Every day, for a week or more, Google has been emailing me an email ostensibly showing me a look back at my memories from the day the email was sent.
Such as today's memories from this particular day of August 27.
A few days ago, well, on August 21, to be precise, I made mention of the fact that Google Erroneously Looks Back At My August 21 Memories. That time, the August 21 time, at least I knew what more of the photos were memories of.
But the BIG spider you see above? No memory of that.
As for the cat lounging on the floor? That does not look like Hortense. My cat who flew to Texas a month before my arrival, and who died a year later and is buried in a horse corral in the Fort Worth suburb of Haslet. The cat could be Little Eddie, and those chairs and Little Eddie could possibly be sitting on the covered patio of the house in Haslet, which was my first Texas abode.
Not really a memory I want to remember. Let alone see photo documented.
Changing the subject from bad memories to current memories. I can not go on a bike ride today. My bike is at the bike doctor's office getting adjusted. The adjustment is going to take longer than it normally would because the doctor is backed up with a lot of patients needing help before tomorrow's Hotter 'N Hell 100.
During this Hotter 'N Hell week I have not been downtown and seen the throngs assembled for tomorrow's big event. I think it was kicked off yesterday. I do not know if the event is fully recovered from COVID. I suspect not, because I did read some part of HNH100 has been moved from the MPEC to another location downtown.
I feel exercise deprived without a bike. I can feel the endorphin shortage. I could go on a hike to the hilly Wichita Bluffs, but, like I already mentioned, it is Hotter 'N Hell, and thus not too pleasant to be out walking in the heat...
Once again Madame McNutty has struck, via Facebook, my homesickness button with a Washington mountain photo, with that photo once again being Washington's biggest volcano, Mount Rainier.
The comment from Madame M, which accompanied the photo...
"Here you go, Jonesy! I miss WA so much!!! Growing up there I never realized how amazing it is until I moved away. It's hard to find another place quite as beautiful".
That is so true, the entire west coast, actually, from Vancouver to San Diego, is a scenic wonderland.
In the Skagit Valley, where me and McNutty grew up, you could go a few miles west and be at a saltwater beach, go a few miles east and be up in the mountains, go 50 miles north and be in another country, go 60 miles south and be in Seattle.
I remember in August of 2008 being in downtown Seattle. Two cruise ships had docked. The downtown was packed with tourists. Pike Place was human gridlock. It was slow moving on the wide sidewalk on the waterfront.
I remember remarking, when I got back to Pioneer Square, which is where I started my walk around downtown Seattle, that Seattle was seeming like being in a big theme park. I made a video of part of that walk around downtown Seattle. I'll put it at the end of this blogging.
The homeless problem in Seattle had grown way worse by August of 2017, which was my latest return to Washington. The homeless problem was not so much in evidence in 2008, where by 2017 you could not miss seeing the homeless camps because they were at the side of the freeway through downtown Seattle.
I have a friend here in Wichita Falls, a lifelong Texan, who, a couple months before COVID hit, flew up to Seattle to visit some friends. She had never been to Washington, or the west coast before.
She told me that she knew there were mountains in this world, but she had never seen one in person, that she couldn't believe the mountains she saw in every direction in Seattle, that it was mesmerizing.
And then her Seattle friends took her for a weekend in their cabin near Mount Rainier, which had a direct view of the mountain. She told me looking at the mountain up close was sort of shocking. I remember telling her that always living where there basically is nothing but a flat landscape would turn seeing something like the scenery in Washington into a sort of culture shock, and that I had the reverse sort of happen when I moved to Texas.
I remember my last roadtrip back to Washington, a little more than a month before the 9/11 disaster. I did the drive solo, which I really liked. I remember crossing Snoqualmie Pass and during the descent towards sea level, and Seattle, the air began smelling like Christmas trees. By the time I got to where I-90 goes by Issaquah I began being struck by how shiny and clean everything looked.
I was used to grimy, litter choked Fort Worth.
I got stuck in slow traffic crossing Lake Washington on the I-90 floating bridge. I was not minding the slow moving because I too found myself being mesmerized by the scenery, by the clear blue water of the lake, by Mount Rainier to the south, by the glimpses of the Seattle skyline. Everything looked shiny, clean and new.
Madame McNutty has talked about chartering a yacht to float around the sound on when we are up in Washington next summer. That sounds fun, if I don't have to be the pilot. I do not do well floating boats. I learned that when I tried to drive a Lake Powell houseboat the same way I drive a car.
