Hot Hiking Windy Wichita Bluff Nature Area

With the temperature nearing 80 and with an extremely strong wind blowing I felt the need for walking speed today.

And so I took myself to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area to enjoy trying to stay vertical whilst the wind tried to knock me over.

As you can see, it was so windy I had trouble holding the phone steady to take a picture.

I thought in this selfie that I was aiming at the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Wichita Falls. 

Clearly my aim was off.

But, in non-selfie mode I was able to take a photo of the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Wichita Falls, from the vantage point of the highest of the bluffs.

That is the Wichita River you see in the center of the photo, looking brown. And that which you see sticking up on the horizon, that's that aforementioned stunning skyline.

No, that skyscraper near the center of the horizon is not Wichita Falls' famous World's Littlest Skyscraper.

The World's Littlest Skyscraper is too little to show up on the horizon...

My High School Class Reunion Membership Is Pending

I have a high school class reunion coming up this summer.

I doubt I will be attending.

A week or so ago I was talking to one of my former classmates and she mentioned thinking she had seen a Facebook page devoted to this upcoming reunion. I opined that I thought I remembered seeing such also.

We were discussing this serious subject because we thought that by now the details of this important event would be determined and known, with the information widely disseminated, what with the need to make travel plans well in advance of the actual traveling. 

After that phone call I looked on Facebook to see if I could find that Facebook reunion page we thought we had seen. It did not take long to find. Part of that webpage is what you see screen capped above.

Apparently, after this Facebook group was created I was sent a membership invite. Apparently I asked to be a member. And now, all this time later, I see my "membership is pending".

I told this to the person with whom I had been discussing this and she checked and saw the same pertained to her, with her membership also still pending. 

By the time my fellow classmate found her membership still pending she had also found out details of the current high school reunion plan. 

A two day event. With the first day taking place at a classmate's home.

YIKES! 

That begins at 2 in the afternoon and lasts til the last person leaves. This is a BYOB affair where you are also asked to bring yourself an appetizer.

YIKES! again.

On Day 2 of this reunion the gathering shifts from someone's home to the Skagit Country Club. We assume this will be a dinner and dancing type deal. But, those details have not yet been gleaned.

From this apparently defunct Facebook page about this upcoming reunion, I copied the following...
 

About This Group

Private

Only members can see who's in the group and what they post.

History

Group created on September 14, 2020 

Members  · 48

Margaret is an admin.

Okay, someone named Margaret apparently is the administrator of this group. It must be Margaret who must approve someone's membership in this group. I can only remember one Margaret who was in my high school class. I think she lives somewhere in the upper Midwest. Minnesota or Michigan or some such state.

I had previously heard that the reunion might take place at one of the Skagit Valley's casino resorts. That would be convenient, what with both having big event spaces and big hotels attached. That and when the reunion became boring one could go play the slot machines.

Well, in the end it matters not to me where or when this reunion takes place. If I make it to the Skagit Valley this summer I will be reunion-ing with multiple people with whom I went to high school. But I really do not have much interest in reunion-ing with people with whom I have had no contact for decades.

To a couple of my high school classmates I explained my thinking about this serious subject in an extremely hyperbolic way by saying if I graduated from Berlin-Edison High School in 1911, and in 1941 there was to be a high school reunion, I would have no desire to attend, knowing a third of my class were Hitlerite Nazis, another third were Democratic Socialists persecuted by the Nazis, and the final third were those clueless to what was happening, or Jews, who for reasons we all know all too well, would not be able to attend...

Texas Easter Bunny Hopping Longhorn

Earlier this Easter Sunday, in a blogging about a Happy Easter Look At North Cascades National Park, I mentioned that someone from Washington, regarding Easter, had verbalized the hope that Texas still lets the Easter Bunny come hopping through, because with Texas you just never know what's what...

Well, the above photo showed up on Facebook this Easter afternoon, indicating that Texas is allowing a Texas version of the Easter Bunny to be seen in public on this special day.

Not hopping, of course, but instead riding a Texas Longhorn...

Linda Lou's Happy Easter Giant Shrimp Without Alligator Nuggets

Above is the result of a recipe the Skagit Valley's Linda Lou directed me to last week. The completed project is in its final stage of resting for an hour, to let the various ingredients merge as one, before being consumed as this year's Texas Easter Dinner. 

The only recipe ingredient I could not find at my backwoods backwards grocery store challenged location was Italian flat parsley. The recipe also called for fresh dill which I thought I would have trouble finding, but Linda Lou gave me directions which proved fruitful, well, dillful.

