Flying Hot With Throngs Of Wichita Mountain Climbers

Today, about a half hour before noon, I was back on Mount Wichita for the first time since a bout of daily deluging rendered mountain climbing too muddy at this mostly mountain-free part of the planet.

The temperature whilst I was mountain climbing was barely into the 90s, with the high humidity making that temperature really feel like it was about 10 degrees warmer.

I  was not alone on the mountain today. A large number of people were enjoying the relatively cool weather, including the young lady you see on the summit of Mount Wichita.

That is not a jet flying above the young lady on the summit. That is a large Styrofoam model airplane which she hauled to the mountain top.

I somehow managed to snap the photo just as the plane was launched. About a second later the plane crashed, unable to glide, even though a strong wind blew.

I did not stay around for subsequent launch attempts.

Due to a strong wind blowing I was not assaulted by hordes of biting insects.

The biting insects woe seems to have abated in the past couple weeks. Only twice since I was savagely attacked on Mount Wichita by multiple types of biters have I felt the need to use the Cutter bug repellent I bought the day of the attack.

In the second photo you can see some of the other mountain climbers climbing Mount Wichita today.

These mountain climbers climbed well before the summit turned into an airplane launch pad.

There is a plan afoot to dredge Lake Wichita. Currently the lake is quite shallow, I think 7 feet deep on average, due to decades of silt accumulation.

I hope when the lake is dredged that that which is dredged is piled up next to Mount Wichita in several piles, creating the Wichita Mountain range.

I think this could become a prime attraction. Done right maybe even mountain bike trails could be built.

A couple weeks ago I learned that it was the dredging of Sikes Lake which was the source of the material which materialized as Mount Wichita.

Sikes Lake is a short distance from my abode. I've not yet learned why the new mountain was not built near Sikes Lake instead of several miles away at Lake Wichita.

Sikes Lake is sort of part of Midwestern State University. There is a trail around the lake. The trail goes by a museum with multiple outdoor art installations.

I drove in the road on the east side of the lake last week to find myself dealing with the biggest flock of roadblocking geese I have ever encountered. The trail around Sikes Lake goes through the geese infestation. My encounters with geese have usually not gone well, but I must be brave, soon, and jog around Sikes Lake.

Spencer Jack Stalked By Yellowstone Buffalo

Checking email this morning I found multiple emails from Spencer Jack and his dad with multiple pictures of Spencer Jack in Yellowstone.

Including a video of Spencer Jack being stalked by a big buffalo, well, big bison is the word Spencer Jack used for the big beast chasing him.

When I watched the video I did not know what I was looking at because it was upside down. So I upside righted it in Windows Movie Maker and then YouTubed it.

You can watch that video below.

That is not Spencer Jack behind the wheel of a 1965 Mustang Fastback talking to a bear.

That is me behind the wheel of my first car, acquired when I was a junior in high school. That car took me to a lot of places all over the west.

On this particular trip to Yellowstone at some point I saw the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. That is one spectacular  canyon, I said. And then said, let's continue south and go see the more well known Grand Canyon. Before arriving at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon we checked out Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon. Lots of canyons on that particular roadtrip. Knew nothing about Bryce or Zion at the time. And so that was great fun discovering those two national parks, almost topped by seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time.

It has been a few decades since I've seen the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, but I am fairly certain that is what is behind Spencer Jack in the picture below.

I am also fairly certain that Spencer Jack and his dad won't be heading south on this trip to go see the other Grand Canyon.

I have not been to Yellowstone since the year before wildfires burned a large area of the park back late in the previous century.

Are there still a lot of bears allowed in Yellowstone? On our first family vacation roadtrip to Yellowstone, a long time ago, we saw dozens upon dozens of bears.

Below you can watch Spencer Jack and his dad being chased by a buffalo....

Spencer Jack Takes His Dad To Yellowstone To Find Yogi The Bear

A couple days ago an incoming blog comment from someone named Anonymous told me...

The next generation of wonderful Jones boys are rumored to be visiting Yellowstone in the upcoming days. They are hoping to see no bears, or your mom screaming, whilst jumping up and down on top of a picnic table.

