled his plans to stay a month in the Skagit Valley, in addition to our time at Birch Bay.

No wonder we are all sort of depressed.

Ducky Linda Lou Sikes Lake Gazebo Call

Yesterday I was riding my bike through my Caribbean neighborhood, heading west on Haiti, when my phone made its incoming call noise. I did not stop rolling to see who was calling, since that is inconvenient when rolling, and when I do try to do that I usually do not make it to the phone in time to answer it.

Soon thereafter I left the Caribbean behind and arrived at Sikes Lake. A short distance later I stopped at one of the Sikes Lake gazebos and got my phone out of the phone holder which holds it whilst I am rolling.

The call was from Linda Lou.

Linda Lou is fun to talk to, so I sat at the gazebo and returned Linda Lou's call.

Whilst I was talking to Linda Lou at one point she asked what was that quacking noise she was hearing. Ducks I replied. I am surrounded by ducks.

I told Linda Lou I would take a picture of the ducks when I got off the phone and send it to her. I remembered to take the photo, but forgot about it til this morning when I decided I would just send Linda Lou a duck photo via this means.

It was only a flock of four ducks who were serenading me with their quacking. Only two of the ducks, the ones you see above, under the gazebo table, cooperated in having their picture taken.

During the course of a day a lot of people show up at this location on Sikes Lake bringing food to the flock of ducks and geese. The geese out number the ducks by a large margin. I think the four ducks who quacked at me and Linda Lou were hoping for a handout, as that gazebo is a popular lunching spot with the lunchers tossing tidbits to the birds.

At one point a little boy showed up who instantly got my flock of four duck's attention, with the ducks waddling after the little boy for a few minutes, before giving up on that kid giving them anything to eat, so they returned to me and the gazebo and Linda Lou.

This is the type thing which passes for being an exciting thrill in my current pandemic infested world.

I realized yesterday that it has been a year since I last trekked the few miles to the southeast that takes me to the Dallas/Fort Worth zone. I have had no reason to go there, and now what with the DFW Metroplex turning into a COVID-19 hotspot it seems even less appealing than it usually does to go there.

But, I would sure like to have myself a chile relleno at Esperanza's in Fort Worth. I have had a hankering for that for months now...

Raven Escapes To Ocean Shores With Kristin, Michele & The Tacoma Trio

I learned last night that to temporarily escape being housebound in Tacoma, or cabinbound on Harstine Island, the Tacoma Trio decided it was a good time to take a summer time look at the Pacific Ocean.

Doing so took the Tacoma Trio to Ocean Shores.

I have blogged about Ocean Shores a couple times on one of my other blogs, first in a blogging titled Ocean Shores Washington and a second time in Washington's Pacific Ocean's Ocean Shores is Celebrating 50 Years of Coasting.

In the first photo that is David, Kristin, Ruby, Michele & David, being guarded by Raven. I do not know where Raven's step brother, Eddie is.

Maybe Eddie took the picture.

That is the body of water known as the Pacific Ocean behind Raven and his family.

When I was the Tacoma Trio's age going to Ocean Shores was just about my favorite place we'd go on weekend camping trips. Only we simply called it "going to the coast".  And we did not usually stay in Ocean Shores, which is a town created in the 1960s. We usually stayed a few miles north in the little town of Copalis, where my little brother and I always had fun buying a balsa wood airplane to fly til it broke.

The Pacific Ocean beach at Ocean Shores, and for miles north and south, is a wide sandy swath, so wide two lanes of traffic drive on the "beach".

The last time I did so was way back in 2004, if memory serves me correctly.

Above that appears to be Ruby, Michele and Theo running towards the waves.

And now it appears Ruby, Michele and Theo are preparing to run in the other direction to escape the incoming waves.

Here we see David, Ruby, Theo and Raven on the big rocks which make up the spit which sticks way out into the ocean at the entry to Grays Harbor. The waves can get mighty big at this location. When I was last there, in 2004, we watched a big herd of seals frolicking in the surf. And whales spouting further out.

This is also the location of my one and only time experiencing what is known as a rogue wave.

It was a Sunday morning, long long ago. Ruby's mama Michele was about five years younger than Ruby is now. We joined throngs of others walking the beach at low tide.

Suddenly it was obvious an incoming wave was way bigger than the rest.

People began running to dry land. I picked up little Michele, and ran as fast as I could go, eventually getting high on a piece of driftwood, which ended up not being high enough, as we got swept off, and totally wet. The getting wet thing pretty much ended the drama as the wave retreated.

