Foggy Lucy Park With Chicken Pot Pie Soup & Biscuits

It was back to Lucy Park I ventured this foggy Friday morning, to do some nature communing and fast walking.

Since my last visit to Lucy Park most of the trees have now sent their leaves to the ground, creating and orangish-brown carpet.

This morning's fog was reminiscent of what regularly clouded my vision when I lived in the Puget Sound zone of Washington. I remember one Fall, back in the 1990s, when almost the entire month of October was non-stop thick fog, day after day.

A couple days ago, on Facebook, I saw reference made to Instant Pot Chicken Pot Pie Soup. That is lunch today, with biscuits, which are currently baking.

Thick fog and Chicken Pot Pie Soup seems like a good combo.

Fallen leaves in Western Washington create a much more annoying problem than what fallen leaves create in Texas. At my old home in Mount Veron I would have to rake up the leaves, get them off the flat roofs, and the stairs.

Because there the leaves turn slipppery.

In Texas the fallen leaves just sort of dry out, and blow away, creating leaf drifts in some locations, such as currently is the case in my covered carport.

Beeper beeped. Time for Chicken Pot Pie Sound and Biscuits.

Plowing Through Fallen Leaf Blanket In Book Search Before Hearing A Waterfall

This second Thursday of the 2022 version of December it was to the library I ventured to freshen my reading material supply. The blanket of fallen leaves, you see above, blanketed the way into the library.

After finding six books to check out, I headed south, to Sikes Lake, for a chilly fast walk around the lake, with a lot of fellow chilly lake walkers.

Rain fell for several hours last night, rendering the outer world wet.

Wet, to a level sufficient to cause water to spill over the Sikes Lake dam spillway, in pseudo waterfall mode. 

More rain is on the menu for tonight. 

Right now, I'm going to warm up with a bowl of Chili Verde I made in the Instant Pot this morning.

I think I got the jalapeno level to high, which may render the Chili Verde to be much more of a warming up experience than I was looking for...

Google Remembers The Truth About Jesse James Fossil Rim Lake Grapevine With Mom & Dad At The Cotton Bowl

Today, December 7, a date which has lived in infamy ever since this date in 1941, the Google Memories for this day, which show up daily in my email, are things I mostly remember, which does not happen too often.

The top left is from Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, located near Glen Rose and Dinosaur Valley State Park. The drive through Fossil Rim is one of the funnest things I've done in Texas. The good folks at Fossil Rim liked the webpage I made about that visit, so they mailed me an annual pass and extra tickets, so as to take someone with me. 

I never got around to going back to Fossil Rim and using that annual pass.

Top right, that is mom and dad wearing the cowboy hats I gave them when they visited Texas in January of 2009. I don't know why Google would have this as a memory of today. Hard to believe it is 13 years since mom and dad had their last visit to Texas. Seems like it was yesterday. I was able to drive mom and dad all around the Texas State Fair fairgrounds, and up close to the Cotton Bowl, due to nothing much happening on the fairgrounds on a weekday in January.

Under mom and dad is another Fossil Rim Wildlife Center photo. I think this is the entry pavilion.

Bottom right is a gravestone alleging to be the burial location of Jesse James. If I remember right, I made a webpage of this and the claim that Jesse James is buried in a cemetery in Granbury, Texas.

Just checked, yes, I made a Jesse James webpage, titled The Truth about Jesse James. 

The lower left looks to be Lake Grapevine, a location I used to frequent frequently when I lived in the DFW zone. There are miles of fun mountain bike trails at Lake Grapevine.

Seems like I made a webpage about Lake Grapevine. Yup, and it is called Lake Grapevine.

Well, that is it for today's Google memories that I actually sort of remember...

Chilly Tuesday Beachcombing Lake Wichita

It was to Lake Wichita Park I ventured this overcast, semi-foggy, first Tuesday of the 2022 version of December.

Which would make that Mount Wichita, also known as Murphy's Hill, rising behind the Vietnam War Memorial.

Yesterday the outer world at my location was heated to degrees in the 80s. Today the big chill has returned.

Recent rains have not reversed Lake Wichita's low level, which has rendered a big beach at the Lake Wichita Park parking lot.

Another look at how the lake has shrunk, with a solo beachcomber combing the receding shoreline.

And here we are on the beach, halfway to the shoreline, looking back at Mount Wichita.

This all looks rather desolate, doesn't it?

Christmas Decorating While Theo Snow Soccers With Poodles

This morning someone who shall remain nameless made reference to my Christmas decorations saying...

 "I'll spend the day getting all my decorations up inside and outside.  I'll send you pictures tonight.  You and your little Christmas hanky are just sad!  haha."

I replied asking "What you talking about?"

To which this unconscionably rude person compounded the rudeness saying, "I thought the only decoration you put out was a crocheted hanky?"

With the mention of the crocheted work I knew what this rude person was talking about, that being the red crocheted Christmas stocking my Grandma Slotemaker Jones gave me decades ago.

Now that I knew what the rude person was talking about I set out trying to find the crocheted Christmas stocking. I looked in every drawer, every cabinet, everywhere, to no avail. 

And then when I went to the multi-level table on which my TV sits, to get a screwdriver, I looked up and saw where the red crocheted Christmas stocking was hiding, in plain sight, sitting on a camel my Grandma Vera gave me decades ago.