I assumed the wonderful Jones boys Anonymous was referring to were Spencer Jack and his dad, he being my Favorite Nephew Jason.

Today multiple incoming pictures confirmed that Spencer Jack has taken his dad to Yellowstone National Park. Spencer Jack and his dad usually fly to their various destinations. I do not know if that was the case for this trip. Yellowstone is an easy drive from Western Washington.

When I was a kid, when school got out for the year, we took off on our annual vacation roadtrip. As me and my siblings got older than annual vacation roadtrips got more adventurous. I recollect when I was in 6th grade it was to Idaho and Eastern Oregon.

If that went well the next year we would go to Yellowstone, a place us kids had been begging to go to for a long time. Well, Idaho and Oregon went well, so the next year we did Yellowstone.

The incident Anonymous refers to where my mom jumped up and down on a picnic table occurred in the Old Faithful Campground where a big bear was having fun running around looking for something good to eat.

The roadtrip to Yellowstone went well, so the next year it was the roadtrip we'd wanted to do even more than going to Yellowstone.

California and Disneyland.

That roadtrip to California and Disneyland went so well and we had so much fun we did it again the next year, staying even longer.

I did not know it at the time, but that second trip to Disneyland was to be the last family roadtrip vacation I ever went on.

Five years later I took myself to California, to Disneyland, and Tijuana. I remember standing on the bluffs at San Clemente State Park, in the dark, looking out at the twinkling lights on the Pacific, and feeling wistful, thinking back to the first time I was at this location, me and Spencer Jack's grandpa so excited to hurry up and get our campsite set up so we could run down to the ocean. Mom and dad could tell we were revved up and let us go. Quickly we learned how to body surf.

I don't remember the circumstance, but years later I remember my dad saying that that first trip to California was the best we ever did. That's how I remember it too. It was so fun and we did so much, that's why we returned the next year.

My little brother, Spencer Jack's grandpa, has been writing down his memories from all those years ago. The stories are real good. I get sent the stories and there may be discrepancies in our memory. Like the trip to Yellowstone. My brother had the mom and the bear incident all wrong. Other stuff my brother remembers in detail that totally surprises me. I read one of the stories and then text back my version of the memory. I had a terrible time trying to differentiate the two trips to California.

Last week my brother texted me asking about the time we went to see the Seattle Pilots play on Bat Day in Sicks Stadium. That opened a whole flood of memories, including the fact I did not go to that game.

Anyway, I hope Spencer Jack and his dad are having themselves as mighty a fine time in Yellowstone as me and my brother did all those years ago....

Wide Open Country Thinks The Trinity River One Of Best Texas Places To Float

This morning on Facebook I saw a post from a website called Wide Open Country with a link to the 7 Best Places to go Floating in Texas.

Among the multiple Facebookers making comments about the best places to go floating in Texas was the following....

Reis Gladson You couldn't pay me to get in the Trinity River!! The rest of them are clean and spring fed.

After reading the above comment I clicked on the link to the website, thinking to myself that there is no way that any sort of respectable publication would tell its readers that floating in the Trinity River was a good thing to be doing. Let alone publicize America's Biggest Boondoggle's Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats.

Well, I thought wrong.

The Boondoggle's floating beer parties are number 6 on the list, as you can see above.

I hope this article's suggestion that floating in the Trinity River is a good thing to be doing doesn't cause some innocent tourist to come to the D/FW zone expecting to have a crystal clear river water experience such as can be had in the other Texas rivers on this list of seven.

Is Fort Worth Actually Repeating Last Year's Slide The City Debacle?

Elsie Hotpepper sent that which you see here to my phone this morning.

With no explanation regarding that which I was looking at.

Am I to intuit from this that America's Biggest Boondoggle, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision, is actually foisting that Slide the City thing on Fort Worth again?

After last year's debacle?

Water pump malfunctions. Heat exhaustion causing medical emergencies. I forget what else, except for remembering a lot of people were not happy.

I also remember other towns cancelling Slide the City for various reasons.