I remember this incident so clearly. I have previously asked Michele if she remembers it. She does not. One of the more vivid things I remember was, with it being Sunday, many of the beach goers were still wearing their going to church attire, including a lady wearing a ridiculously big fur coat. She could not run fast enough and was totally knocked down by the rogue wave. Her fur coat probably never recovered.

The information accompanying the Ocean Shores photos made no mention of staying overnight in one of the many Ocean Shores motels, but the above photo indicates such was the case. Maybe they stayed at the Gitchee Gumee. The last time I overnighted in Ocean Shores, with Michele, and mom and dad, was at the Gitchee Gumee. And one of the attractions was the indoor pool.

Months ago I was 100% certain I would be in Washington this month, having fun with the Tacoma Trio, swimming, sand castle building and mountain biking. But, last week the reservations at Birch Bay were cancelled, putting an end to what had become an ever decreasing chance of roadtripping to the Pacific Northwest this summer.

Someday, I hope, this current nightmare will end. Maybe in time to roadtrip to the Pacific Northwest for David's high school graduation. Or Spencer Jack's wedding. Or something else which currently seems like it would be way into the future...

111 Wichita Falls Degrees Feeling Not As Hot As Death Valley

This morning whilst perusing the news I saw that the temperature prediction for today was to be over  the century mark by around 5 this afternoon.

It was 8 minutes prior to five when I did made the temperature screen shot, via my phone, which you see here.

Only 99 degrees, not the promised 100. And now the time has passed that 5 o'clock mark and is still 99.

I do not know why the weather predictors can not be more accurate.

Due to that 99 apparently feeling like 111 I think I will forego the afternoon bike ride I have been enjoying of late, what with being borderline elderly and thus, apparently, more susceptible to heatstroke than someone younger and in better shape.

Earlier today I did get in some HOT endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation by walking the Circle Trail in the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, which is photo documented via two photos below.

A fork off the main trail forks again, terminating in two swinging benches. I am the only person I have ever seen swinging on either of these benches. But, looking in the trash barrel you see at the fork in the trail I saw multiple empty drink containers of various sorts, which indicates to me that those benches must be seeing some use later in the day, such as during the colorful sunsetting time.

A short distance from where the above spur trail joins the Circle Trail I came upon a disturbing instance of urban destruction.

What sort of vandalous madman would smash to smithereens a work of sculptural art like the tall hoodoo which stood at this location a couple days ago?

These acts of destruction seem to have no dampering effect on the rock piling spirit of the mysterious hoodoo builder. If history repeats itself, as it always seems to do, soon a new hoodoo will soon rise at this location.

Maybe the hoodoo builder should consider using super glue to render the construction less easy to topple.

Just checked the phone again. We are still stuck at that relatively chilly temperature of 99. I do not remember if we hit 100 last summer at my current location.

I do remember the last time I was super heated well above 100.

It was way back in August of 1998, when Spencer Jack and Hank Frank's paternal parental units flew me to Vegas, and then drove me out to Death Valley because the news that morning told us a temperature records might be set that day at Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet below sea level.

I do not remember what the temperature was when we made it to Badwater Basin or Furnace Creek. I do remember it did not break the record, which is somewhere above 130.  I also remember it was extremely HOT.

Windy Sunday Lake Wichita Walk With 64 Uncensored Photographs

Sunday is always a good day to walk the Lake Wichita promenade atop Lake Wichita Dam via the Circle Trail. Today was a particularly good Sunday to walk the dam, due to clouds blotting out some of the overly HOT sun, and a strong gale force wind chilling what little heat remained.

The photo you see above, looking across the white capped waves at Mount Wichita in the distance, is the furthest I made it today in the walking across the dam project. The wind had become tiresome.

I think some of the haze blotting out the sun is Saharan desert dust. Such was quite noticeable at sunset Saturday night.

Turning around and heading the opposite direction the scene you see below comes into view.

One fisherman trying to cast against the wind from shore, whilst another fisherman risks seasickness from fishing from the rocking and rolling floating fish deck.

That is the newly opened Lake Wichita boardwalk you see jutting out into the lake beyond the floating dock. Those poles sticking out of the water between the floating dock and the boardwalk are the remains of the wooden piers upon which the long gone Lake Wichita Pavilion once sat, before succumbing to a fire in the 1950s.

In the next photo we are heading out towards the new boardwalk, soon to join the three boardwalk walkers you see already walking on the boardwalk.

