} In a narrow boat like oursa seventeen-foot aluminum Beaver boatthe bowman doesnt exactly have a lot of room to stretch out. Some said it was a satyr. He co-founded the Panhandles first ranchthe JA Ranchand erected some of the first buildings in the region. Cade and Kirby, tired and thirsty, look long and hard at the house; I gaze into the woods below us. Cade asks Kirby how far he thinks weve walked. The rolling hills and broadleaf forest above the Sulphur River have a rough-hewn beauty all their own. A creature had jumped on a car coming out of a tree.. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. (Open 95 daily, $20 per vehicle. Rick Pratt, director of the Greer Island Nature Center at the time, remembers folks coming out with wine, whiskey and beer to have a good time and hunt for the creature. Wed spent the night in one of the air-conditioned log cabins at Caddo Lake State Park, even roasting marshmallows before bed, but now we were on a primordial quest to uncover the lakes mysteries. Once or twice a year, one explained, he and his buddies caravan to this corner of the Trans-Pecos to pursue channel catfish. Were at the start of the Texas Water Safari, an annual race down the San Marcos and Guadalupe rivers, and we have other things to think about. (Open daily, $3 entry. But outside hunting season, the area has become a hidden playground for birders, mountain bikers, and fishermen. The last twenty miles of the night are a hallucinatory horror. Then from there I swam the rest of the way, ending up in font . Behind BMX: How the sport is blowing up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Severe storms likely in DFW Thursday: Timeline, risks and everything you need to know, Thursday's possible severe storms remind Dallas church heavily damaged during 2019 tornadoes how fast weather can turn, WFAA from a story archived in the SMU Jones Film Collection. height: 2.5em; I felt the impulse to double-check where I was. "The goatman turns 55 this summer and resides a peaceful life in the hills outside of Joshua.". Thanks for the input and letting me know I'm not completely crazy. Within a few years he had acquired more than a million acres, much of it in the canyon, along with a herd of 100,000 cattle. After an hour or so we have to turn on our headlamps to stomp on the spiders nesting in the boat. Fort Worth, Texas magazine outed a man this month identified only as "Vinzens" who admitted being involved in the infamous tire-throwing incident of July 11. Continue for half a mile to Caddo Lake State Park headquarters for canoe and cabin rentals. @strangetexas-blog / strangetexas-blog.tumblr.com, FORT WORTH (AP) Greer Island, a small patch of land close to where the West Fork of the Trinity River flows into Lake Worth, is heavily shaded by tall oaks, cedar elms and cottonwoods. Goat Island is an island on Lake Worth in Texas. As I contemplated the more than forty miles of multiple-use trails that crisscross the limestone-pocked Hill Country SNA, I was not about to admit defeatat least not before trying my luck on a few of the more measly slopes. She has the most famous, perhaps the only, photograph ever taken. Stay at this 3-star business-friendly hotel in Newport. We will definitely be spending vacations here from now on! BEST SELLER. Get email updates from the City of Fort Worth on the topics you want. Plaster, interviewed in 2006, said he doesn't buy the monster story now. Clarke is 80 years old now and still lives in Benbrook, but, regrettably, she can't talk much about that summer. The Lake Worth Monster, aka Goat-Man, hasn't been seen regularly at the Fort Worth Nature Center since a very memorable summer 40 years ago when all of Texas seemed to buzz with the news. } I don't think an animal would have acted that way." The underground railroad. Westworth, TX (4.6 mi.) I got out of the car and looked back on the road, a dirt ribbon skirting the swales of creosote and ocotillo and crossing the sandy floodplain before making an abrupt drop. Except that whoever wrote the letter a man who lives somewhere near Beaumont, based on the postal cancellation isn't the only person to make such a claim. Maybe you want something a little less steep. The ranger spoke in a neutral tone, but her words sounded like a challenge. We find a few floating logs lying against the bank, next to a nest of inverted tree roots, and we devise a plan wherein Ill flop out of the boat onto a log, then climb the root system carrying the bow line. Before long, we see a two-man aluminum canoe coasting toward us, headed the wrong way, and the sternman calls out to me. border-radius: 5px; ", Copyright 2023 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Back in 1969, the residents of Ft. Worth, Texas experienced a wave of sightings of a 7 foot tall white Bigfoot type creature which came