5 October 2017 A Second, Short Visit to the LBJ Grasslands

Vacations end. This one seemed really short. It was time to leave Oklahoma.

It was late afternoon by the time we completed our drive back to the grasslands. We had time for a few walks on the trails.

Our journey included a well done ammo can hide. This one had no tree fasteners so it met the guidelines though the use of carabiners. These do not show up often anymore so it was fun to find.

We also spotted this pool, which had FROGS!

It doesn't take much for a frog to amuse us.

Our last stop of the day was Cottonwood Lake in the grasslands. We made a couple finds here and left the ones on the back of the lake as we still had a drive to Dallas. It was a good stopping point for a fun vacation.

Nice tree at the parking area

1 October 2017 Wichita Falls Flooding

We were planning a big day starting in Wichita Falls and ending in Lawton Oklahoma. We noticed on our trip there are many non-chain donut shops in towns. Since we planned an active day, we started the day at Tommy's Dounts. One interesting note for these donut shops is they also sell things like fried rice. Despite the interesting menu diversity, they make very good donuts.

After eating breakfast and finding a few caches in a nearby cemetery, we made our way to Lucy Park on the Wichita River. We weren't prepared for the massive flooding in the park. It had rained heavily on Thursday, but the flooding was more intense than we expected.

There is a trail and benches somewhere over there.

We tried to reach a couple of the park's caches before moving on to the River Bend Nature Center. The center appeared to be preparing for a special event so we found the cache and moved on. While hunting the cache we enjoyed the many butterflies in the area. It was different seeing a border patch caterpillar and the border patch butterfly so close together.

We moved on to the world's littlest skyscraper. It was fun to see. I wish there were pictures from the inside, but the world's littlest skyscraper, like nearly all of downtown Wichita Falls, is closed on Sundays. The city's low profile skyline would still make this a nice viewing spot from the top floor.

We decided to see if the location of the old Wichita Falls and the new Wichita Falls could be reached. The water levels were not cooperating today. It was time to move on.

We were headed to Lawton. We stopped for a cache along a quiet road. The cache wasn't found, but we were happy to get a great view of a scissor-tailed flycatcher, the state bird of Oklahoma. We had seen a few on our journey, but this was the first to stay around long enough to be captured in images.

We cached our way to Lawton with a few dnf's, but mostly finds. Much of our afternoon's travels looked a lot like this.

30 September 2017 Decatur and Beyond

When we arrived in Decatur the evening before, it was getting dark and was rainy. We were both intrigued by Decatur and decided to start the day with a tour of the sights.

We both liked the courthouse architecture.

The town has a small town feel to it even with a trendy main street that includes, a Mexican restaurant, a Thai-sushi bistro, and a trendy women's boutique.

The old Sinclair is past its days as a gas station, but it lives on as a commercial establishment.

The real gas station attraction in Decatur is the petrified station. The station has been closed since 1988, but it is well maintained by its current owner.

We moved on to Fort Richardson State Park after leaving Decatur. The park was a nice mix of historic army base and natural arees. I somehow lost most of my images of the old military sections of the park, but still have a few of the natural ones including the pie-billed grebes in the water near the park entrance.

One of the park volunteers noted there was a roadrunner spending time in the camping area. It was my first sighting of a roadrunner.

Our last big stop for the day was a late afternoon stop in Archer, Texas. Archer City has been in existence for nearly 160 years. It was the birthplace of author Larry McMurtry and has a place in history as the town setting of his book and later movie the Last Picture Show, the 1972 best movie Oscar winner.

The movie was a period snapshot of a small town declining in the age of growing urban markets. Archer City still exists and maintains its population, but distant highways and sprawl have created a place that is common throughout the country. The movie has stuck with me through the years as I have traveled. The same images dot the two-lane from Spokane to Wenatchee in Washington. We were near the town. I had to stop for the experience.

Sam's Cafe (far building on the right) is gone, but the road through main street is easily recognizable.

2017

The Royal Theater a focal point in the movie and in the real town of Archer City still stands today. Ironically, it had been heavily damaged and burned by a fire in 1965 many years before the filming of the movie. It stood in near destruction until the early 90's when an effort was made to restore the theater for performances. The building still functions in its restored state bu retains the damaged external wall of its past.

Royal Theater movie capture

2017

The old Texaco station which stood adjacent to the hotel still stands with just the pump island giving evidence of its past.

2017 Old Texaco

The Spur Hotel must have seen a few deals in its day as the hotel in the county seat especially when the local oilfields were booming. Our rental seems strangely out-of-place in a town where time has slowed so much.

I enjoyed our brief walk through this time capsule of the movie and a world that is passing.

29 September 2017 LBJ Grasslands

With my meeting over, I took an early ride to the airport and rented a car. Ali was flying in so we could spend a few days relaxing on the trails in north Texas and southern Oklahoma. Driving in Dallas is an event I would be happy to never experience again, but we were soon on our way north. The weather was grey and threatening all day, but we still had enough dry time to enjoy a walk in this beautiful area. Despite being here late in the season, the area still put on a great show of wildflowers. It was a great place to try out my new camera. :)

False purple thistle was common here and new to us.

Phoebes were common in the open grassland areas.

There are a lot of cows grazing here. We tried to stay clear of them, but they appear to be very comfortable around humans.

We saw multiple examples of these flower clusters. They bloomed in a strange rectangular pattern.

The old watering trough ahead hadn't been used in a long time. We passed it on our way to a multi which hadn't been found in over nine months.

This deep wash was a great illustration of the power of heavy rains in the grasslands.

We had found the multi and were moving on when we spotted an orchid on the trail! This is our first orchid find in Texas. The state boasts over fifty varieties of orchids so we still have a few to find if we are lucky and able to return again.

As we left this area, a look back said our luck with the weather would soon run out. We still hoped to find the second oldest cache in Texas so it was time to move on.