Final 2025 June Day Windy Sikes Lake Walk Anticipating Thunder

With the temperature, as measured by the Fahrenheit method, 88 degrees, with the humidity making those 88 degrees really feel like 93 degrees, according to my phone's weather monitoring application, it was back to Sikes Lake I ventured on this final day of the 2025 version of June.

On Saturday, two days prior to today, I was also at Sikes Lake, but on that day the dead calm had turned Sikes Lake into a motionless mirror.

Today was not dead calm. As you can see via the view from the rocky shore on the east end of Sikes Lake, wind is whipping up some wave action. 

I do not know if my phone's weather monitoring application factors in the wind chill factor when calculating what the temperature really feels like.

According to my home-based weather monitoring application, as in the AccuWeather forecast information acquired via a website, some thunderstorming is on the weather menu for this afternoon.

21 mph wind gusts do not sound too daunting. When the wind gusts get over 40 mph it can affect the ease of staying vertical. A wind gust can hit like a slap.

I have read nothing about a downtown Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade. It seems like previous years I would read details of this well ahead of the parade date.

If I remember right, and sometimes I do, the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade was cancelled one of the COVID years. I do not remember if I watched the parade last year. 

HOT Humid Saturday Sikes Lake Prickly Pears & Geese

On this final Saturday of the 2025 version of June, with the temperature, as measured by the Fahrenheit method, a HOT 86 degrees, with the humidity, and lack of wind, making those 86 degrees feel like 93 degrees, according to my phone's temperature monitoring, it was back to Sikes Lake I ventured for some much needed salubrious endorphin acquisition from aerobic stimulation.

I sure do like a long run-on sentence.

In the photo documentation, above, you are looking west, across Sikes Lake, from the lake's eastern shore. The lake is being mirror-like, due to that aforementioned lack of wind.

A few wet drops dripped on me whilst I was enjoying the outer world.

Soon after walking from the location of that first photo, we come to the colorful scene you see photo documented above. A patch of prickly pear cactus, minus their flowers and most of the resulting prickly pears, along with a colorful red bush.

A couple years ago Sikes Lake was the shocking scene of the mass murder of hundreds of geese. The executions brought multiple protests. The outrage slowly seemed to abate.

And now, a couple years later, the Sikes Lake goose population seems to be growing again. The new geese do not seem to be as skittish as the ones who were executed. Maybe no one has chased these new geese or done any other bad deed which causes the geese to fear the humans.

One would think the geese have rational reason to fear the humans, after that mass execution.

Maybe the new Sikes Lake geese are not aware of what has happened previously at this location.

I have no idea if geese have good memories or can communicate with one another regarding the history of what has previously happened to their species at this location.

Friday Lucy Park Humid Aerobics

On this final Friday of the 2025 version of June, it was back to super shady Lucy Park I ventured for some much-needed salubrious aerobic stimulation in the outer world.

When the sun arrived this morning to begin its daily illumination duty, I was surprised, when I looked out my bedroom window, to see water drops dripping from the sky. I did not think such was in the weather forecast for today.

The drippage did not last long enough to cause any annoying puddling.

As you can see via the look across the Lucy Park suspension bridge, the Wichita River is still running high.

Fast and high.

Obviously, you cannot see the water flowing fast in a photo.

If the river is still running high on my next Lucy Park visit I shall try to remember to take video. That should make me extremely dizzy, trying to shoot video whilst walking across the swaying bridge with water moving fast below me.

It may have rained harder at the Lucy Park location than it did in my home zone, this morning, which would explain all the Lucy Park puddling I saw today.

The dose of rain amped up today's humidity, making the 88 degrees as measured by the Fahrenheit method, really feel like 93 degrees, according to my phone's temperature monitoring.

A week from today is the 4th of July.

Have not decided if I'm going to go downtown on that day to watch the parade. It's a fun parade. I think it's been a couple years since I've watched it.