to be known as the 'Lake Worth Monster, aka the 'Goat-Man'. What the Heck Is Going On at the Dallas Zoo? We see the occasional fisherman or South Texas river condoa folding chair and rusted-out grillbut little else. Located on the Intracoastal Waterway, he island is a simple one-minute boat ride across the ICW to the Isle of Palms Marina, and a 20-minute boat ride to the Charleston Harbor or Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge. But after passing a mess of lily pads and water hyacinth, we decided to set up a picnic on the secluded shore, content to bask in Caddo Lakes secrets for just a while longer. Craig Woolheater was 9 that summer. We hobble an hour back to the car, where Cade has a tiny bit of Dr Pepper left, nothing else. Damn. One hundred and seventy-eight miles to go. About. 8.4/5 (1,000 reviews) I find myself remembering that hawk; how, when we saw it fly away, it dislodged some ripe dogwood blossoms so that they fell, drifting in the heat. I yell to Doug over the roar of the wind, suggesting we just gut it out, paddle hard into the heavy gusts. Weve been relieving ourselves into empty plastic bottles as we paddle, and sometime after noon, I fill a twelve-ounce container with something that looks like beef broth, a reddish-brown color that is clearly. Visit Website. Swinging my leg over the bike saddle, I took off, chasing the shadows along a steep and rocky stretch of double track that undulated like the spine of a dragon. The wind silenced the burrosthough only for a little while. You can also find other Beach on MapQuest When the friends were finished, they went to a Dairy Queen on the north side. I do not care. Hes not uncomfortablenot yethes just not had a lot of practice walking so far in a place hes never been before. We launch into the water and head downriver, dodging swimming children and Bud Lighttoting dads in inner tubes as spectators crowd the banks. Sipping gritty coffee the next morning, I heard their braying again, and it sounded like laughter. Free. Since Goat Island is considered a park, there arent any restaurants on the island. Villafranca organizes a Lake Worth Monster Bash at the nature center in October to celebrate the monster (this years bash is scheduled for Oct. 4). ), It took an arid two-hour drive from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park headquarters, but as we finally pulled into Dog Canyon one April morning, its exquisitely alien splendor left us speechless: the whispering pines, the quartz-specked rocks in a dry creek bed, the broad-tailed hummingbirds, the fields of bear grass dotted with sotol and yucca. For a few seconds we get a clear cone of light, and then every flying insect for a square mile funnels into its beam: mayflies, Asian tiger mosquitoes, sphinx moths, and midges, all of them coursing into the light vortex and into my teeth. Activity. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News). Life took place down here, in the sheltered, almost cozy river bottoms, in the grass meadows and the timber groves. Youll have to look on the Bolivar Peninsula and in Galveston. "If I'd seen it before I wrote the book, the book would have been quite a lot different," she told the Star-Telegram in 1989. IQ Token. Lake Worth Management Office. Doug is the sternman in our two-person outfit, an Austinite in his mid-thirties whose notion of a good time is bow-hunting wild boar or entering hundred-mile mountain bike races. In July 1969, a large creature was sighted by numerous people over several days. We park, and five or ten paces later, a sign announces we are in the wilderness. Texas Parks and Wildlife also recently acquired a second, 17,000-acre unit called Big Satan, which should inspire more superlatives when it opens to the public at some point in the future. Many people know that Guadalupe Peak, southwest of McKittrick Ridge, is the states highest point, at 8,751 feet, but few may be aware that this park has more wilderness than any other in Texas: in addition to its congressionally designated 46,000 acres, there are 33,000 more acres of de facto wildland. I find my footing and haul, Doug pushing from below, neck-deep in the water. But most folks do not share my enthusiasm. Lake Worth was built in 1914 as a reservoir and for recreation. Neill meant business. Our goal is to finish in 70 hours, and were a couple of hours ahead of pace, so we decide to nap, stretching out on the gravel beach like dead men. Niagara Falls State Park. Jos R. Ralat is Texas Monthlys taco editor, writing about tacos and Mexican food. Back at the plantation house, I found a scope that Patterson and his colleagues had set up for visitors to spy on a great horned owl that was nesting in the palms next to the building. Waiting. As I biologist, I can tell you scientists believe in fact, said Rob Denkhuas, the manager