Tag Archives: Bicycling

Our World – Beaching Good Times

Heather and I are on vacation this week. We are down in Orange Beach on the Alabama Gulf Coast. It’s our happy place.

Here’s my bride during our bicycling adventure at Gulf State Park. We rode 16 miles and it was great. Hardly any other people and some great trails.

It has three really nice lakes with marshes and it is incredibly gorgeous.

It’s also a great alligator habitat. We saw this momma and two babies chilling out by the trail. There are also “several” types of venomous snakes according to Park. Two years ago I went geocaching at the park while wife and son went parasailing. I had a great time but my head was on a swivel looking around.

We are right next to a beach bar. No bull, they had a rodeo last weekend. The condo was full of cowboys. They are the most polite people you will ever meet. They also like to party hard.

Saturday the beach was hopping between the cowboys with their hats on in the water and a bunch of happy, good natured people celebrating their football teams, LSU and Alabama seemed to be the most popular and playing incredibly loud tunes on their speakers that they actually rolled out across the beach on wheels. They also were celebrating their favorite presidential candidate.

Sunday, we basically had the place to ourselves. The cowboys went on to their next rodeo and the partiers went back to work and school.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday. Join in the fun.

August Skies in Oklahoma

I have a mish-mash this week. Many of the photos are from my Go Pro Clone so the quality is not that great. I set it to take a photo every ten seconds during my bike rides so I get hundreds of photos and keep only a few per ride.

I went riding on the Arkansas River Trails her in Tulsa. They have this huge flag at 61st street and I love it when the breeze makes it fly full. That happens a lot here in Oklahoma. Are you familiar with the musical Oklahoma! you may remember:

“where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. And the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet. When the wind comes right behind the rain.”

The wind blows here all the time, rain or no rain, wheat or no wheat.

School is starting and so not very many people on the trails except old retired guys and moms with their babies.

I always feel like I am in a cage going across this bridge. If I see somebody coming I stop and let them come across. After my head on bike collision last year, I know the unthinkable can happen.

Went past one of the two Holly Frontier refineries here in Tulsa. I’m a chemical engineer by training and so I love the TST’s and LRO’s. (Tall Shiny Things and Large Round Objects). So you are now a chemical engineer also!!

Hey, here is a decent photo. I went on another trail south of Tulsa the other day. Only about 10 miles round trip but that is a decent length for me.

The same trail went across a revamped pedestrian bridge. It was so cool and up to date. I read that “Love Locks” are a pain for many places but here they have designed a couple Love Lock stations. I love responsive stuff like that.

They had seating and covered areas and built in musical instruments for kids. I thought the whole thing was marvelous.

Later I went to Mad Dog Liquors in east Tulsa. In addition to being a liquor store it is a graffiti permission zone. The liquor store part of it seems to be closed (again) but that doesn’t stop the taggers. I love this work. If you look closely you can see it has a pipeline motif. I am trained as a chemical engineer but I spent a bunch of my career designing, building, operating, and doing commercial things with natural gas pipelines. You know what they say, “Nothing finer than a pipeliner.” Actually only pipeliners say that. That doesn’t mean its not true though, right?

And so time to end this mish mash mess. I’m linking it up with Skywatch Friday

Garden Shadows & More

Late afternoon recently capturing the , getting the Garden Bee Shadow

Early in the morning, caught the photographer stealing a photo of my wife’s flowers.

And just for grins, my earliest “shadow” tagged photo, from 2008 of some bicyclists on the River Parks trails in Tulsa. Sorry for the fuzzy shot. It is from my intentionally crappy but fun Takashi 521FX camera.

The Takeshi can also do negatives. Here is son on a swing in 2010.

And finally a self portrait of the photographer in action.

I’m linking with Magical Mystery Teacher’s Shadow Shot Sunday. Come join in the fun!

Bicycle Riding the Osage Prairie Trail

Wednesday morning I loaded up the bike and drove to Skiatook about a half hour so north from Tulsa. There is a north south rails to trail called the Osage Prairie Trail that runs from just north of downtown Tulsa to a couple miles north of Skiatook. I always ride from the north end.

