Spencer Jack Becomes Bulldog After Immaculate Conception

Three photos arrived in the email this morning, sent by Spencer Jack's paternal parental unit, my Favorite Nephew Jason. Along with the photos there was the following explanatory text...

FUD,

Thought you’d enjoy these pictures.

Spencer Jack has completed his elementary Catholic schooling, and will soon be a Mount Vernon Bulldog in this upcoming fall.

Hope all is well in TX, FNJ. 

FUD is what all my favorite nephews, and niece, call me.

Favorite Uncle D.

I do not remember ever having been told why it is Spencer Jack attended a private school in the form of a Catholic elementary called Immaculate Conception Regional School. 

But now that Spencer Jack's 8 years of Catholic indoctrination are complete, apparently he is moving on to public school in the form of Mount Vernon High School. I believe this will make Spencer Jack the first Bulldog in the Jones family.

I do not much remember my 8th grade graduation from Lucille Umbarger Elementary in Burlington. I am fairly certain caps and gowns were not involved, which we can clearly see was the case with Spencer Jack's 8th grade graduation. In the above group graduate photo I believe that is Spencer Jack on the far left of the upper row.

And above we see Spencer Jack with his two Grandmas. That would be my Favorite-Ex-Sister-In-Law, Cindy, on the right. Spencer Jack has grown a few inches since I last saw him on August 13, 2017.

It looks like Spencer Jack is now as tall, or taller, than his paternal parental unit. I don't know why this is the only photo showing masks being worn. Or a graduation cap thrown to the ground.

I wonder if I will get a high school graduation invitation in four years when Spencer Jack's graduates from high school at the top of his class, giving a graduation speech? I have been able to attend only one of my nephew's high school graduations, that being when Spencer Jack's dad graduated from Burlington-Edison High School. 

Sweltering Bike Ride To Calm Cool Sikes Lake

My bike took me north on the Circle Trail this morning, before it got too HOT to be fun to do such a thing.

Long before noon I stopped for a shady moment under a Sikes Lake gazebo, where I checked my phone to see the temperature was 90, with the humidity making it really feel like 93.

As you can see via the ripple-less water on the lake the air is being pretty much dead calm, zero cooling wind blowing.

When I roll around Sikes Lake I always think that is an interesting tree you see my handlebars looking at. 

And that trash can you see my handlebars looking at always reminds me of Fort Worth's million dollar homage to a trash can. That work of imaginary art which sits at the center of a roundabout inside the mess made by the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision Boondoggle.

Speaking of Fort Worth, now that I am vaccinated and sort of free to move about the country, I had been thinking driving to DFW for the first time in well over a year might be fun. But, I can't seem to muster the energy to make that happen.

I used to think driving a few hundred miles was no big deal, but I guess not having done such in such a long time has me re-programmed somehow.

Maybe I should start with a shorter drive, such as north to Lawton in Oklahoma, where Fort Sill is located, which is where I think Geronimo is buried, if my memory is serving me accurately, which it probably isn't.

So far, during this HEAT wave, the power has not blacked out at my location. Apparently, according to the local news, the Texas grid is currently greatly strained trying to keep the power flowing.

I don't think it will be as miserable losing power during a heat wave as was the miserable case losing power during last winter's sub-zero disaster.

I can keep cool in the bathtub...

Living In The 19th Cheapest City In America

Via a link I saw on Facebook today to a Kiplinger article titled The 25 Cheapest U.S. Cities to Live In I learned I am currently living in the 19th cheapest city to live in in the U.S.

Clicking the link, and perusing the article, I learned Wichita Falls isn't the cheapest town in Texas in which to live. Several were cheaper, such as Amarillo. 

The photo representing Wichita Falls in this article, is a downtown scene. The library which I frequently frequent is a couple blocks to the right. 

Three paragraphs of descriptive text from the article seem to succinctly sum up Wichita Falls...

The largest employer in Wichita Falls is the United States Air Force, with Sheppard Air Force Base located just a short drive from downtown. But this city situated 140 miles northwest of Dallas claims other distinctions, too.

Wichita Falls is home to the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum, boasts the "world's littlest skyscraper" and allows servicemen and civilians alike to really stretch their paychecks. Housing costs, for example, run more than 20% below the national average. Groceries, health care and transportation costs also are lower than the national average.

Just be forewarned that this North Texas city gets H-O-T in summer, with average highs of 97 degrees in July. Utilities tend to cost about 10% more than the national average.

I learned today that this Texas HOT issue is straining the power grid, with today's HEAT possibly causing blackouts. If we lose power when the temperature is super HOT, and the interior space turns miserable, do we escape to the Comfort Inn like last winter when we went sub-zero, with zero power?