of the Fort Worth Nature Center. After about seven and a half miles, we reached our campsite and, with daylight still to burn, dropped our packs and kept exploring. Real or imagined, the thing appeared to be part man and part goat with scales and long clawed fingers, witnesses claimed. The only signs of life are the wild burros that sometimes take shade in the shadows of the rock-and-mortar sculptures erected by the late artist Donald Judd, whose homestead is enclosed by the ranch. background-color: transparent; We paddle by the light of a nearly full moon until the canopy overhead forces us to turn on the set of flashlights weve mounted on our bow. General History Cade and I sit next to him like hounds and shoo the mosquitoes away and watch him, willing him to get better. The wind silenced the burrosthough only for a little while. And You Thought Feral Hogs Were Bad. (Open daily, free. You will need a fishing permit, available from Texas Parks and Wildlife. In his now famous Wilderness Letter, the Pulitzer Prizewinning author was addressing the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, a newly formed body whose mandate from Congress was to identify and help protect public recreational areas. Kirby stops at one of the little clear creeks that lace the woods with shimmering glitter. We reach Little Lake Creek in true darkness, splash across it, scramble through brush and up a steep slope, guessing and hoping, until almost miraculously we intersect the trail that the map assured us would be therethe same trail we strode on earlier in the day, with so much power and vigor and confidence. You okay? I say halfheartedly. Always call ahead to verify hours and access (432-364-2228). He shakes his head, a rueful grin on his face. I look at our boat pulled up on the gravel, a slice of pale metal. Parking is available year round from dawn to dusk. This location is rated 4.4 out of 5, and you can find it on the Intracoastal waterway. Thank goodness for fallen logs, unexhumed, unharvested, resting and rotting in just the right place. Edit. Our 'stay-cation' at 3825 Goat Island House. padding: 15px; That month, a Goat-Man emerged at the Fort Worth Nature Center and started attacking cars and throwing tires. Today, there are no recreational improvements in the park. The next night, the monster, in front of a couple of dozen witnesses, was said to have uttered a "pitiful cry" and hurled a tire from a bluff at them. Goat Island Park is on a sliver of land rising out of the southwest reaches of Lake Worth. Others, like Ottine Dam, require tramping through weeds on sodden cow paths, occasionally working under barbed-wire fences or through somebodys front yard. [1] The lake has a moderate fluctuation with stained clarity. The idea that we hail from Port Lavaca elicits frequent cheerswhy, I am not exactly surebut by sunset my lower back is on fire, and Im cursing the restless spirit of Lester, who Ive become convinced haunts the front seat. Spectators came out in droves to try to catch a glimpse of it. Lake Worth (Texas) Lake Worth is located on the West Fork of the Trinity River. Kenneth S. Boone Lake Martin's Goat Island, an Alabama Power property that's become something. The park soils and underlying deposits are largely made up of sandy loam soil and Quaternary Alluvium. I will never do this fing race again! I shout at Doug. The owner of a kennel near Lake Worth has also said that he lost a macaque monkey that summer and that perhaps the primate was responsible. I begin to think about my wife and two young children with an ardent affection. As we began our west-to-east climb, grassy meadows gave way to thick stands of juniper and fir trees. Because its a high commodity area, prices will range anywhere from $100 a night to $400 a night. He clipped out the newspaper stories about the Lake Worth Monster scare and kept them in a scrapbook. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning. Let us linger over the following list, yearn for the wildness still in our land, and then go seek the dawn. Somehow, it works. 7.72 mi from city center. I think about my son, my three-year-old daughter, my wife. The Nature Center is holding its own monster revival celebration Oct. 3, a date selected for the temperate Texas autumn rather than any connection to the events of 1969. This is the finest of NC's deep waterfront property. At every rest stop, he and Cade drink water; my four airplane sample bottles are drained quickly, long before we reach the halfway point of the loop. Mystery still cloaks the legend of the Lake Worth Monster and his tire-chucking, hair-raising appearance in July 1969. Were not seeing much deer sign at allthe forest is too old, wonderfully old, so that the dense canopy screens out much of the sun and prevents the photosynthetic transfer of energy into low-lying