The recipe called for prawns. Those also were not to be found. So I substituted extra large shrimp. When Linda Lou asked if the seafood section at my Walmart had prawns, I told her I doubted it would, but that there are frog legs available in the Walmart seafood section.

And when I found the giant shrimp, next to the frog legs, I saw something I had not seen before in the Walmart seafood section, that being what you see photo documented below.

Alligator Nuggets and Filet of Alligator.

I was experiencing a buffet in Las Vegas once, I think it was at the Rio Casino, touted as the world's biggest buffet, and frog legs were among the items being buffeted. I did not try them.

I do not think I have ever eaten anything reptilian. I saw lots of people eating deep fried rattlesnake my one and only time experiencing the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup.  

Well, it is now about time for that aforementioned Happy Easter dinner. At an hour past noon...

Happy Easter Look At North Cascades National Park

 

That which you see above fits in with our current ongoing theme of people in the Pacific Northwest sending me things via various means which tend to make me homesick for my former land of scenery, clean air, clean water and a well educated progressively thinking population.

I found the above in my mailbox this first Saturday of the 2021 version of April. An envelope with a postcard inside.

The photo on the postcard is a mountain peak in the North Cascades National Park. It looks like it may be a peak ones sees on the Cascade Pass hiking trail. The photographer is Andrew Porter of Sedro Woolley, Washington. Andrew Porter is not the sender of the postcard, his name was on the postcard's back indicating is was he who had taken the photograph.

Part of the message written on the back of the postcard...

Happy Easter, Durango---

I hope Texas still lets the Easter Bunny come hopping through. But you never know about Texas...

There were several paragraphs following the above two sentences, but they had nothing about Texas which was amusing. The paragraphs following the above two sentences were about March Madness and the finals being dominated by Pac-10 teams, particularly Washington's Gonzaga.

There was also mention made of the wild Washington weather day which ended March, that, and getting COVID shots.

I have yet to make any effort to get a COVID vaccination. I probably should quit procrastinating on that.

Hope one and all have themselves a might fine Easter today...

Aunt Jackie With David, Theo & Ruby Before Seeing Some Ocean Shores

Yesterday, whilst mentioning David, Theo & Ruby's First Good Friday Easter Bunny Visit, I also mentioned that David, Theo & Ruby's Aunt Jackie was currently in Washington and that I had not yet heard if Aunt Jackie had seen the Tacoma Trio and their parental units.

Later that same day a text message with a photo arrived, from Aunt Jackie, confirming she has seen the Tacoma Trio, with the photo above documenting that fact.

Apparently, for the coming few days, Aunt Jackie will be staying at Ocean Shores. I assume with the Tacoma Trio, their parental units, and others. 

If I remember right, the last time I was at Ocean Shores was in August of 2004. Previous to that 2004 Ocean Shores visit it would have been some time in August of 2001 I was last at one of my favorite locations in Washington. I had driven to Washington, from Texas, for mom and dad's 50th anniversary party. A couple days after that dad drove myself and mom to Ocean Shores, where Aunt Jackie, her first husband Jack, and several others were staying at a ocean front hotel.

I recollect that being a fun visit to Ocean Shores. Who could have known, at the time, that this would be the last time I would ever go to Ocean Shores with mom and dad. Growing up in Washington, going to Ocean Shores happened frequently.

Let me see if I can find a photo of that 2001 visit to Ocean Shores...

Now that took way too long to find.

That is the Pacific Ocean behind dad and mom. This is at the south end of Ocean Shores. To dad's right, out of the photo's view, is a big barrier of giant rocks at the entry to Grays Harbor. When I was at this location in 2004 we spent a few minutes watching whales blowing off steam.

At this same location, many years earlier, I was here with David, Theo & Ruby's Mama Michele.

Michele was 4 or 5 years old. It was a Sunday. There were a lot of people on the beach. Suddenly a rogue wave rolled in. I had never experienced such a thing before. People further out began to run away from the wave. Soon I realized I needed to run too. I picked up Michele and made it to a big driftwood, got up on it, but the wave still knocked us over, getting us soaking wet.

I had some explaining to do when we returned to mom and dad.

Here's another photo from that same day. With the aforementioned Aunt Jackie, and first husband, Jack, sitting on that also aforementioned big barrier of giant rocks...

I do not see scenes such as you see above at my current location. 

It is beginning to look ever more bleak the prospect that I will be seeing this type scenery in a few months. I hope I am wrong about this...

David, Theo & Ruby's First Good Friday Easter Bunny Visit

Photo documentation of David, Theo & Ruby's first visit with Santa Claus is well documented and has been seen by many.

What has not been seen by many is photo documentation of David, Theo & Ruby's first visit with Easter bunnies.