Chauffeuring Senior Citizen To Walmart Drug Pusher For Daily Walk

Yesterday I volunteered to be today's chauffeur for a senior citizen who should no longer be driving who needed to see three local drug pushers to get vitally needed prescriptions. 

The final drug pusher was the Walmart pharmacy.

I knew yesterday such would be the case and agreed to chauffeur duty if the Walmart part would also be the location of my daily brisk walking constitutional.

Which explains the photo documentation, looking down an empty aisle in the massive Walmart store.

Walmart was not as empty as the photo documentation suggests.

Due to privacy concerns, that and fearing triggering someone getting irrationally upset if they saw a camera phone aimed at them, I had the camera turned on, and as soon as I saw an aisle free of human occupation, I snapped the photo.

Walmart in the morning does not provide as many anthropological observations of unique versions of humans as I see on my later in the day Walmart visits. I did see some unfortunate tattooing on elderly persons today, but no odd piercings in body locations one would think a person would not want pierced. 

It was nice doing my daily brisk walk in air-conditioned comfort, particularly after yesterday's blistering bout on the Wichita Bluffs...

Early Summer Wichita Bluff Nature Area Being Naturally Green

A couple days into Summer of 2025, with the temperature sizzling towards the 90s, rather than the time of my regular pre-noon daily constitutional, I opted to try and escape some of the HOT heat by entering the outer world earlier than is my norm.

It was to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area I ventured, hoping the Bluffs would be catching some nice cooling wind gusts. That proved not to be the case.

In the photo documentation, at the top, we are at the highest point on the Bluffs, looking east towards the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Wichita Falls, with the brownish Wichita River showing up a little bit, surrounded by lush green foliage.

Due to the deluges of this past Spring, green foliage seems to be lasting longer than it has lasted during the past several drought years.

If more rain does not arrive in a timely fashion, I expect the browning of the green to soon begin...

Monday Back At Sikes Lake Surrounded By Wildflowers

It was back to Sikes Lake I ventured on this next to last Monday of the 2025 version of June. The temperature was pleasantly in the mid 80s, with a chilling wind blowing, making those 80 degrees feel cooler.

This year's, so far, above normal amount of rain, has made for a bumper crop of wildflowers, rendering the landscape much more colorful than the past several years.

In the wildflower view above you are looking south, barely able to see a smidgen of Sikes Lake.

That structure you see above the wildflowers is known as the Sikes Lake Pavilion. It is a sort of stage where small music type events take place.

The long-range forecast for my Wichita Falls, Texas location is for day after day after day of it being HOT. With some possible thunderstorming, with 100 degree plus days arriving in July.

I am not much in the mood for 100 degree plus days....

HOT Windy Saturday Return To Sikes Lake

With the temperature, like yesterday, in the 80s, but feeling HOTTER, due to high humidity, like yesterday, I was back at Sikes Lake to get myself some aerobic stimulation and accelerated calory burning.

As you can see, via the photo documentation of the clear blue sky, above the bridge at the north end of Sikes Lake, the outer world looks HOT.

What you cannot see, via the photo documentation, is a strong wind is blowing today. A steady wind of 18 mph, with wind gusts reaching 40 mph. A couple of those gusts almost rendered my horizontal.

I need to amp up my exercising and reduce my food consumption, to lose about 20 pounds by the end of July, so that I can fit into my one and only pair of dress slacks, which I have not fit comfortably into since pre-COVID.

I am currently not at liberty to make mention of the reason I need to stuff myself into dress slacks. 

If shrinking, via excess exercise and calory intake reduction fails, my fallback solution will need to be to go the bother of getting a new pair of dress slacks which I can comfortably fit into, via the clothes shopping method, an activity of which I am not fond.

Maybe I should start hiking to the summit of Mount Wichita multiple times, which is an activity I frequently found myself engaging in, pre-COVID...