forbs, on which the deer could feed. Its more than sobering, and we marvel at our fortuneat how, by all rights, we should have gotten in far more trouble than we did. A movement of Fort Worth citizens has pushed for retaining a portion of that gas revenue windfall for renovating and developing its public recreational potential. For all my training and education, Ive learned to follow their lead., In the years since the digs began, the ranchers and archaeologists have hit upon human remains, pottery, arrowheads, cooking implements, and more petroglyphs, as well as rock art thats reminiscent of cave paintings in France and North Africa. The island can be reached by ferry or by private boat. It can swim, climb trees and eats fish and chickens. During the weeks of summer, people saw the creature running through the Johnson grass, found tracks too big for a man, and reported dead sheep and blood. The eighteen-mile chasm runs more than twice the length of Santa Elena, while its waters take you beyond the parks eastern limit, cutting through the Dead Horse Mountains as they pick up volume. Lots of boats have been vomiting, she says. No bridges connect Goat Island to surrounding islands or the Bolivar Peninsula. The sun itself, glinting and sliding down off the shiny leaves of the canopy above, must come to rest upon you with a certain accumulated weight. Its four in the fing morning, dude. Thorny, green-barked retama and Rio Grande ash had grown up around the graveyard, a reminder of natures recuperative powers in the face of human progress. After our hike, my wife and I head back to the rim and look out over the canyons enormous expanse. I see him every time Im out there. (Open daily, $3. A series of strokes greatly damaged her memory and her health, said her husband, Richard Lederer. But its the Texas wild, preserved on some of the states private ranches, that offers many of the most surprising aerial viewsof herds of antelope, giraffes, and zebras in the Rio Grande Valley, for example, or brilliant blue waterfalls and lagoons in the Hill Country. White Settlement, TX (2.6 mi.) And maybe, just maybe, the Lake Worth Monster. WFAA Investigation into the Lake Worth Monster 6,674 views Feb 10, 2018 82 Dislike Share Save SMU Jones Film 7.7K subscribers Back in July of 1969, a terror swept through parts of Fort Worth: a. We agreed on a three- day, 33-mile float to the take-out at La Linda, an old mining bridge that once served as a border crossing, and launched our canoe at the parks RV-friendly Rio Grande Village. The daguerreotype light makes him look like some mortally wounded Civil War soldier. 409-951-6700.) Did you see them? Williams crowed in the morning. But if you dont believe in mystery, fact is kind of worthless.. I scratched off the consummate trip on every outdoors-loving Texans bucket lista catered float down Santa Elena Canyon on the Rio Grandea few years ago, so this spring I returned to Big Bend National Park to tackle the longest and deepest of its canyons, Boquillas. Goat Island, Tarrant County, Texas. Overhead, golden eagles harassed turkey vultures, and just past the parks boundary, we began to hear feral burros, their brays bouncing off the rocks. The aoudad ewe poked her head above the thorny mesquite and waving ocotillo, watching as I plodded up toward the ruins of Mariscal Mine. per night. Vaughn kicks my foot half an hour later. "She never got a call.". I will do whatever they want; they will do whatever I want. Daylight makes things comprehensible again, but paddling into the wind is futile. Goat Island is unique because of its accessibility only by boat and its natural marshland. View listing photos, review sales history, and use our detailed real estate filters to find the perfect place. The thought of such dangers can make you feel far less intrepid, safe in your cockpit with GPS guiding you back over the rim of the canyon, over the mountain peaks and into the clouds. You guys feeling okay? Stegner, whose love of land had been shaped by a childhood in the West, implored the commission to preserve the countrys wild spaces as a collective spiritual resource. But then I saw one and I thought I must be losing it. No one says anything. We decide to walk the boat through the shallows, dragging our feet through the mud to scare off stingrays. I squat in the weeds, exhausted and furious. And with spotty cell service throughout the park, its not like help is readily available. Eating is a distant concern. It made the pages of the daily newspapers and whipped Tarrant County into a monster-hunting frenzy in the summer of 1969. To reserve one of the primitive camping sites ($10), call Texas Parks and Wildlife at 512-389-8900. So does the Nature Conservancy. In a kind of hysterical state, Doug and I decide to scale the cliffs. Everyone knows where Seadrift is at this