The photos you see above and below were taken on a Good Friday before Easter several years ago. Way back then Ruby & Theo were prone to get a bit panicky when experiencing something new and different.

Like giant Easter bunny rabbits.

While David remained the calm, bemused big brother, even when two giant Easter bunnies had him in their grasp.

David, Theo & Ruby's Aunt Jackie is currently in Washington. I have not yet heard if Aunt Jackie has seen the Tacoma Trio and their parental units...

Shadow Of The Thin Tree On New Section Of Wichita Falls Circle Trail

No, that is not the Shadow of the Extremely Thin Man you are seeing above. My plan to lose the COVID 30 I gained in the past year ran awry for various reasons in March. I am hoping April does not go awry. The thin shadow you see above is from a leaf-free tree hovering over the Circle Trail.

Today I drove my bike to the east entry parking lot access to the Wichita Bluffs Nature Area. Before pedaling west to the Nature Area I pedaled east to see the current state of the Circle Trail extension to Lucy Park. 

The new trail has added a lot of feet since I last checked, along with building the bridge you see the thin tree shadowed upon.

It appears this bridge was built in the Fort Worth style, over dry land, but built not at the Fort Worth bridge building speed, hence this Wichita Falls Circle Trail bridge is completed, instead of languishing for years partway built, with weeds running amok.

I rode my bike at the aforementioned Lucy Park yesterday. I can not figure out where the Circle Trail extension is going to connect to the Circle Trail in Lucy Park. At the current pace of construction that mystery should be solved soon.

The mystery of the Fort Worth bridges remains unsolved. Three simple little freeway overpass-like bridges, being built over dry land, ever since 2014, with no coherent explanation ever provided explaining why building these simple little bridges has taken so long.

Fort Worth does not have a real newspaper with real journalists practicing real journalism who might get to the bottom of Fort Worth's bridge building mystery...

Flying Over Mount Rainier With Arizona Sister Jackie

Continuing with the theme of late of something or someone showing me something which renders me ever so slightly homesick for the scenic wonderland I used to live in. 

So, obviously this would make that not snow covered Mount Wichita you see above. I believe that is one of Washington's five active volcanoes, it being the one named Rainier.

Arizona sister Jackie's phone sent me the photo above, along with text saying "Not home for 10 days! Hope all is well there!"

I knew sister Jackie was flying to Washington near the end of March. I did not know this was taking place on this next to last day of March. Tuesday is the day I most frequently call Jackie on her landline because Tuesday is the day she is most reliably home. I was gonna call Jackie this morning on my way to bike ride the trails at Lucy Park, but I forgot.

She probably was in the air during the time frame I was gonna call.

I think this is at least the second time Jackie has flown to Washington during the COVID nightmare. There may be a third time I am forgetting.

I can't picture myself doing the flying thing whilst having to wear a mask the whole time. And there are those times during the flying experience where you find yourself crowded. Such as riding the Skylink at DFW Airport to get from one terminal to another. Or waiting to board. Or being in line boarding. And whilst in the air there is no beverage service, no pitiful little bag of something like a nut or a cookie.

Sister Jackie flies out of the country in about another month, to Mexico, to attend her eldest's first wedding. I am assuming those nuptials are still scheduled.

Visiting Hank Frank's Jones Family Compound With Spencer Jack & Jason

 

Yesterday whilst blogging about Driving By The Skagit Tulip Festival Daffodils With Miss Lori I made mention of the fact that my Favorite Nephew Joey's house and the Hank Frank Orchard are on the Skagit Flats, on Beaver Marsh Road, near world famous Roozengarde.

This morning Hank Frank's Uncle Jason emailed me two emails with one photo in each email, along with text.

The text which accompanied the photo above was "Just read your blog.  The acres next to FNJoey has a home built for Spencer and I.  I think I have additional photos of this.  The Jones compound is one block south of Roozengarde.  It’s a gorgeous place to live."

Roozengarde is a Dutch name, as is Slotemaker, which translates to Jones in its adulterated English form. The Dutch pair in Hank Frank's yard with the Slotemaker sign came from my mom and dad's yard in Arizona.

And then we have the second photo from today's email.

The text with the above email said, "Here is one Spencer took the other day of me out standing in my field with the home pictured in the distance.  I can’t wait for you to visit."

It is unclear to me if the home referenced is the Hank Frank house or the one Jason said was a home built for him and Spencer. 

In the above photo I believe we are looking west at the setting sun. I think this to be the case because there are no mountains on the horizon. If that were a sun rising from the east it would be popping out over a range of mountains called Cascades.

I have not yet seen the design plans for Jason and Joey's Jones Family Compound. I assume such will soon be forthcoming...