Seattle was one of the cancelling towns. I forget all the reasons. If I remember right one was liability concerns. Another was a lack of interest. Was another the fact that Slide the City had turned into a debacle in other towns?

I remember way back when I learned Seattle had signed on to being one of the towns hosting the Slide the City thing opining that I did not see how that could possibly work, what with the Seattle hills being so steep, what with there being a lot of outdoor water attractions in Seattle, that a giant slide would likely illicit a collective yawn.

While in Fort Worth I think, even with last year's Slide the City being a debacle, it still broke the record for number of people sliding.

Which seemed to me should have been some sort of sad indicator of the fact that there really are not a lot of things to do in Fort Worth of the fun in water in the outdoors sort.

Another example of that is the fact that there is no way you could get hundreds of Seattleites to float on inner tubes in a polluted river drinking beer and listening to music, while in Fort Worth America's Biggest Boondoggle, all summer long, hosts floating beer parties in the polluted Trinity River.

Now featuring alligators.

Fort Worth needs a real visionary with the vision to initiate digging Fort Worth a large pond of water filled with actual clean water which Fort Worthers could float and swim in. Wouldn't that be something?

And lose the Slide the City thing. It's embarrassing....

Wichita Falls Responds To Orlando Mass Murder With Lucy Park Candlelight Vigil

Via today's Wichita Falls Times Record News, my new town's newspaper of record, I learned a thing or two I did not know before about Wichita Falls.

One being that apparently there is an alternative spelling to Wichita.

Wichtia.

I assumed Wichtia/Wichita Falls had a LGBT community due to the fact that pretty much the entire world has a LGBT community, although some locations on the planet don't recognize this particular reality.

I'll copy four paragraphs from the Times Record News Wichtia Falls’ LGBT community responds to Orlando tragedy article in which you will read a new thing I learned about Wichita Falls....

Mel Martinez is doing something some might see as unexpected following the deadliest mass shooting in the United States.

She is inviting the Islamic Society of Wichita Falls to her church to join its members in praying for the victims of the tragedy that unfolded early Sunday morning, when gunman Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people and injured 53 others, some critically, at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Mateen claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and expressed support for the Tsarnaev brothers, who orchestrated the Boston Marathon shooting.

"I've been reminding folks we have to be willing to reach out to one another and learn from each other. ... We need to be proud of the diversity in town," said "Pastor Mel," as she's more popularly known to the congregation of Wichita Falls' Metropolitan Community Church, which she helms. The church, while it is open to everyone, serves the city's gay community.

Does my old home zone in Washington now have an Islamic Society of  Mount Vernon or Burlington or Skagit  County? I have no idea. I do not recollect any Muslim presence of any sort when I lived there.

In addition to inviting the Wichita Falls Islamic Society to her church Pastor Mel has organized a Candlelight Vigil taking place today, at 6:30 pm in Lucy Park. No mention was made of where in Lucy Park the Vigil will take place. It ought not be too difficult to find the spot where people are gathering.

Another Day Another Wichita Falls Thunderstorm Downpour

Just like yesterday, today when I left my abode I soon saw that the sky was looking a lot more menacing than the sky looked looking out any of my window views on the outer world.

My intention today was to jog around my friendly neighborhood fish pond prior to going to Walmart to get a toaster oven.

It takes about a minute to get from my abode to the fish pond. I arrived to see a couple groups of fisher people. A strong wind was blowing. But no precipitation was precipitating.

I did my jogging thing and then sat at one of the knoll top gazebo benches to take the stormy picture you see here.

Soon I was back on the road, heading east towards Walmart. That takes about another minute. I began seeing streaks of lightning not too far away. Rain began pelting by the time I got to the Walmart parking lot. Inside Walmart I began hearing thunder booming.

My time in Walmart lasted about ten minutes. I'd parked fairly close to the entry, so I did not get too wet getting to my vehicle.

On the short drive back to my abode lightning was striking to the left of me, the right of me and behind me. One strike was simultaneous with the thunder and shook the vehicle like an earthquake.

I sped up.

Soon I was under the protection of my covered parking. The rain was not downpouring as hard as yesterday's flash flooding level of downpouring. I made a run for it and got to cover without getting too wet.