Regarding the cost of things like groceries, well, it certainly is way cheaper than what I experience when I return to Washington. But, many a time when I have been in Arizona the last few years I've made note of the fact that grocery products, such as produce, are cheaper than I find in Texas.

Filling the gas tank is way cheaper here than Arizona, and way way cheaper than a tank fill in Washington.

The air conditioner seems to be running a lot. I guess I will do my conservation part by turning the temperature up a couple degrees...

Getting Benched In Wichita Falls Whilst Rolling Through MSU With Linda Lou

I do not remember why, or who to, maybe it was Linda Lou, but for some reason recently I said something like I think this town I am currently in, Wichita Falls, may have the world's highest per capita number of  benches on which to sit, located in parks, along the Circle Trail, or like above, a shady location my bike took me to today.

The benches my bike's handlebars are aimed at are on the MSU (Midwestern State University) campus, due west of Moffet Library.

It being Sunday, and school currently on summer hiatus, the MSU campus was almost a ghost town today. Expect for a large group of percussionists creating a pleasing, loud drum beat. Today the percussionists were all assembled in one location on the plaza east of Legacy Hall.

Yesterday, when I rolled through the MSU campus, there were two percussion groups loudly percussing. One group was on the sidewalk south of the Fain Fine Arts Center, with the other group on the sidewalk west of D.L. Ligon Coliseum. It was like they were having a percussion duel. I rather liked the throbbing noise.

Today I realized summer is about to arrive. It seems like only yesterday the temperature was below zero, with zero electricity flowing through most Texas wires. But that was in February, in winter. And now spring is almost history, with those three spring months, for the most part, without the usual spring storms with booming thunder and tornado warnings.

The current 10 day forecast is for day after day in the 90s, toying with hitting the 100s, while actually going into the 100s due to the high humidity heat index making it feel hotter than the real temperature.

A few weeks ago I talked to a Washingtonian I had not talked to since way back in 1991. A classmate from the high school from which I graduated. During the course of talking, after answering the usual questions, like how the hell did you end up in Texas, I was asked how I can cope with the HEAT. 

I explained my experience with getting acclimated, with such being something I did not know happened til experiencing me personal adjustment to HOT weather. When I was a Washingtonian a heat wave in the upper 70s/80s was miserable. Few Western Washingtonians have air conditioning in their homes. Eastern Washington is more like Texas, well, way more scenic, but like Texas weather-wise, HOT in summer, hence homes have air conditioning.

The house I built in Mount Vernon did not have air conditioning, but it was designed to passively cool, which worked well. I do not recollect ever getting HOT in that house.

I sit here typing about keeping cool and realized the A/C is blowing cold air on me, whilst the ceiling fan is doing the same thing. Something I take for granted nowadays.

Come to think of it, my house in Mount Vernon did have a ceiling fan. It was part of the passive cooling. The fan was on the ceiling of the third floor, with a large open area below to the second floor and the stairway. Opening windows on the north side of the basement drew in air which was cooled in the basement whilst getting sucked up through the house to vent out through the top floor air vents. 

Back to MSU, the aforementioned Linda Lou asked me if it is a big campus. I've seen bigger. I've seen smaller. I told Linda Lou the buildings are mostly brick, and that the style sort of matches, architecturally, unlike the hodge podge of architectural styles at the last university I attended, Central Washington University.

Here's a map of MSU, to give Linda Lou an idea of that I bike around whilst rolling through this campus...

Biking The Lucy Park Tall Grass On Way To Original Wichita Falls

Feeling the need for green shade my mechanized motion device drove me and my bike back to Lucy Park, again.

The unpaved loop, part of which you see above, is a bit rough, but enjoyable, except for a muddy section or two.

That and being wary of the possibility a snake might suddenly appear.

This late into Spring it seems surprising the green has not turned more brown. That and I wondered if the tall grass, at least six feet tall, is of the sort which used to cover the open prairie, back when buffalo roamed free.

Last Sunday I also rolled my bike's wheels at this location. And just as I did on Sunday, I left Lucy Park via the Circle Trail to find that Wichita Falls was turned off, not falling any water.

Well, today, five days later, the falls is still turned off, and just like on Sunday, there were multiple groups of tourist types following the signs pointing the direction to the falls. 

But, unlike last Sunday, I continued on past the turned off Wichita Falls, and rolled all the way to the original natural, not artificial, Wichita Falls.

