Here’s a sunrise one morning from our driveway
And a sunset from the same driveway on a different day
And some trees changing color at Pepsi Lake on Turkey Mountain.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday
This past midmorning Monday my friend, Tom, and I ventured up to nearby Claremore, Oklahoma to see Union Pacific’s “Big Boy” steam powered locomotive roll into town on the homebound leg of the “Heartland of America” tour where it went through 23 states. Tom and I saw it in Vinita, Oklahoma three years ago and we wanted to watch it again.
This is the train entering town. I was taking video with my cell phone and had my “good camera” in the other hand. I wished I had stuck with the video a little longer but oh well.
They are massive machines. The drive wheels are 58 inches in diameter. The engine and it’s tender weigh 1.2 million pounds and stretches 132 feet long. It’s so long the engine is articulated because it can’t negotiate some of the track curves otherwise.
Union Pacific ordered twenty five of these monsters in 1941 for service between Logan, Utah and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Big Boy, engine number 2014 was delivered in 1941 and was retired in 1961. UP reacquired it from a museum in 2013 and refurbished it and it re-entered service in 2019 in time to celebrate UP’s 150’th anniversary. It is the only engine of its type still in service. Seven others are on view at museums around the country. Get the deets here. Presently the Big Boy is the biggest Steam Locomotive in the world.
The engine is on its way back to Cheyenne, Wyoming on October 23, and will be available for viewing at several spots, including Denver. Check out the schedule here.
Fore some reason I didn’t think there would be that many people interested. Boy was I wrong. We had to park and walk a long ways. The designated viewing was kind of cramped so we were kind of crammed into a small space and it was hard to get a view without a lot of people.
This makes it look like the train is tearing through a bunch of Okies, but it wasn’t. UP had a ton of their Railroad Police going up and down the track telling people “Get off the tracks, there is a train coming.” Lots of people put coins down on the track and when the train stopped, they asked the RR Cops if they could reach under the train to retrieve their coins and were asked if their lives were worth a penny.
But hey, almost everyone had big smiles on their faces. Something about a monster locomotive makes people happy.
Tom and I decided to leave cuz it didn’t seem that the train crew was in any hurry.
Here is my post from seeing Big Boy in 2021.
I’m linking with My Corner of the World.
I went hiking the other day and took a couple of shadow selfies. Here’s a fuzzy one. Do you see little old me? I think it is fuzzy because the image focused on the bridge I was standing on. That is coming in clear.
And here is a big selfie. I love how afternoon shadows make me look slimmer. And wrinkles don’t show up on shadow selfies either.
I am linking with Shadow Shot Sunday!
Here’s our pugnacious pomeranian Kodi after a recent hairdo. He sure looks dapper with the cute cut and the halloween cat themed tie.
And another Gulf Fritillary in the backyard.
And a squirrel on a recent evening. It has been hot lately.
I love catching birds in the act of landing or taking off like this one coming in for a landing.
Or this one getting ready to land on a suet feeder not pictured.
Every once in a while I catch critters of all types staring right at the camera even though there is no flash, click or other indication. Somehow they know!!
That’s all this for this week. I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters.
It’s only 35 seconds long.
I start out looking straight west and then go to the right. Not often you get color everywhere one looks at sunset.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday.
Last Monday, I finished my morning reading tutoring at an elementary school here in Tulsa and decided by gum I was going to go kayaking.
So I ventured to the Arkansas River, upstream of Zink Lake Dam and rented a kayak for a couple of hours from the vendor there. I helped her carry it down to the new kayak launch that the city of Tulsa had installed. It was pretty cool. You put your kayak in slot where it is partly in the water and then you push against the handrails and you are launched!! No wading in the murk to get going.
I’ve been kind of in a funk lately. One knee is giving me problems and I got a steroid injection a month ago. It worked great for a week or so and then it started aching again. So think I do too much but then I don’t do anything which is not good. Well Kayaking is very knee friendly!!
I cruised past some redone murals on the river shore.
I thought the kayaking was cool. I’ve been running, walking, and bicycling both banks of the Arkansas River and Zink Lake for over 30 years. Now I was in the water and seeing things I’ve never seen before. A completely different perspective.
I love this view. It is cathedral like. A cathedral with graffiti.
There was hardly a breeze, the temperature was slightly on the cool side and the sky is beautiful.
The new Williams Crossing pedestrian bridge.
Headed back north with a view of downtown Tulsa where I worked for 30 years. I was waving at my former coworkers.
The very beginning of the vegetation changing color.
One of the two boat ramps on the west side of the lake (or river.)
Headed back under the 21st street bridge.
Checking out the RiverWest Festival Park. RiverParks is having their annual Oktoberfest soon.
And now back to the Kayak dock. I had a great time!!
I’m linking with My Corner of the World
A shadow of a sculpture in Tulsa’s Woodward Park
Appeal to the Great Spirit sculpture by Cyrus Dallin.
The sculpture has an interesting history. Their are lots of copies out in the world. The original is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Read the Wikipedia Article.
I have 27 photos of this sculpture in my archives. I feel drawn to it whenever I visit Woodward Park. These photos are from 2014.
I was geocaching at Tulsa’s Crow Creek Meadow when I happened across this butterfly. I do believe it is a Monarch.
Here is a video of it.
I was hiking on Turkey Mountain when I came across this bush with some sort of fritillary on it. My photo is too fuzzy for the online image searches to work properly.
Here is my wife Heather with our dog Kodi on an outing.
He is beginning to settle down after our roofing project. Here is expressing his displeasure with me. He’s a mess but we love him and are working with somebody help reduce his anxiety.
I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters.
The other day the sky looked promising for a decent sunset. It seems the best conditions are high thin clouds. If they are too thick they kind of smother the sun and you get no color. And the thing is the colors don’t last so you have to be ready to go or the opportunity is gone. So I was home, my drone batteries were charged up so I launched it from the back yard.
If you are lucky, and I was that day, you get opposite sunsets which is where you get colors in any direction. So this is looking north.
And this is looking south.
And this was the west, the day before.
And this is looking down. You can see my orange landing pad. I do think that is my new roof. We color matched it to the old roof so there it looks the same. I do only periscope flights. I go straight up from the backyard and look around and then come back down. I don’t fly the drone over other people’s property or anywhere where I can’t just legally walk over and pick it up if something goes wrong. That’s just me though.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday
The Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow had their 2024 edition of the “Chalk It Up Art Festival” on their Main Street last weekend. Artists who entered got a designated space on the blocked-in street to create a work of art with chalk. We try and go every year. Lots of people enter and they are quite talented. The theme this year was “In My Own Back Yard” The following were my favorites.
Lots of entries featured pets.
Some had kind of a fantasy thing going.
This reminded us of our dear departed Rascal. He was such a good dog.
As a kid who couldn’t stay inside the lines on my grade school art projects, I appreciate people who bend the rules a little bit.
And I loved this. Who doesn’t love blowing dandelion seeds in the wind.
I think this won the “People’s Choice” award.
I think this had best in show. I love the deep rich colors of the work.
Another dog, Mango has his own swimming pool.
I think there were over fifty entries including those from children to adult artists. A talented group of artists for sure. They have Chalk It Up on the weekend of the September every year.
Sad thing is that the artists can’t dig up their huge pieces of pavement and take them home. Late Saturday afternoon, the police take up the barricades blocking traffic and people waste no time driving on this art. Oh well, that the nature of it.
I am linking with My Corner of the World