Windy Monday Lake Wichita Walk With No Rain

Due to wind and rain, yesterday's nature communing took place in the dry confines of Walmart. 

Today, on this final Monday of the 2024 version of March, blue sky has returned, but the strong wind remains blowing.

So, it was to Lake Wichita Park I drove today for some windy nature communing. Which would make that Mount Wichita behind the soldier saluting on Wichita Falls Veterans Memorial.

The rain the past couple days rendered walking on the grass to be a bit muddy. My shoes were caked with mud before I realized I was walking over terrain not conducive to mud-free walking.

Tomorrow there we be some sort of dedication ceremony celebrating the completion of the new entry road and parking lot at this location. I do not recollect ever hearing of a parking lot dedication ceremony before.

I likely will not be in attendance at this ceremony....

Saturday Sikes Lake Coyote Walk

It was to Sikes Lake I ventured on this next to last Saturday of the 2024 version of March, to get me some endorphins via high-speed walking.

The temperature during walking time was in the low 50s. I wish we would return the HOT balmy days of the final weeks of Winter.

In the past couple weeks Sikes Lake has seen the installation of multiple coyotes, serving the same purpose as scarecrows. In this instance the scare coyotes are being tasked with terrorizing the Sikes Lake geese and duck flocks.

Since the scare coyotes have arrived there are noticeably fewer birds flocking around the lake.

Using scare coyotes to cause the geese and ducks to fly to a different location seems much more humane than the mass murder of 387 geese, last year.

A mass murder which generated a lot of protesting.

Apparently, someone is tasked with moving the scare coyotes to new locations, so the geese and ducks never get wise to the fact that these are not real coyotes.

Wichita Falls Pharmacy Visit With Bloody Sideshow

I had myself some police action excitement today. I was taking an elderly man to his pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions. 

Franklin Pharmacy, on Brook Avenue, to be precise. Upon seeing the Franklin Pharmacy parking lot, from a distance, I could see the parking lot was busy. Getting closer I saw that the parking lot was busy due to there being six Wichita Falls Police cars helter skelter on the parking lot.

Upon driving onto the Franklin Pharmacy parking lot I saw a man with a bloodied head, sitting on the parking lot, handcuffed.

I found a space to park next to the police car you see photo documented. The elderly man then went inside the pharmacy to get his meds.

After sitting for about a minute I was suddenly totally startled to find the handcuffed bloodied man outside my window, looking at me and screaming "Take me to the hospital." As a policeman grabbed the bloodied man from behind the bloodied man hollered at me "You're dead!"

A couple policemen then struggled to get the bloodied man into the backseat of the police car.

The bloodied man continued yelling, things like I don't fit in here. The policeman kindly told the bloodied man to just lie down.

After about another minute the policeman opened the door and, I think, removed the handcuffs due to the bloodied man yelling they hurt him.

Eventually the police cars began to leave, and the elderly man returned to the vehicle. I asked if he'd found out what this was about. He was told the bloodied man had been inside the pharmacy, making a scene, when he refused to leave the police were called.

No clue how the man ended up bloodied. To my eyes the police were all acting totally calm, reasonable and professional, like they were well-trained to deal with these type incidents.

Wichita Falls To Be Almost Totally Eclipsed On April 8

This morning's Wichita Falls Times-Record-New has an article about the upcoming, April 8, eclipse.

The article had an interactive feature where you enter your zip code to be shown how close to the total eclipse you are located.

My location is that orange spot you see on the map.

Apparently in Wichita Falls we will experience 95% of the total eclipse. 

The eclipse begins during the afternoon of April 8. I do not know at what time that afternoon I can expect darkness to arrive for a few minutes.

Third Day Of Spring Thunderous Storm Arrives In Wichita Falls As Predicted

Arriving right on time, as scheduled by the National Weather Service. An epic thunderstorm, dropping a downpour of rain, hail and lightning strikes. With a lot of loud booming.

The view you see here is what I saw upon opening my front door. Impossible to get to ground level without getting drenched and pummeled with hail pellets.

Right now the storm seems to be abating as quickly as it arrived. 

If I make it to ground level I don't know if currently a moat is making it difficult to get to my means of motorized motion.

I shall soon see. Maybe...

Remembering Driving Chandler Boulevard In Arizona

Melancholy Microsoft OneDrive Memories from the Day, in my email this morning. This memory is from March. I do not remember what day in March. But, I do remember the year.

2019.