The sign the handlebars are pointing towards says "THE ORIGINAL FALLS ON THE BIG WICHITA RIVER FOR WHICH THE CITY WAS NAMED."

The sign is a bit misleading, making one think there is still a waterfall to be seen. But, that original waterfall was wiped out by a flood way back in the 1880s, or 90s. And even when it did exist the waterfall was only a short drop, something like five feet. 

Methinks signage should be added to the currently dry Wichita Falls, informing people that a short distance further on the Circle Trail will take you to the original falls. Well, the location of the original.

Dam Memories Of The Upper Skagit Valley

 

This blog post goes into the category of things seen on venues, like Facebook, which make me homesick for my old home zone of Washington.

What you see above is known as the Upper Skagit Valley.

Eventually the Skagit Valley flattens out into a wide fertile plain, known as the Skagit Flats. It is on the Skagit Flats, in Burlington, I spent my formative years.

As the Facebook poster posts, there are three dams on the Skagit River.

Ross Dam, Diablo Dam and Gorge Dam.

Of the three, the only one easy to see is Diablo Dam. You can drive across Diablo Dam. The switchbacks to get to the dam, and then its crossing, is a fun adventure. I think, if I remember right, the last time I did this was a long time ago, with Betty Jo Bouvier, in my now antique 65 Ford Mustang.

The Skagit River dam shown above is Gorge Dam. I do not recollect if I have ever seen this dam. If you watched the Warren Beatty movie, Parallax View, this was the dam which released a lot of water, almost drowning Shirley MacLaine's little brother.

What is now known as the North Cross State Highway is to the left of the view you see above. This is the highway which crosses through North Cascades National Park on its way to Eastern Washington.

The only time I have seen Ross Dam in person was on an 8th grade field trip. We got off the trip bus in Newhalem, had lunch and toured the Seattle City Light facility, including the building which housed the turbines which made electricity from the water flowing from Gorge Dam.

After lunch in Newhalem we took a funicular up a steep incline to a road. I recollect this seemed scary, treacherous, and a lot of fun. As long as I lived in Washington this was a free touristy thing provided by Seattle City Light. I do not know if such is still the case.

From the top of the funicular we walked as a group to the lake behind Diablo Dam, where we boarded a boat which took us to Ross Dam, for a tour.

This was decades ago, I shudder to count the years. But, I remember it as if it were yesterday.

Sometimes it is a curse to be blessed with a razor sharp memory.

Other times I feel quite blessed, remembering things I find others have forgotten...

Hoodoo-Like Cairn Leads Us To Circle Trail End

I came to the end of the trail, today. The Circle Trail, that is.

I dropped off an elderly senior citizen for an appointment with one of his doctors, and then drove to the east Circle Trail access to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, unloaded my bike, and rolled its wheels for a few kilometers.

About halfway through the WB Nature Area I came upon the tallest Hoodoo-like Cairn I have yet seen at this location.

I got off the bike to photo document this phenomenon.

Back to the current end of the Circle Trail. I thought the project timeline for this new leg of the Circle Trail was to have been completed, by now, the link from Loop 11 to Lucy Park. I recollect due to a funding shortage the final 1000 feet was going to be a gravel covered trail, until funds could be found to pave it.

But, currently, Circle Trail construction seems to be halted at the location you see at the top, with a metal fence giving this halt a look of some permanence.

I have long looked forward to this connecting link to Lucy Park. This will make for greatly enhanced bike rides...

Mayor Betsy Thinks Unfinished Little Panther Island Bridges Transformative For Fort Worth

Late last night an incoming email from Elsie Hotpepper consisted of a Letter to the Editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I had already read that letter, prior to Elsie sending it to me, even though the Star-Telegram currently denies me access to their server.

Before I show you the Letter to the Editor we need to discuss that bridge you see above. This is the one and only of the three bridges to have opened to traffic, after being a slow motion construction project since 2014,

Would one not think that, after so much time, that somehow whoever designed this hapless bridge could have managed to align the bridge with the existing road in a more straight forward fashion? Those curves look like a head-on crash waiting to happen.

And now the aforementioned Letter to the Editor...

Bike lanes nothing big

Mayor Betsy Price, at the delayed opening of the first of three bridges over dry land associated with the Panther Island project, proclaimed them to be transformative for the city. I agree. Those three bridges, along with the profligate and misguided spending sponsored by our mayor to create miles and miles of unused bicycle lanes, makes us the laughingstock among Texas cities. We are not Amsterdam or Singapore, and simply carving out empty bicycle lanes from those used for autos will not change that.