It was in the high 50’s when I started out with a pretty good breeze. I am glad that I brought a jacket. I started out going out and back the two mile segment north of Skiatook. It is a lot easier than what it used to be because their is now a pedestrian crossing with a light. Getting run over would ruin my whole day.

Very soon I was in some nice counryside, woods and meadows.

And some swamps. You can tell it has been raining here lately. There are several geocaches along the route and a few I have not found yet. I am not really wanting to wade in shin deep water to find them though.

Lots of cattle grazing on the route.

I loved the high thin clouds. After a short while it warmed up enough and I took my jacket off.

When I think northeastern Oklahoma, this is the kind of scene I think about.

The right of way for the trail is that of the old Midland Valley Railroad which was constructed early in the early 1900’s. It reached down into the oilfields around Tulsa and prospered for a while. They languished during the Depression. The railroad no longer exists. This is one of the original bridges.

I passed through the little town of Sperry and stopped at and old gas station what was used for filming a scene from the move “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. They shot at locations all over the Tulsa area and I have tracked down many of them along with the new Outsiders Museum here in Tulsa. Check it out here.

I finished up at about 18.6 miles. There were no hills but I am kind of out of shape. I had fun though. It was like a two hour moving meditation and I was totally in the moment enjoying the wind and sun on my face and the bucolic scenery passing by. I came to and woke up at the country road crossings though. Don’t want to get run over at this point in my life. It was a fun two hours.

I have made several other posts of the Osage Prairie Trail over the years here, here and here if you are interested.

And then last night I noticed there was a little color in the sky at sunset so I launched my drone and snapped a few pics.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come join the fun!

Skywatch Friday – October is Here!

We have a pretty good vantage of the sky at our home. Here it is looking west. No need sometimes to drive places for Skywatch photos.

And here is a netted sky at one of those fancy multi level golf driving ranges. Never been although it sounds like fun.

This is a sculpture of a bison that I photographed at a low angle through the glass. It is called Guardians of the Plains and is on the turnpike in Sapulpa, just west of Tulsa.

This is a short video of a geocache hunt at a car museum in Tulsa. That is supposed to be a huge gasoline pump.

One day recently we had the swirly winds and funny clouds indicative of atmospheric disturbances which in Oklahoma means tornadoes. We didn’t have tornadoes. I used the Hyperspektiv app to kind of give an idea of the atmosphere.

I went out for a bike ride the other day. One of the best days of the year, sunny and cool, about 68F and hardly any wind. It was perfect. About ten minutes after this photo was taken I had a head on collision with another bicyclist who veered right into me. Luckily I had seen that he was a little jittery and had put on the brakes and tried to go to the right to avoid him but he panicked at the last second steered right into me.

We both ended up on the ground, I hit my head pretty hard on the pavement but I was wearing my helmet. The other guy landed on a guard rail with his ribs and was in bad shape and his bike was all mangled. Several people stopped to help and we went to a nearby parking lot. A buddy of his came and got him and his bike and Heather came and got me. My bike is okay. People rib me about how heavy, old fashioned and slow it is but it suffered no damage at all that I can see. I am going to have my bicycle shop check it and my helmet out to ensure there is no damage.

I went to our Bone and Joint Urgent care and got some xrays and checked out by a doctor and prescribed some meds. I can’t drive or drink alcohol while on them. So I just have a sore back is all, and a gouge in my hip where my handlebars got torqued into me when the guy hit my wheel. I hope the other guy is okay. He was hurting when he left the scene.

So if you ride a bike, wear your helmet. I hit the ground pretty hard with my head and I didn’t have a concussion. The other guy was wearing his helmet as well. I am thankful also for all the people that stopped to stop and help us.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday – come check it out.

Skywatch Friday – Bicycling and Michael Buble

Last Friday Heather and I went bicycling on Tulsa’s Riverparks Trails. It was very nice. Not too many people and not much wind, not much hills and a lot of fun. Kind of tricky navigating around the kids on the E scooters near the Gathering Place. Anybody besides me think that electric scooters and bikes should be banned from pedestrian and bicycle trails?

We finished up with a nice sunset, sorry for the blurry image.

Monday at lunchtime I noticed a bunch of Rock Star busses lined up at the Mayo Hotel. Except I don’t think it was a rock star, I am guessing that they were for Michael Buble.