This is now three days in a row of this Wichita Falls inclement weather nonsense.

I have yet to hear the tornado sirens blaring in Wichita Falls. Do they not do a weekly test like they do in Fort Worth on Wednesdays at noon?

Anonymous Wichita Falls Facebooked Texas History Solved The Lucy Park Name Mystery

Yesterday someone named Anonymous solved, for me, the mystery as to how the Wichita Falls park known as Lucy Park came to be named such.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wichita Falls Creatively Covers Traffic Signal Box While Fort Worth Creatively Clutters":  

Frances Ann Dickinson donated Lucy Park to Wichita Falls in memory of her mother, Lucy O'Neill Saunders. Lucy Park opened in 1974.

Scroll down the following Facebook page link and you'll see a photo of a plaque in Lucy Park.

Wichita Falls History

During the course of my Googling and Binging trying to find out how Lucy Park came to be named I came across a good description of this particular park.....

Lucy Park is a 178 acre regional park located in the center of the city. The park is in a bend of the Wichita River which gives it a natural setting with huge pecans, cottonwoods, and numerous other species of native and introduced trees. For hiking and biking enthusiasts, there is a 1.7 mile concrete trail that circles the park. This is the west starting point for the Wichita River Trail System. A large pond area is dedicated to waterfowl, and ducks and geese can be found there year round. There are 2 large picnic shelters that can be reserved at no charge. The main shelter has 20 picnic tables and will seat approximately 120 people. The Lucyland shelter has 15 tables and will seat approximately 90 people. The park has a Log Cabin that can be reserved for parties and will accommodate 55 people. The park has 2 public restrooms, a large swimming pool, basketball goals, 18 hole disc golf course, 3 modular playgrounds, 2 sand volleyball courts and 1 concrete volleyball court. There are 5 smaller picnic shelters, 30 individual picnic tables, 34 barbeque grills, 4 drinking fountains, and 86 benches. The River Bend Nature Center utilizes 15 acres of the park along 3rd St. Other Lucy Park attractions include a swinging bridge across the Big Wichita River, and a scenic walk along the trail that leads to the Falls. The park is also host to the annual Falls Fest event the last weekend of September.

Any residents of Wichita Falls nearest big city neighbor reading this, how many things can you see in the Lucy Park description that you can't find in a Fort Worth city park? Does not such make you wonder why? As in why are the residents of Fort Worth so ill-served, park-wise? 

Beautiful Texas Sunday Trapped Undercover With Flash Flooding All Around Me

What you are looking at here is me expressing my help me I am trapped expression. My help me I am trapped expression does not much differ from my I don't need help because I am not trapped expression.

When I left my abode today to drive to ALDI to get jicama among other items the sunglasses were needed.

A couple days ago the North Texas weather predictors were predicting day after day of sunny blue sky at my location, with a possible thunderstorm several days, maybe a week, in the future.

Well, late yesterday afternoon, on a Saturday that was supposed to be sunny, suddenly turned very dark. Soon thunder was booming and rain was downpouring.

Today, on this second Sunday of June, by the time I arrived at ALDI, the sky had again turned dark, with what looked like an enormous gray cloud hovering over Wichita Falls. A strong wind was gusting as I made my way into ALDI.

Exiting ALDI a few minutes later the sky still looked threatening, but nothing was dripping or booming.

About a minute later large drips started dropping on my windshield. As I drove south on Rhea Avenue, heading towards Southwest Boulevard, the rain increased a bit in intensity, but nowhere near downpour mode.

Reaching Southwest Boulevard I headed east the short distance to Taft Boulevard, where I turn left to get to my abode. As I sat waiting a long time for the light to change I saw heavy duty wetness advancing towards me from the east. I don't recollect seeing this before, watching a road go from semi-dry to drenched, with the drenching relentlessly marching towards me.

The light seemed stuck on red.

When the downpour reached me it quickly became apparent hail was in the mix. Just as I was considering running the redlight, and making a dash for cover, the light changed to green.