Cleveland, a city I admire, is called by some the “Mistake on the Lake.” At least it does not boast that three bridges over dirt are transformative. We will be known as the “Obscenity on the Trinity.”

- Roy Browning, Fort Worth

____________________

"Obscenity on the Trinity?" I like that. Has a much better ring to it than "America's Biggest Boondoggle".

I have long been puzzled by why it is that Fort Worth officials, such a mayors, or new sources, such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, have such a tendency to spout idiotic hyperbole about some perfectly ordinary thing in Fort Worth.

But, this may be a new low, referring to those pitiful little freeway overpass style bridges as being transformative for Fort Worth. Well, that is just embarrassing...

Joining Ducks & Fishing People On The Lake Wichita Boardwalk

The outer world was wet this morning at my location on the planet. A middle of the night thunderstorm dropped copious amounts of rain, resulting in floods of puddles rendering going on a bike ride or walking my usual locations to not be too doable.

And so I drove to the Lake Wichita Dam to do some walking where I knew serious puddling would not be an issue.

In the above photo documentation we are at the end of the Lake Wichita Boardwalk, looking east towards the top of the dam's spillway.

In a feat of construction engineering some Texas towns have trouble emulating, the Lake Wichita Boardwalk was built over actual water, taking about a year to complete.

Let's leave the Boardwalk and take a closer look at that aforementioned dam spillway.

Water was spilling over the spillway. But not too much. Those dots you see atop the spillway are ducks, which should give you a clue as to how slow the water was spilling over the spillway.

There were more people fishing today at the Lake Wichita Dam location than I've seen previously, including several fishing where the spillway spills into Holliday Creek.

And several were fishing from the fishing dock floating on Lake Wichita, as you can see via the below photo documentation.

I don't know what was making those streaks of white on the lake. Reflecting clouds? If it were winter I would say it looked like ice. 

In the distance, on the right, that is the Mount Wichita pseudo mini-volcano piercing the horizon. It has been a long time, I would guess well over a year, since I last hiked to the summit of Mount Wichita. The trails to the summit have eroded badly, making it look not to appealing to risk twisting an ankle, or worse.

If the Lake Wichita Revitalization ever becomes a reality, it would be a nice addition to build a lookout atop Mount Wichita, with a stairway taking one to the summit...

Wichita Falls Dries Up With Lucy Park Golf Tournament

My mechanized motion device took me and my bike to Lucy Park on this first Sunday of the 2021 version of June. I thought I would likely have the park mostly to myself, it being Sunday, cloudy, hot and humid.

I thought wrong.

Way back in 2016, the first time I found Lucy Park, it was crowded. As in finding a parking spot was a challenge. Lucy Park is a big park with lots of parking spots. I do not remember what event, if any, was happening, figuring this must just be the Lucy Park weekend norm.

Well, it was not the Lucy Park norm. In all the years since that first visit I have never seen the park with so many visitors as I saw that first visit.

Til today.

A Disc Golf Tournament drew a lot of people to Lucy Park today. But, I had no problem finding a place to park.

I ended up having a mighty fine time rolling my bike's wheels. Even the muddy, slippery sections of the backwoods trail did not vex me too much.

Eventually I left Lucy Park and rolled the Circle Trail to Wichita Falls. Which you can see via the photo I took documenting the fact that today Wichita Falls is not falling any water.

I have never understood why Wichita Falls would spend millions to build an artificial waterfall, so as to have an answer when tourists ask where the waterfall is after which the town is named, to have a waterfall which has to be turned off when the Wichita River runs high.

Today there were a lot of people walking to see Wichita Falls. Where there was no water falling.

I find it ironic to find myself explaining to people why the waterfall is turned off, and that this happens way too often. Ironic because it was not all that long ago, on that first visit to Lucy Park, that I asked the nice lady who was womaning a Texas Tourist Information Center kiosk, how one got to the falls. She pointed the way, which seems so obvious now, and gave me a complimentary tube of chapstick, which I still have. 

Below is a partial look at the throng of humanity in Lucy Park today.

There were several disc golf vendors lined up next to the Lucy Park log cabin/swimming pool parking lot. The vendors are what you see on the right.

I don't know why more events don't take place at Lucy Park. It would seem to be a great location for something like Seattle's Sunday Fremont Market, where dozens upon dozens of vendors sell their wares, along with multiple food vendors. Or an event like the Anacortes Arts & Crafts Festival.

I don't see why such can't happen in Texas. 

Particularly since the biggest such type thing I have ever seen was in Texas, as in Canton's First Monday Trade Days.

First Monday Trade Days is truly something to behold. I've beheld it three times, and enjoyed it greatly each time...