Below is the aforementioned video of a walk around downtown Seattle, way back in 2008. The buses you will see in this video no longer go there, they have been replaced by light rail going through what used to be the Seattle bus tunnel.
This morning a video popped up on my version of YouTube with the title Worlds 12 Most Expensive Man Made Islands.
Naturally seeing that title made me curious as to where Fort Worth's imaginary island, called Panther Island, ranked on this listing of the world's 12 most expensive man made islands.
If I am remembering correctly the current price tag for Fort Worth's Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision is over a billion bucks. I do not remember seeing a price tag estimate of the imaginary island part of the Boondoggle.
The price tag for the three simple little bridges being built in slow motion, with the eventual goal of connecting Fort Worth's mainland to that imaginary island, is around $50 million if I am remembering remotely correctly.
I do not think I have ever read an estimate of the cost of the cement lined ditch which will go under the three bridges, then filled with Trinity River water to make the imaginary island.
I also do not remember reading an estimate of how much it is expected to cost to clean up the toxins that are in the ground on the imaginary island, which was an industrial wasteland before it became an imaginary island.
I have not watched the entire video to see what place Fort Worth's imaginary man made island is ranked, but the first island on the list had a price tag of only $32 million, which makes on think that maybe Fort Worth's imaginary island may be the world's most expensive.
Watch the entire video with me below and we will find out where Fort Worth's Panther Island ranks among the world's most expensive man made islands...
My North Texas location on the planet continues to be green, even as the HOT days of August near their end with the arrival of September.
Previous summers in Texas have not been like this. Previously most foliage turns brown and wildfires burn some of what has turned brown, often turning the air smoky, such as what you see photo documented above.
But, that is not a scene in North Texas. That is a scene in Eastern Washington. The town of Tonasket to be precise, home of Tootsie Tonasket and Aunt Alice. Aunt Alice has been reporting that this is the smokiest hottest summer she has spent at her Tonasket location.
In the past few days Eastern Washington has somehow managed to have some rain fall, damping down the fires. Western Washington, which is usually the rainy side of the state, has only had a light misting.
Speaking of September, and the arrival of Fall. In Walmart this morning I saw a large Fall type sort of Halloween display, a warning harbinger that that wonderful holiday season of the year will soon be upon us...
The above showed up in my email a couple days ago, a gift from Google. These memory gifts from Google show up every once in a while for no reason apparent to me.
Of the five memories shown above I remember four out of the five. I have no clue what town is being remembered in the upper left.
Google tells me these are memories from August 21.
However.
I know for an absolute fact that two of these memories are from August 11. In the year 2008 to be exact.
On that day in that year I went to see Mount Rainier up close. That would make my sister-in-law's mom, Janet, next to me in front of Mount Rainier in the lower right photo.
Above me and Janet that is a photo of the new Centennial building and its mustang sculptures at MSU (Midwestern State University). To the left of me and Janet is the fountain at MSU.
So, Google thinks I somehow managed to be at Mount Rainier, in Washington, and MSU, in Texas, on the same day in 2008. I have no memory of such happening...
Saw that which you see above Sunday morning on Facebook. Once again Madame M has shared an image from our old home zone of Washington which triggers, in me, a mild bout of homesickness.
Madame M's brother, Roger, has become a renowned artist due to his paintings of the scenic wonderland of Western Washington, mostly scenes in the Skagit Valley, judging from the paintings I have seen.
The painting above is called Deception Pass Sunset. Which would seem to indicate we are looking west past the longer of the two spans of the Deception Pass Bridge, which connects Fidalgo Island to Whidbey Island.
It has been way too many years since I last was at Deception Pass, but from my memory the above view is looking east at a sunrise, not a sunset. I say that because I do not remember any little islands like you see above, when you look west under the bridge, but I do remember little islands when you look east under the bridge.
But, we have to keep in mind that I am borderline elderly, and my memory may not be reliable.
Possible point of interest to anyone reading this who lives in the Fort Worth area. The Deception Pass Bridge was built way back in the 1930s. It took less than a year to build the bridge. Over water. Deep water which turns into fast moving rapids when there is an extreme tide.
And the Deception Pass Bridge is an actual iconic signature bridge, though it was not touted as such when it was being built.
And Deception Pass Bridge actually connects to a real island, well, actually two real islands, Fidalgo and Whidbey.
No cement lined ditch had to be dug to turn those two land masses into imaginary islands...