A couple hundred feet later I was undercover, safe from vehicular hail damage. But, by then the downpour had turned into one of the most torrential I'd ever seen. Extremely noisy, pounding the parking cover roof. And then the thunder started up. Soon mini-flash flooding was happening all around me, with rain blowing in on me.

I began to consider making a run for it.

After about ten minutes of the making a run for it consideration I grabbed my two ALDI bags and took off running. By the time I reached my entry door I was totally drenched.

And now, a couple hours later blue sky has returned, overhead, but I see big, fluffy white clouds in the distance.

Thunderstorms are back on the forecast menu.....

Wichita Falls Creatively Covers Traffic Signal Boxes While Fort Worth Creatively Clutters

I had not driven many miles in Wichita Falls before noticing pagoda like structures at various stop lighted intersections.

I think, maybe, the first pagoda like structure I made note of was not at a lighted intersections, but was instead in Lucy Park.

I have yet to learn the purpose of the Lucy Park pagoda like structure, or why Lucy Park is so named.

I Googled and Binged Lucy Park last night seeking an answer to the Lucy mystery, to no avail. I did find there is a doctor in town named Lucy Tan, but I doubt Dr. Tan is the reason for the Lucy Park name.

Speaking of Lucy Park, the pagoda like structure you see below is at the intersection one takes a right or left on to make ones way to the Lucy Park entry. The pagoda like structure above is closer to downtown Wichita Falls, near an abandoned Arby's.

It was via a Facebook exchange with the renowned Odessan Master Surveyor, Andy Nold, I learned what the pagoda like structures were...

Andy Nold I find WF's creative traffic signal box covers to be pretty interesting. I spent ten years there one summer.

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:15pm

Durango Jones Andy Nold Now I must find these creative traffic signal boxes of which you speak. I am a little concerned about the coming summer. I hope it does not seem like ten years....

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:23pm

Andy Nold https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4... Here's a clue to one. They're all over the city. Great way to camoflage what is otherwise visual clutter.

Wichita Falls

Wichita Falls, TX 76309

GOOGLE.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · May 11 at 4:55pm

Durango Jones I have seen these pagoda like structures and wondered what they were. There is a tall pagoda like structure in Lucy Park with no explanation as to what it is.

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:58pm

So, the pagoda like structures are camouflaging traffic signal box covers.

Well.

Yet one more thing about Wichita Falls that has impressed me.

Recently the town and county I lived in prior to moving to the Texas Panhandle Plains zone began a bizarre attempt to make prettier box covers at intersections.

From what I saw of the Fort Worth and surrounding Tarrant County box covers the effort seemed to create more visual clutter than it alleviated. Whoever came up with that bizarre way to waste money should have just kept with one innocuous design, like the wildflower longhorn cover I saw a couple instances of.

Instead I saw covers with John Wayne pointing a gun at me and other oddities which seemed like distracting visual litter.

I recollect blogging about the Fort Worth traffic box wraps, including one blogging with a photo of the one I saw most frequently, that being at the intersection of  Bridge and Bridgewood in far east Fort Worth.

I had trouble finding that particular post with that particular photo, but eventually I found Early Texas Voting At Fort Worth Library Thwarted Today Before Up Close Inspection Of New Art. Before I found that I found I'd first blogged about this "art" fiasco way back when I first heard about it in 2015, in a blogging titled Fort Worth Public Artfully Wraps Ugly Except For Outhouses.

In addition to creatively covering traffic signal boxes, unlike the town I previously resided in, Wichita Falls does an excellent job of landscaping its freeway exits and road intersections, like the two examples you see above.

Wichita Falls also does an excellent job with its Welcome to Wichita Falls installations one sees from the various freeways which enter this town.

The town I previously lived in has no Welcome to Fort Worth installations at any of the freeway entries to the town. Fort Worth does not even landscape the freeway exits to the town's only tourist attraction that has any sort of traction in the collective national consciousness, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Maybe, if the I-35W upgrade is ever completed, part of that upgrade will be to landscape the two freeway exits to the Stockyards, replacing the weed covered littered mess that still greeted tourists when I last saw that location....