stage, so I am wary. Night falls, and we press on, threading through a narrow section choked with trees. The sun drops lower. We did not have to look hard. The summer of 1969 was hot and humid in Tarrant County. I felt the impulse to double-check where I was. parking information. Sansom Park, TX (4.3 mi.) Niagara Falls, NY 14303. "Witnesses today said the thing threw an automobile tire and wheel 500 feet," Marrs reported July 11. Rob Denkhuas, manager of the Fort worht Nature Center, holds up a picture of the "Lake Worth Monster." Witnesses described the creature as half man, half goat, towering seven feet tall and. The population was 4,618 at the 2000 census. Goat Island Ticket Price, Hours, Address and Reviews. Facebook seemed a distant memory. USA. For now, Goat Island is the responsibility of the port authority, which is paying $6.1 million of the $24.3 million restoration project, the rest being federally funded, said port spokeswoman . The rugged non-highway roughly parallels the Rio Grande, crisscrossing creosote-dotted washes, ashy deposits, and ancient lava flows, and it is not without its dangers, as the park ranger repeatedly warned me: a road explorer may encounter wild animals, flash floods, and even horseback-riding, two-hour drive from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park headquarters, but as we finally pulled into Dog Canyon one April morning, its exquisitely alien splendor left us speechless: the whispering pines, the quartz-specked rocks in a dry creek bed, the broad-tailed hummingbirds, the fields of bear grass dotted with sotol and yucca. The island, known as Me-mel by the local Cadigal people, was once inhabited by Bennelong and Barangaroo. The authorities continued to blame either a bobcat or teenage pranksters. It is slow work. FAQ + Create an Account / Login. And leaving the grocery storecarrying out armloads of Vitaminwater and bananaswe try to tell various people where weve been, but no one has heard of the wilderness, or even the large national forest in which it is located, half an hour up the road. She hands us another round of peanut butter and honey sandwiches; I take a bite and nearly gag. Getting There: From Fort Stockton, travel 126 miles south on U.S. 385, through Marathon, until you reach Big Bend National Park headquarters. Gear & Gadgets on the Texas Fishing and Outdoors Show, Powered by UBB.threads PHP Forum Software 7.7.3, Moritz Chevrolet - 9101 Camp Bowie W Blvd, Fort Worth, TX - Monte Coon (817) 696-2003. 903-679-3351.) Goat Island (Fort Worth,Texas) USA . Getting There: From Marshall, travel 13 miles north on Texas Highway 43, then turn right onto FM 2198. Then the shaggy-bearded goat, a sandy-brown species native to the mountains of North Africa, ducked out of sight. Another Just So story in the making. Big Bend National Park, with its desolate tawny mountains and surprising wildlife, can be disorienting like that. In confusion and curses and blood. There are competitors who attempt this race multiple times, some as many as twenty. The Fort Worth Zoo designated Goat Island as monarch habitat and planted zizotes milkweed in the grassy, open areas. West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country. A Right-wing Cabal Took Over Odessas Municipal Government. Texas. In her book "The Lake Worth Monster," author Sallie Ann Clarke recalls a personal close encounter. In his headlights, he said, he saw the gray body of a huge primate on two legs. Probably not, given the more immediate and grim realities they faced on the ground. It is a story unto itself. Overall satisfaction. Or none of it. It takes 30 minutes to walk around the islands 1.5 mile-2.4km perimeter. The six-acre park is located in the middle of the lake between Mosque Point on the east and Wildwood Park on the west. One of those exurbs of Houston. The USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) publishes a set of the most commonly used topographic maps of the U.S. called US Topo that are separated into rectangular quadrants that are printed at 22.75"x29" or larger. Big Bend National Park, with its desolate tawny mountains and surprising wildlife, can be disorienting like that. 2 Caroline Spring A bearded man was busy trapping small birds in a cage. }. But islands dot inland rivers and lakes, as well. The lake is home to a vast range of species (220 birds, 93 fish, 47 mammals, 46 reptiles), and a concert of diverse voices surrounded us: frogs, owls, chuck-wills-widows. Lighting out for the territory. Langschied, who has led the ranchs ecotourism program since the late nineties, knew just where to point us, and soon wed spied everything from three or four ferruginous pygmy owls to several tropical parula to small flocks of Botteris sparrows. Though the higher elevations offer perspective, they are not where the Paleo-Indians or