That blogging made mention of the multiple real islands which exist in the vicinity of my old home zone of the Skagit Valley of Washington.
In that blogging I made use of the map app on my computer to properly identify actual islands which exist in the vicinity of my previous, pre-Texas, location.
Doing so, as in screen capping a map of the general area I used to exist in, I was struck by how close I was to so many things. Such as another country, known as Canada. Or, one of the world's biggest actual islands, Vancouver Island, where the picturesque capital of British Columbia, Victoria, is located.
I could, for only a few bucks, ride a ferry to multiple islands, or Victoria. Or just take a day trip to one of Washington's many tourist towns, such as La Conner, in the Skagit Valley, location of an actual iconic signature bridge built over actual water.
It was like living in a theme park.
A reality I did not appreciate when I lived there. Head west a few miles and you are at saltwater beaches. Head east a few miles and you are in a mountainous scenic wonderland. Head north a few miles and you are in a different country.
In that map above, that jagged dark line represents the border between Canada and the U.S. If you look closely you can see that my old home town of Mount Vernon is just about at the same longitude on the planet as Victoria in Canada.
If you look real close at the map you can see a part of America cut off by that borderline. That is Point Roberts. Mostly Canadians live there, but it is in America.
And now, below, let us look at a screen cap map of a similar section of the planet at my current location on the planet, Wichita Falls, Texas.
Is it in any wonder why I suffer bouts of homesickness? Which I do nothing about, because it is not an easy thing to change ones location.
In the above instance, unlike the previous map, that squiggly thick line does not indicate the border with another country. This one indicates the Texas border with Oklahoma, with that squiggly line also known as the Red River. As you can see there are a few water features in my current vicinity. None of the size which sport ferry boats, cruise ships or yachts.
Saw that which you see above last night via the "You Know You're From Anacortes When..." Facebook page.
The caption above the photo said, "Somebody has more money than we do. Largest yacht we've ever seen around here. There are 2 people on the flybridge, looking at them gives some perspective to the size of this beauty."
"Around here" is Anacortes, a town with a couple marinas, a ferry terminal and Spencer Jack's Fidalgo Drive-In.
I can not tell if the boat is moving through Guemes Channel, heading west to the San Juan Islands, or heading west towards the San Juan Islands via Burrows Channel. If it is Burrows Channel that would make the land in the background Burrows Island. If it is Guemes Channel that would make the land Guemes Island.
I do not remember there being little islands, as seen above, in Guemes Channel, so I'm going with this being Burrows Channel. Let me check the map app on this computer to see if I can clear up this serious issue...
Well, the map show little islands by both of the bigger islands. But, the little islands near Guemes Island would not have homes looking out at them, as shown in the photo at the top. But, Burrows Island would have homes looking out at it. There is a big marina called Skyline Marina, on the mainland across from Burrows Island, with a lot of houses built on the slopes above Burrows Bay, with that area known as Skyline.
When I see something like the photo at the top, or this map, showing islands, my inclination is to comment for the umpteenth time that it is so bizarre that the landlocked Texas town called Fort Worth, for most of this century, has been slowly trying to build a ridiculous mess originally called Trinity Uptown, then Trinity River Vision, eventually morphing into the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
A myopic vision which has slowly seen three little freeway overpass type bridges being built over dry land to one day connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, if a cement lined ditch is ever successfully dug, with the Trinity River diverted into the ditch, making the imaginary island called, already, Panther Island, where there is no island, and never will be any sane person's idea of what an island is.
Part of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision is to see what they are calling a Town Lake. The size has varied over the years of Boondoggling along, ranging from as small as 12 acres to as big as 33 acres.
Part of the vision is to see a houseboat district on the lake.
One day there may be a lake, and maybe there will be houseboats floating on the little lake, but I think I can say for absolute certainty there will never be a big yacht sailing to the imaginary Panther Island...
No. What you are looking at above is not yet one more photo of the Mount Rainier volcano suffering a meltdown due to the current record breaking heatwaves scorching the Pacific Northwest. The above photo was taken August 15, 2017, heading south to Phoenix from Seattle.
Western Washington was in drought mode when I was there the summer of 2017. Not as extreme as the current drought, but the Evergreen State was not looking its normal shade of green during that visit.