So much has happened since March of 2019. Covid. Becoming an orphan, Sister Jackie, who is driving mom's vehicle, with me in the backseat, and mom riding shotgun, is now a grandma, heading north, on Chandler Boulevard (I think) in the bustling Arizona town of Chandler.

Grandma Jackie's grandson Cade, is the newest member of the family.

Baby Cade is now around a half year old, I think.

From July of 2017 and July of 2019 I visited Arizona multiple times. Usually for a month. Doing a lot of driving, on Arizona's excellent smooth roads.

Every time I'd return to Texas, and get back in my Texas driver's seat, I was jarred, thinking something was wrong with the vehicle, due to the ultra-bumpy ride. Then I remember, I am back in Texas, where the roads are in bad shape in places. Such as the entry to the freeway one comes to when leaving the Wichita Falls airport.

I have found most Texas highways of the state highway sort, to be roads in real good condition. The roads in some Texas towns, such as Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, not so much.

Wichita Falls still has some city streets which are made of brick. Driving over a brick road is extremely bumpy...

Perplexing Survey Experience With Walmart

Perplexing email this morning from Walmart. The email asks that I confirm I visited the Greenbriar Road Walmart on March 12, 2024 to begin a survey about my Walmart shopping experience to get a chance to win a $1,000 gift card.

I never win anything, ever, that I can remember, so I clicked to Begin Survey.

After answering several questions that seemed totally easy to answer, the survey suddenly took a perplexing turn which I can not figure out.

The survey mentioned several items I bought that day and asked me to rank them.

How does Walmart know what I bought that day and thus able to link that information to my email address?

The only identifying element is I do use a debit card. And that debit card does have my name on it. 

But how could that debit card lead Walmart to my email address?

If this survey was from Amazon it would not be at all perplexing. Amazon knows my email address, as it is linked to my Amazon account.

I have no Walmart account. 

Even if I did have a Walmart account that still would not explain how Walmart linked my purchases that day, to me, and my email address.

There likely is a simple explanation which I am too simple to figure out...

Last Week Of Winter Wichita Bluff Nature Area Nature Communing

On this third Monday of the 2024 version of March, it was back to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area I ventured today, for some hilly nature communing.

As you can see the sky is a bright clear blue, except some white exhaust spewed from a Sheppard Air Force Base jet.

The temperature was in the mid 50s zone, not quite back to chilly winter-like, but nowhere near being in the HOT summer-like zone of the past couple weeks.

Spring is scheduled to arrive later this week.

I hiked to the highest point on the bluffs, looking east at the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Wichita Falls on the horizon.

It has been several months since I went hiking the bluffs. It was quite invigorating. The distance to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area, from my abode, is the furthest distance of any of my local hiking destinations.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, methinks I shall be back at Sikes Lake. I was there yesterday. Several goose spooking coyotes have been installed around the lake...

Microsoft OneDrive Memory Remembering Biking Lover's Leap In Waco

Another Microsoft OneDrive Memory from this Day that I remember, sort of.

I know that is me looking at the lens of my antique, long gone, Casio digital camera, with its taking a selfie feature, well before such became a common thing.

And that is my long gone Schwinn Moab mountain bike behind me. That bike died five bikes ago, with the aluminum frame braking whilst I was having a fine time on the Horseshoe Trail in Grapevine.

I am fairly certain, in this photo, my bike and I are in Cameron Park in Waco. That park has some of the best mountain trails I have pedaled on. The trails have names and markers indicating their difficulty level. If I remember correctly, and sometimes I do, one diamond meant easy trail, two diamonds meant less easy, on up to five diamonds, which indicated difficult, for expert riders only.

I remember finding the one and two diamond trails treacherous enough for me. I did not attempt any of the three, four or five diamond trails.

There is a cliff in Cameron Park, called Lover's Leap. The leap is into the Brazos River, far below. If I remember correctly one of the five diamond trails took off from Lover's Leap...

Lovely Linda Lou Takes Us To Daffodils & Mount Rainier

 A couple days ago I posted a blog post titled Seeing Real Islands From Summit Of Washington's Mount Erie in which I made mention of the fact that a time or two I had been surprised to see Mount Rainier, to the south, from the Skagit Flats.

And then yesterday, the Skagit Valley's lovely Linda Lou, text messaged me the photo you see above.

The Skagit Flats ablaze with the yellow of thousands of daffodils, with the Mount Rainier volcano hovering in the distance.

I surely do miss living in a zone of multiple scenic wonders...