The above is a different perspective on the new boardwalk, from the view I saw a couple days ago and blogged about in Not Being Bored On Lake Wichita Boardwalk.

I am hoping the wind eventually dies down today, sufficiently so, that a bike ride might seem possibly pleasant later today. I feel as if I am not getting enough endorphins of late.

Yikes. I just looked at my blog to get the link to the previous blogging about the Lake Wichita boardwalk and was appalled to see that Google is now sticking advertisements into the body of the blog post. Previously the ads were inserted only where I indicated they could be inserted.

And that which the blog is now advertising deserves another Yikes! One ad is suggesting you stop using toilet paper, whilst another wants you to click it to see 64 uncensored rare photographs not suitable for all viewers!

Of late I have been thinking about killing my website and ceasing with the blogging. These ads may be what is known as a final straw...

Not Being Bored On Lake Wichita Boardwalk

Yesterday my bike took me on an early evening ride to the Lake Wichita boardwalk.

Looking at the photo documentation of my handlebars on the aforementioned boardwalk one might think no one else was enjoying the pleasant early evening outdoors.

However, the reality was I have never seen so many people on the Circle Trail on top of Lake Wichita dam as I saw yesterday.

In addition to the dam walkers and riders, I saw multiple kayakers kayaking, along with multiple fisherpeople fishing, and two mountain climbers descending from the summit of Mount Wichita.

I would have thought the heavy rain earlier in the day would have rendered Mount Wichita too muddy to be climbed, but, apparently, I was wrong about that. Or maybe yesterday's mountain climbers enjoy the additional challenge of a slippery slope.

Being on the new Lake Wichita boardwalk, built over actual water in less than a year, reminded me of a question Mr. Bobalu asked me awhile back, asking me if I had heard anything at all regarding the current status of Fort Worth's three simple little bridges which the town has been trying to build for six years.

Six years trying to build bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

A large area of Fort Worth has been a construction destruction mess for years now due to the cataracted Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, an ill-considered, ineptly implemented, bogus flood control and economic development scheme the public has never voted for, foisted on the city by the corrupt group of cronies who run their town in a manner known as The Fort Worth Way.

Anyway, to answer Mr. Bobalu's question, I have heard nothing about the current status of America's Biggest Boondoggle for quite some time.

It seems things like a pandemic and the American people finally being fed up with police brutality, plus a tanking economy, along with the worst president in anyone's memory, puts things like Fort Worth's scandalous messes on a back burner of insignificance in the bigger scheme of things.

Has that roundabout at the center of the bridge construction mess ever been completed? As in landscaped? Does that embarrassing million dollar aluminum homage to a trash can still sit surrounded by a weed/litter infested eyesore?

Has anyone ever gotten an explanation as to why this million dollar work of art was purchased and installed years and years before anything useful regarding the Trinity River Vision has been completed?

Is wasting a million bucks, on what amounts to being a distracting eyesore, one of the reasons Kay Granger has been unable to secure the promised federal funds for the Boondoggle her son was hired to executively direct to further motivate his mother to secure federal funds?

One would think it might be difficult to make a case for federal help when somehow there is already sufficient funding to buy something like a million dollar aluminum "kinetic sculpture".

The next "bridge" building project on Lake Wichita will be the final section of the Circle Trail, with the current plan being to build most of it on the lake.

I suspect that final section of the Wichita Falls Circle Trail will be taking people over water long before any of those three simple littles bridges in Fort Worth take people, or anything, over water...

2020 Flooding Father's Day

It was four years ago today that I called my dad for the last time to wish him a Happy Father's Day.

It was three years ago today that I was able to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day, in person, for what turned out to be my dad's last Happy Father's Day.

On my dad's last Father's Day my favorite brother-in-law, Jack, and his first wife, my sister Jackie, brought a McDonald's all you can eat buffet of all my dad's McDonald's favorites to the banquet room of my dad's final home zone.

I blogged about what turned out to be dad's last McDonald's Happy Father's Day buffet in a post titled Dad's Father's Day McDonald's Buffet With Uncle Mooch & Tillie.

Little did I know, at the time, that I was to be seeing Uncle Mooch about two months later, along with Uncle Mooch's first wife, Aunt Jane.

I had been sort of holding out hope that the current world situation would improve enough by now so that my long planned trip to Washington could take place next month. But, I think the current world situation is about to get worse.

This morning's weather at my Texas location is a perfect metaphor for my current drippy melancholy.

