Monday morning I took my bike for a ride on the RiverParks Trails here in Tulsa. It was about 15 miles which is a good ride for me. I have found if I start around 9 am or so then I avoid all the idiots on the E-scooters and E-bikes. I hate those things. They cause a lot of problems but that ship has sailed. They are here to stay
. The Gathering Place was all lit up with wildflowers. I think they are grooming things better now. Previously it looked unkempt and they got a lot of complaints. I like the new balance. I think it is still low maintenance and low water usage.
Stopped to take a phone call. Nobody on the trails but me!
I had a great time!! It’s like a moving meditation to me.
Sunday night, Heather and I dressed up and attended our first wedding in a long time at a beautiful venue out in the country. Although we are both vaccinated I was a little nervous sitting shoulder to shoulder with people inside. First time we have done that in a while.
Last Year’s Flowers
The bride and groom had known each other in high school way back when and ended up together after going through some trials. The bride was radiant and the groom was smiling. I don’t know either one but it seems like this is meant to last.
More Last Year’s Flowers
It seems like we are seeing more and more of that. People have to grow up and get seasoned a little bit before they figure out what is going on.
Flowers from Woodward Park 2020
I wish them well. I hope I don’t get Covid!! Take care folks.
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!
When the pandemic started last year and work and everything else shut down my family started spending lots of time in our backyard. It was great. Safe and secure from covid, or so we thought, we talked and noticed that as we get calm the backyards critters appeared. This year, things are a lot more hectic but Friday night we hung out in our back yard and the critters reappeared.
A male cardinal showed up. They are quite the Romeos, singing their love songs.
And a mockingbird. They imitate other birds.
A rabbit showed up and stayed quite a while. Looking around and giving itself a thorough grooming.
It was very flexible. I’ve taken lots of yoga classes this year cuz I think my flexibility might be my biggest issue as I get older. This rabbit doesn’t need to worry.
It groomed and groomed for over 30 minutes and we left it to its further grooming. That has to be the cleanest rabbit in Tulsa.
Heather made a new friend today. What we think is a house wren. We are not birders so if you have better information we welcome it.
When Heather goes outside, the wren shows up and sings to her.
For such a small bird, it makes a big sound. We are in love with this little critter.
And we have our everpresent squirrels. This guy froze on our back fence for five minutes before it left.
We love rediscovering that if we just go outside and be quiet for a few minutes then nature reappears.
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.
Earlier this month I visited the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum in the Tulsa suburb of Sapulpa. You can’t miss it, it is right on Route 66 and has this gigantic gasoline pump outside.
Ironically the museum has connections for charging electric cars in their parking lot.
And then when you walk up to the entrance you pass these front ends of various cars on your way. Do you know what they are? I don’t, but I do know that there is a geocache nearby that I found a few months ago. The really good stuff though is inside the building.
They have a “Special Built” Maserati. Very swoopy. It is not very high. I imagine it can go really fast.
Pure function on the interior though. Not too much luxury but have you seen so many drink cup holders? (I am not sure that is what they are.)
Then a little 1958 BMW Isletta. I think it is kind of cute.
Here’s a 1967 Amphicar, made to travel on the road and in the water. Made in Germany not many were made. I remember the 60’s when I was in grade school. We were lied to, by now all cars should be amphicars and not and fly as well. What happened to the future of the Jetsons.
Here’s the propellers underneath the car. I watched a couple of videos about the car. One of them said that the problem is that the Amphicar combined the worst properties of a car with the worst properties of a boat.
I don’t see anybody wearing a lifejacket. I don’t think it would do very well in any sort of waves.
Here is a 1958 Messerschmitt. I don’t know what the model is. The guy at the museum said that Messerschmitt was forbidden to build aircraft for a while after WWII so to keep things going, they built cars.
A 1947 MG. There is nothing like British Sports Cars in my opinion. Yes they were not very reliable and expensive to operate and maintain but they are beautiful.