the Comanche lived. Read. James was a Fort Worth fireman. It's pretty typical in every sense of the word except one - it had the most incredible recorded monster sighting hecklersprayhas come across in ages. AU$128.21. One of the curious who went to Lake Worth that summer was Sallie Ann Clarke, an aspiring writer and private investigator who dropped everything to interview people for what would become her quick-draw and slightly tongue-in-cheek book, "The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island," self-published in September '69. } From the rough waters of the Devils River and the eerie bayous of Caddo Lake to rugged Palo Duro and the Rio Grande jungle, here are eighteen places that will reconnect you with our world at its wildest. In the darkness we hear a team just behind us, a man and a woman dragging their canoe. The island is roughly 6 acres long and located between Mosque Point and Wildwood Park within Galveston Bay and East Bay. 34.7 miles from Lake Worth, TX. Canoes rent for $50 for the first 24 hours, $45 for each additional day; shuttle services range from $110 to $255. Our plan was to hike to McKittrick Ridge, where we would camp for the night at more than seven thousand feet, and then descend into McKittrick Canyon. However the same bunch followed up and activated another Goat Island on Caddo Lake near Uncertain, Texas. The exposures of bedrock can be seen at various locations around the island, particular at the east end. The Lake Worth Monster lives on in a grainy 1969 photo. Reporter Jim Marrs broke the story to the world. Keeping the lettering on the boat was Doug Johnsons idea. Note that you do not have the right to enter private property without the owner's permission. But this next story is absolutely true. The Goat Island is located in Galveston County, Texas, United States. This browser is no longer supported. If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, declared LBJ, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. The property is owned by the City of Fort Worth, while the Tarrant Regional Water District controls the reservoir's water rights. The older boys at the camp gave us easy explanations. The act defines wilderness as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, and in Texas, as any nature-lover can tell you, finding such areas is often a tall orderbecause for all of our land, very little of it has not been trammeled. We make out some boat tracks and footprints to the right and decide to head to shore again. It appeared in the newspapers the next day, and the area was immediately caught in monster-fever. I want yall to hear me, I tell them. Visible Anyone can find this group. Explore Seawolf Park, stroll downtown for dining and art, watch annual celebrations like Oktoberfest take over the streets or take to the golf course or famed fishing pier. No. The police officer told Marrs that "we did make a serious investigation because those people were really scared.". "She never got a call." The writer claimed to have used tinfoil to make a homemade mask to scare a truckload of girls. For those who belong to the Friends of the Nature Center, Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy Chairman Craig Woolheater will speak at a private dinner that night. Clarke's husband maintains that the monster was definitely not pranksters. Crime Rates The island is small enough to fall under one zip code: 77650. One man from Florida managed to add three or four to his life list in an hour; a woman celebrated reaching her target of six hundred birds, approximately two thirds of the entire species tally for North America. In 1958, the park board worked out a preliminary agreement with a concessioner at Casino Beach to provide boat rides to the island with the park department to receive ten per cent of the receipts. [3] History [ edit] (Courtesy photo), Weve had reports about this thing for about two months, a police dispatcher told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but weve always laughed them off as pranks.. 8298 Malaga Drive,Fort Worth76135 View Map, 8298 Malaga Drive, Some big pines remain, but there are stumps too, and weeds and direct sun andis this possible?a big house, a regular old thing with a chimney and a driveway and kitchen windows and a basketball hoop. I paddle these last miles like an automaton, empty of thought, perhaps closer to some kind of Zen state than Ive ever been. (817) 392-7148. To canoe or kayak, secure a permit from park headquarters. One of the quietest spots in Fort Worth, the island is home to egrets and owls, perhaps an alligator or two. This can present a challenge to the explorerunless you happen to have a pilots license. [citation needed]. I train my headlight on the side of their boat: Blood, Sweat & Beers. 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