On August 10, 2021, almost exactly four years after I took the above photo of Mount Rainier, sister Jackie took the below photo of Mount Rainier, as she flew by on her way to Seattle from Phoenix. I blogged about this in Flying Over Naked Mount Rainier With Sister Jackie
The two photos do not seem to be from the exact same vantage point, but close. And the Mountain does look a bit more naked in the 2021 version than the 2017 version.
I had forgotten I had taken these photos of Mount Rainier, back in 2017. Suffice to say I had a lot going on at that point in time, so some things got forgotten. Such as these photos. Two samples of such below.
I remember being surprised at how close the pilot was flying by the Mountain.
I did not see any mountain climbers making their way to the summit. Maybe mid August is not the right time of year for that treacherous activity.
In the same folder of photos taken whilst flying south to Phoenix I came upon the one you see below...
That is Hoover Dam you see above, blocking the flow of the Colorado River, creating Lake Mead. And that's the new Tillman Bridge, crossing the Colorado from Nevada to Arizona, you see in front of the dam.
I have not been to Hoover Dam since the bridge was built. I like the old way of crossing, switchbacks til you reached the dam, then driving across to park on the Arizona side, before walking across the dam. I don't know if doing such is still allowed. I suspect not.
I have not been to Hoover Dam since late in the previous century when my Favorite Jason and Joey Nephews took me to Vegas.
Las Vegas. If I remember right I've only been to Vegas one time this century. And that was in the middle of winter, and it was raining. I do not remember that as a fun visit to Vegas.
I do remember the Vegas stop was part of a roadtrip which began in Haslet, Texas, driving back to Washington, with staying at the Luxor in Vegas happening on the way back to Texas, with the return route including driving over Hoover Dam.
I remember the drive through the Phoenix metro zone seeming to take forever, finally overnighting in Casa Grande. At that point in time I would never have guessed that a few years later I would become quite familiar with the entire Phoenix area...
What you are looking at above is my windshield wipers wiping rain off my windshield, slapping time to the tunes on the radio.
I did not know rain and thunder was on today's weather menu til drops began dripping and thunder began thundering a couple hours after the sun began its daily illumination duty.
Being in desperate need of new reading material I put on long pants for the first time in months and bravely pushed my motorized means of motion through the torrential downpour to downtown Wichita Falls, to the library.
The photo above is post library, heading south on Hamilton Boulevard with Hamilton Park on the left. I saw no kids getting wet in the Hamilton Park Doctor's Splash Pad, making this the first time since it opened that I drove or biked by without seeing kids having fun getting splashed.
As you can see via the photo documentation, unlike my old home zone in the Pacific Northwest, we are still mostly green in Texas, which usually is not the case by the time the middle of August arrives.
In a little over a week a non rain related flood floods this town when people arrive from all over the world to participate in the various events that take place during the Hotter'N Hell 100 bike race. Last year's Hotter'N Hell 100 was cancelled due to COVID.
I am assuming that the Hotter'N Hell 100 is still happening, despite the increase in COVID cases.
If it's not too HOT methinks I'll go to the race finish location this year. Hotter'N Hell 100's events and attractions take place at MPEC, the Wichita Falls Multi-Purpose Event Center. There are vendors selling stuff, like food, other giving away free samples, a big beer garden, artwork, music and a lot of hoopla.
I like a lot of hoopla, probably because I so rarely experience any hoopla.
I clicked the Hotter'N Hell 100 link and learned the Hotter'N Hell is still on, with the following COVID warning...
HOTTER’N HELL HUNDRED IS RETURNING AS A LIVE EVENT FOR 2021
WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING EVERYONE LIVE AS WE CELEBRATE THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY HHH EVENTS THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 26 THROUGH AUGUST 29, 2021
Our 2021 registration is running ahead of 2018 and 2019, so we’re expecting a great crowd in Wichita Falls!
We’re hoping that everyone who comes to HHH that wanted to get the vaccine has protected themselves against the Covid-19 virus and has been able to take advantage of available vaccines. Whatever your vaccine status is, it’s recommended that everyone wear masks while indoors. While we cannot mandate wearing masks indoors, we do wholeheartedly recommend it.
We also recommend wearing masks, when possible, especially around people you don’t know. Wearing a mask at the HHH start, rest stops or in groups of people, may help with decreasing transmission.
If you’re feeling any kind of symptoms, which are flu-like or respiratory, it’s best to stay home and ride our virtual event when you do feel up to it. If you sneeze, please cover your mouth, remember to wash your hands and have a great time at our 40th HHH event.