This car is owned by a friend of mine and is on loan to the museum (as most of the cars seem to be.) It is a 1955 Jaguar XK 140-MC. Talk about smooth beautiful lines this is it. I always loved Jaguars. Not the modern ones though. They are now expensive Fords in my opinion.
And they have lots of other cars and car memorabilia. Check their web site for more info. I think they are open Tuesday through Sunday. Cheap to get in, $6.50.
I was at mil’s house visiting earlier this week in the afternoon and noticed the late afternoon sun coming in through her blinds was causing interesting patterns on her table and flower pot. Along with flowers and greenery in the background.
Son and I went on a walk at a local park. I liked our shadow selfies down below.
A little bit later we passed by some shadows from some redbud trees. The redbuds have a brief spectacular show for a few weeks in March and April and then they kind of retreat into the background.
Here are some of the flowers that my wife purchased for her Mother’s Day. She loves gardening and happily bought some for our yard and for her mother’s garden as well.
We had a pretty good Mother’s Day Meal at my mother-in-law’s place. Here are the two honorees. Both of them are great mothers.
Here was my contribution. I love smoking chicken. I would rather eat smoked chicken than eat steak. Heather purchased the sides (since we didn’t want her cooking on Mother’s Day) and we had a nice meal together.
We are having a very wet and cool Spring here in Tulsa. We get soaked with rain for a day or two and then the sun comes out and all the mosquitoes celebrate!
I like the cloudy skies because they make for more interesting photographs. I like the sunny days because they are fun for walking or riding my bike.
I go outside with the dogs every morning to keep them from barking and bothering the neighbors. Sometimes though when I let them out and their are rabbits and squirrels in the yard the dogs are going to bark, and bark a lot!! And then if there are other dogs in the neighborhood barking, then our dogs are going to do what I call “Update their Barkbook Status”
Sometimes one can get pretty decent skywatch photos from your own home. I got this last week when I was out retrieving the paper. I think papers are a thing of the past. Used to be almost everybody had a paper on our street, now I think we are the only one.
Son and I went walking around Tulsa’s Lafortune Park and I noticed that some kids were playing baseball at Lafortune Stadium. I think it was what used to be called Pony League. I think they have a different name for them now. I love baseball, at any level, from peewee t-ball up to the major leagues. Tulsa has a AA Los Angeles affiliated team, the Tulsa Drillers. They didn’t play last year, I’m hoping to catch a few games this year if it seems safe to do so.
This is another Route 66 site. The Rhett Mansion in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. The former home of an oilfield gazillionaire back in 1911. It is now a wedding venue and from what I can tell on their web page and it has been very nicely restored and furnished. I love when historical buildings are repurposed into profitable enterprises. Not every building is suitable to be a museum.
The thing about Route 66 is that is more like a threaded stream of roads. The original road was called the Osage Trail. They didn’t build the Trail from scratch, they pieced together a bunch of existing roads and called them that. And since the start the various states would replace sections of Route 66 with new, wider, more modern roads and the old “alignments” as they are called reverted to being just local county roads. On one of these forgotten alignments sits the Teepee Drive in Theater on the outskirts of Sapulpa. It closed in 1990 and has sat there ever since. Apparently somebody wants to reopen it. So we’ll see what happens.
I know that I am on a little bit of Route 66 thing right now. Two things, first there are a lot of geocaches on it now in the Tulsa area especially the new Adventure Lab geocaches and I turned 66 last month so I am on a “66 on 66” type thing right now.
I wish everybody a great week! I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come check it out.
Rock Creek Bridge is a single lane steel truss type structure located on an original section of Route 66 in the Tulsa suburb of Sapulpa. It was built in 1924 when the road was called the Osage Trail. It is not in bad shape for being almost a hundred years old even though it is now rated for no more than four tons. The modern Route 66 is off to the south a couple hundred feet or so more and has a more modern concrete bridge.
This bridge was part of ten Route 66 locations featured in a new type of Geocaching called Adventure Labs. They don’t require you to find actual containers or other physical objects. It’s a lot of fun if you don’t feel like disturbing snakes, getting spider bit, or explaining yourself to the local authorities. Read the link to find out more.