Thunder stormed during the night. Soon after the arrival of illumination this morning dark clouds began delivering copious amounts of downpouring rain, along with a booming musical accompaniment of thunder drums.

That is the super wet view from my computer room window you are seeing above.

The current result of all that rain is my abode is now surrounded by a moat. This is the most substantial moat I have been surrounded by since living at this location.

The rain has finally stopped, for now, the flooding is subsiding somewhat. I think I will venture out in it and see if I can make it to my vehicle.

I almost forgot to wish a Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Chilly Cloudy First Day Of Summer On A Wichita Bluff Bench

Spring roared out like a lion late Friday afternoon, with a sudden drenching downpour with a few minutes of thunder booming.

I was not under cover when the rain began to drench. This resulted in me discovering I can still run fast when properly motivated.

I had three instances of running fast through a downpour yesterday, resulting in some aching muscles today, on the first day of summer.

So, with muscles aching, and hours to go before Trump's Bizarro Tulsa Debacle, I drove to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, this first 2020 summer morning, to commune with nature and have some relaxing time swinging on that bench you see at the end of a spur trail off the main trail which trails through the Wichita Bluff Nature Area.

As you can see via the bench photo documentation the Wichita Bluff Nature Area is looking like a green jungle on this first day of summer.

I forgot to mention, this first day of summer is relatively chilly, not even in the low 80s when I did my nature communing.

Blackberry Hunting In The Wichita Falls Lucy Park Jungle

With a cooling breeze blowing on an outer world barely heated to 90 degrees, I thought I could have myself a mighty fine commune with nature today via a walk around the undeveloped backwoods lush green jungle part of Lucy Park.

I thought correctly. The combo of a semi-strong wind and a lot of shade, with cooling green on the ground, made for a pleasant, not HOT, walk.

It seems like an ancient long ago time when my number one fear of living in Texas was the fact that I've never been a fan of hot weather.

I never was a fan of a heat wave when I lived in Western Washington. At that location temperatures in the high 70s is a heat wave. When it gets into the 80s in the Puget Sound zone one begins to suffer. And those rare times the heat would go into the 90s, well, that was just not tolerable.

Ironically, living in Western Washington, where it seldom gets HOT, one of the fun things to do, in summer, is to drive over the mountains, as in Cascade mountains, via one of the mountain passes, to Eastern Washington, to a climate more like Texas, albeit with a lot more hills, big rivers, orchards, Indian reservations and tourist towns.

Walking in the Lucy Park jungle today, with its lush vegetation, I was wondering why blackberries do not grow here, in the wild, naturally. Blackberries are grown commercially here, in locations such as the Young's Farm Orchards a few miles northeast of my location, in the small town known as Charlie, a short distance from the even smaller town known as Dean.

I have been to both Charlie and Dean, but saw no blackberries at that point in time. Because it was the middle of winter.

The Young's operation also has strawberry fields. With a you pick option. I do not know if one can pick the blackberries in you pick mode.

Maybe if I did more off trail exploring in the Lucy Park jungle I might find some blackberry vines with fruit ready to pick. I doubt it though...

On Wichita Bluffs Finding Endorphins Whilst Dodging COVID-19 With Skyscraper Hoodoo

In need of some endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation this morning I was once again in the Wichita Bluff Nature Area communing with nature, whilst quickly ascending and descending the steep natural bluffs.

Today the Wichita Bluff Hoodoo came into view long before I reached its closeup viewing location. I saw the Hoodoo from a distance because it has now risen to heights seldom seen in Hoodoos.

If you look closely at the Hoodoo photo documentation you will see there is a second Hoodoo, of the extremely small sort. Perhaps this is some sort of homage to the Wichita Falls World's Littlest Skyscraper, located a couple miles east of this little Hoodoo rising on the Wichita Bluffs.

We have had a big uptick in confirmed COVID-19 in Wichita Falls. 19 new infections yesterday. Four of those infected were employed in two different downtown Wichita Falls eating and drinking establishments. 

Of late I have seen a steep drop in the number of people wearing a mask whilst shopping, such as in Walmart, or Target, or ALDI, or Office Depot, all of which I have eye witnessed in the past week.

I am coming to terms with the reality there will be no trip to Washington this summer. I have been saying for months that the plan to head to the Pacific Northwest was in jeopardy, but the small part of me which can be optimistic thought it would somehow work out by the time the time arrived.

I fear the worst has not yet began to get near to arriving...