Which makes that what you see above in the photo documentation, my one and only Christmas decoration.

Also in the Christmas spirt are a couple incoming photos from Tacoma, showing the latest snow to fall weeks before winter arrives.

Those are two of David, Theo and Ruby's poodles you see above, trying to gain admittance back into the house after dodging snowflakes in the backyard.

And here we see my Favorite Theo Nephew getting ready to play some slippery soccer.

Mama Michele is the coach of Theo's soccer team. I don't recollect Mama Michele being a soccer player. I do recollect Mama Michele being a softball player.

December Wall Calendar Takes Me Back To The Grand Canyon

The past couple months, my 2022 wall calendar featuring American National Parks, each month, has been National Parks I have not been to, such as last month, which was Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Or September's National Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is in Ohio, and which I had never heard of til seeing it on my wall.

Or August's National Park, which was Arcadia National Park, in Maine.

But, for the final month of 2022, the December National Park is Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the National Parks I have been to several times, both the North and South rims.

Way back in the last century, I do not remember what year, I hiked the Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, down to the Colorado River. That is a brutal hike, easy going downhill, brutal making the climb back to the rim of the canyon.

I do not recollect seeing the Grand Canyon in person, this century.

I think my last time at the Grand Canyon was in October of 1995. That visit was part of a roadtrip which started with four days of houseboating on Lake Powell. That October visit was to the North Rim, which has way fewer visitors than the South Rim.

It was an overnight stay at the North Rim, in a log cabin.

During the night a blizzard blew in with about a foot of snow. We were stranded til snow plows could arrive. If I remember correctly the road was cleared by around noon, thus enabling making it to Zion National Park for that night's reservation in the Zion National Park Lodge.

I wonder if during my remaining years of still being vertical I'll make it back to the Grand Canyon again....

David & Theo Enjoying Snowy Day In Tacoma

This afternoon I asked David, Theo & Ruby's maternal parental unit if the kids were having another snow day. They aren't, but Ruby stayed home today due to having a cold.

The aforementioned maternal parental unit sent a link to a video on the Tacoma News Tribune. In the video you see Theo trying to get on a sled with two other kids, Nica and Cora. I was also told I would see David in the background in an orange jacket.

It took a couple viewings til I figured out which was David, and which was Theo trying to get on a sled.

When I thought I saw David, I paused the video to make the screen cap you see below.

While I was making that screen cap that aforementioned maternal parental unit emailed a screen cap from the News Tribune article, which shows the same thing I screen capped, but with David missing.

David is not a fan of sledding. But, he does like making snowmen. 

Click the link to see the See people enjoying a snowy day in Tacoma after an overnight snowfall video.

Sure would be fun to play in the snow with David, Theo and Ruby. That'd likely be almost as much fun as making sand castles with the Tacoma Trio...

Lucy Park Backwoods Foliage-Free Walk

Yesterday was cloudy and cold. Before leaving my abode I thought today was also cold, but not cloudy. Thinking the outer world to be cold I was under too many layers when I drove to Lucy Park for some fast-paced nature walking this morning.

The temperature was slightly under 70. I removed some layers and was able to render a result which was comfortable.

Via the phone photo documentation, you can see that aforementioned blue sky. You can also see that the former Lucy Park backwoods jungle has lost most of its greenery, the leaves in the trees, the grass on the ground.

It has been a month or two since I have rolled my bike anywhere. I need a change of habit and scenery. Bike rides would sort of provide that change, sort of...

Tacoma Snow With Theo & Ruby

Incoming snow photos from Tacoma this afternoon.

I am cold currently at my North Texas location, but it looks way colder at my old Washington location.

 Above that is the backyard of the Tacoma Trio, David, Theo & Ruby's house on M. Street in Tacoma.

That is the patio deck in the foreground, covered with snow. If all is as it was the last time I saw this location, the barbecue left of this view is the last place I successfully barbecued chicken.

And here we are seeing Ruby, and I think Theo, sliding down a hill at Wright Park, which is a park a short distance from their M. Street abode.

Here we see Theo testing whether snow tastes like vanilla ice cream.

 While Ruby laughs at Theo eating snow.

No clue what Theo and Ruby have done with brother David, who does not show up in these photos.

The start of school was postponed two hours yesterday due to the snow, and cancelled for today, due to more snow than had been predicted, falling and sticking.

First Day Of December Chilly Walk Around Sikes Lake

On an ultra-chilly first day of the 2022 version of December it was to Sikes Lake I ventured this morning for a fast walk around the lake.

The phone photo does not do justice to the deep red color of the tree you see on the left.

Fall leaf colors are seeming more vibrant than the norm this year.

The phone photo does do justice to managing to capture the outer world looking cold. Cloudy, no wind, and the lake looks frozen.

There were a surprising number of people braving the cold today for a walk, or jog, around the lake.

I have been getting multiple reports from my old Western Washington home zone of snow. I am expecting snow photos of the Tacoma Trio of David, Theo and Ruby, later today. I've already seen a snow photo from Tacoma's Queen V. 

It seems a bit early for snow to be piling up on the Puget Sound lowlands. Is this a harbinger of a hellacious winter to come?