That evening Heather and I went to the Penthouse Bar at the Mayo for a pre-concert drink. The concert itself was great. He is a consummate singer and really has a sense of humor. I have never seen an entertainer connect with their audience like he does. This is the third time that we have seen him and we will be back for me.

I hope that you are having a good week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join us!!

Skywatch Friday – Horses and Skies

I went on a bike ride the other day after work. I took a trail alongside a rural turnpike that has lots of hills and if I am lucky some good skywatch shots. I found these horses, they were not too friendly so I just have photos of their rear ends.

Headed back, some clouds showed up and threatened rain. It didn’t.

Another uncooperative horse in a pasture. We have had lots of rain and the grass is high and green.

I had a good outing of about 16 miles of some nice hills and good scenery. It doesn’t get much better than that.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Our World – Tour de Tulsa 2019

So Saturday morning found me in Tulsa’s Tour de Cure, a benefit ride sponsored by the Tulsa Bicycle Club. They have five rides varying in length between eight and 101 miles. This is a ride rather than a race. So there is no competition or awards or any of that. I’ve run literally dozens of runs but this was only my second ride. There starting gun. Everybody is just standing around talking and then they start going.

Today’s ride was a ride of left turns in traffic starting right away. At least the first one we had traffic control with the police. The rest of them we were on our own.

So we cruised down Southwest Boulevard (aka Route 66) for a bit, taking up both lanes.

And then turned right over the railroad tracks and got on Avery Drive heading west past the refineries, trash to energy plants, oilfield fabrication shops. Avery Drive is a popular ride for bicyclists which is great but some of them get run off the road or hit every few years but angry or distracted people. My prayer was just to survive it.

No worries though. The motorists were courteous and gave us lots of room. So I’ll live to ride it another day. My problem is that I ride almost exclusively trails on my own. Roads make me nervous.

I got stressed when Avery drive ended and we had to do two left turns to negotiate the very busy high 97 and 51 intersections. No choice but to get in the left turn lane and ignore the freight truck behind me, twice.

So after all that we got to a rest stop. Time to get something to drink and a snack and rest a little bit. That’s me, the fat guy with the white over blue shirt or jersey.

And here is my old bike. You don’t see too many hybrid bikes on rides like this. Or bikes with rear view mirrors and a bell. Don’t you laugh at me!!

And then back to it and we ended up winding our way through downtown Sand Springs. I was able to keep a few riders in front of me and they seemed to know the route because I didn’t see any obvious course markings or signs or anything.

And we ended up on the Katy Trail that went most of the way back to Tulsa. No more city streets except the last mile or so.

The end is pretty low key. Since they don’t time or have awards, you just end your ride. Get something to eat and drink and go home.

I really enjoyed myself. Thank you to the sponsors, and organizers, and the army of volunteers who make these things happen.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

Spring Skies in Tulsa

Spring stepped up this week after weeks of cold. And so I took my bike on the RiverParks Trails after work. Here is a shadow selfie of me on my fifteen year old Giant at work.

A little sunset action on the west bank of the Arkansas River.

A view of the soon to be demolished Pedestrian Bridge. The powers that be decided we needed something fancier to fit in with our new Gathering Place Park.

Same bridge only behind several varieties of redbuds. The white variety is actually still a redbud. Or so I am told.

More redbuds!! And my old bike. People make fun of my bike because it is very old and heavy and not sleek and I have a bell and a mirror on it. They say get something newer and faster. Why, what is my hurry?

And Monday, the Tulsa Drillers were playing an 11 am game. Well by gum, I have lots of vacation and a flexible type job so after clearing with my boss I went down a bought a ticket right behind home plate and watched me a baseball game!! No better way to spend a day. Actually if my son and wife with me it could be better. But they hate baseball, so never mind. You like my seat? The guy with the radar gun was six seats to my right. And then I went back to work after watching about six innings. I love daytime games.

Shadow Shot Sunday – Bicycle Shadow Selfie

Since I quit running last November I have been doing other things including riding my bicycle. Here is a shadow selfie of me riding my bike after work. The shadows are getting longer and longer and I won’t be able to ride my bike at all after work fairly soon.

I am linking with Shadow Shot Sunday.

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