Back At Sikes Lake With A Tesla Cyber Truck

With my phone telling me the outer world was heated to 88 degrees, as measured by the Fahrenheit method of temperature measuring, with the humidity making those 88 degrees really feel like 93 degrees, it was to Sikes Lake I ventured, again, for my almost daily constitutional and its resulting endorphin acquisition via aerobic stimulation from high-speed walking.

I sure do like a good, long, run-on sentence.

I've seen the Tesla Cyber Truck you see above, previously, parked on the Sikes Lake parking lot. I do not remember if I photo documented any of the previous Tesla Cyber Truck sightings.

This time I saw the driver of the Tesla Cyber Truck, who arrived back at his vehicle right after I arrived back at my vehicle, which is not a Tesla Cyber Truck. The Tesla Cyber Truck driver did not look at all like a deranged wackydoodle crazy person.

Apparently, I am a bigoted prejudiced person regarding a Tesla Cyber Truck owner, what with me thinking that such would look wackydoodle. I suppose my erroneous prejudging, assuming Tesla Cyber Truck owners would look wackydoodle, comes from thinking a Tesla Cyber Truck looks totally wackydoodle.

I cannot imagine wanting to drive something that looks like a Tesla Cyber Truck, let alone buy one...

Is Fort Worth's Panther Island One Of America's Top 50 Most Beautiful Islands?

On Facebook, this morning, I saw the above list purporting to list the Top 50 most beautiful islands in the United States.

I was almost 100% sure that Fort Worth's beautiful Panther Island would be on this list. 

Several Texas islands are on this list of 50, including Galveston Island, South Padre Island, Padre Island and Mustang Island.

But not Panther Island.

Shocking.

Several islands in my old home state of Washington are on this list of 50, including San Juan Island, Whidbey Island, Orcas Island and Lopez Island. 

Apparently, Washington's Whidbey Island is so beautiful it is on this list of 50 twice. At #16 and #45.

Maybe the fact that Fort Worth's Panther Island is not yet a chunk of land surrounded by water, is what kept it off this list, even though that chunk of industrial wasteland, known as Panther Island, is quite beautiful.

Several years ago, Fort Worth took seven years to complete the building of three freeway overpass-like bridges, over dry land, long now in place, waiting for a cement-lined ditch to be built under those bridges, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, thus creating the imaginary island.

It has been awhile since I have heard anything about the current status of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision. 

Have saner souls taken over leadership of Fort Worth and put a stop to the madness sold as a vitally needed economic development and flood control scheme, where there had been no flooding for over a half century thanks to levees the Army Corps of Engineers installed way back in the 1950s?

This ridiculous imaginary island, vitally needed project, has been limping along from the start of the current century. Should be obvious to all, by now, that this clearly has never been a vitally needed economic development or flood control project...

Hot Walk Around Sikes Lake With Regulation Fishing

When I began my walk around Sikes Lake, this morning, my phone was telling me the temperature was 88 degrees, as measured by the Fahrenheit method. With the humidity making those 88 degrees really feel like 95 degrees.

However, my phone did not seem to know about the strong wind blowing, causing a wind chill factor to make those 88 degrees feel way cooler.

There were several groups of fisher people at various locations around the lake today, including the group above, I zoomed in to on the west side of the lake, from my vantage point on the east side of the lake.

I saw one angler successfully hook a lake creature. Of what variety, I have no clue.

I think I likely noticed the Community Fishing Lake Regulations sign previously, but don't remember, for sure. Age-related memory issues.

The regulations sign lists the types of fish one might catch in this lake. Several types of Bass, along with several types of Sunfish, Bluegill, Rainbow Trout, Channel Catfish and Crappies.

I do not think I'd want to be eating a fish called Crappie.

The regulation sign details regulations, such as a fishing license being required for those 17 and older, how many fish one can catch in a day and how big a Black Bass must be.

In all the years I have been walking around Sikes Lake, I have never seen any hint of a game warden.