On Sunday we went to Wichita Falls, Texas, where Tyler spent eight months of his mission. He wanted to see who was still around and attend church there and, of course, show off his adorable children (and glamorous wife). It is only about an hour and 45 minutes from here, so not a bad day trip. We drove into town and did a tiny bit of drive-by sight seeing on the way to the church. I saw the actual falls for which the town of Wichita Falls is named. To be honest, I had no idea there were actual falls. This is Texas after all. The "falls" part of the town name could be referring to the city as a once prominent stop-over on the Chislom trail for Cowboys who would by matter of course get slobbering drunk in one of the towns many saloons and routinely fall off their horses on their way out of town in a drunken stupor. I don't know. But, the fact is there are real falls...in a manner of speaking.
Now, as you can see from the photo of the actual falls at the top of this post, the formation is amazingly orderly for a natural phenomenon. But it isn't a natural phenomenon...anymore. The falls were destroyed in a flood some years ago - completely wiped out. So they rebuilt them. To look like something that belongs at the back of Angel's stadium near the cannons.(Actually, I've never really thought a waterfall belonged there. I don't get that place.) This idea of rebuilding a natural wonder from a design sketched by the architect of the water feature adorning the entrance to your local country club seemed so strange to me. It's like the Redwood Forest being destroyed by blight and people rebuilding it out of fiberglass trees - a whole forest of cell phone towers.
We had a lovely time at church and were invited to lunch at the home of some very gracious members who remembered Tyler. She invited us and then said " I don't know what we'll eat. We usually just eat scraps on Sundays". We didn't care. We were just glad not to be facing a meal of bananas and nutrigrain bars, which is all I had with us in the car. Well, one man's scraps are another man's feast, I'll tell you that much. We showed up to a lunch of homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, fresh fruit, and homemade-not-from-any-type-of-mix-at-all German chocolate cake. C.T. liked that cake so much he asked for a second helping, and then asked if he could take some more home with him.
These people also live in a great house that was built in 1913. It is decorated in a fantastic country way - a country in the Connecticut suburbs kind of way, and not a country from the backwoods of Kentucky kind of way, if you know what I mean. The woman had made a terrific slipcover for her couch out of a kind size patchwork quilt from Target. My kind of woman and my kind of decorating.
It was a good day - not stressful, good food, good people, and no terribly embarrassing behavior from the babies. A successful outing on all counts!
