Hey Look, a concert about to get going on the beautiful Jenks Riverwalk. We’re all there and minutes after I took this photo everyone was dashing for our cars. You can kind of see in the right margin that something was coming.
https://flic.kr/p/2spoCng
This is just a few minutes after we left, the storm had passed, the sun was shining, and a rainbow appeared. I love rainbows.
And another pic, from a bike ride. The Tulsa Skyline under some clouds.
At home, you can see the front passing through from left to right.
And a neighborhood shot of clouds.
Reverse sunset in the neighborhood looking south.
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Reverse sunset looking east.
And a sunset looking west. I get asked if I used a filter on this shot. The answer is yes, I brought to bear every filter I had on this. Just so you know, I am not a purist.
We got home from vacation in early July. We had a great time and saw a lot but it was nice to be home.
That was before the big heat dome. We had big fluffy clouds in the sky and rain! I’m into rain.
Cockeyed neighborhood skywatch shot looking east.
And another one looking west. I miss the rain. We haven’t had any for weeks now.
This is a jigsaw puzzle I did on my ipad a few months ago. It’s the Goosenecks in the Colorado River in northern Arizona. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. Accounts I’ve read say that some days its a zoo there with everyone elbowing and jostling trying to get the perfect shot. Anybody been there and can give us the straight scoop. Leave a comment and tell us about it.
On our vacation in July. One of the places we went to was Chimney Rock National Monument near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We didn’t know what was there but off we went.
The heart of the monument are these two rocks. I am thinking the one on the right is, Chimney Rock (I think), and the one on the left is Monument Rock. The rocks themselves are very impressive but their claim to fame is that they were an important part of an ancient lunar observatory that monitored the 18.6 year cycle of the Major Lunar Standstill. The lunar cycle is a lot more complex than the solar cycle for various reasons. When the moon reached is maximum height every 18.6 years, you could see it nestled in between the two rocks.
The last time this happened was in 2025. Rather than steal a photo to show you, here is a link by Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Service showing a photo of the event. Below is a short video by the US Forest Service describing what the event is, how it occurs, and its importance to the various Tribes who are the descendants of the original residents.
The thinking is that Chimney Rock was originally built by Ancestral Puebloan people and then was later an outlier for Chacoan people who used the observatory for agricultural and religious purposes.
Heather getting ready.
After checking in at the Visitor Center and showing our pass we drove the road up to the parking lot at the ridge and then grabbed out hiking sticks, water, and laced out hiking shoes on.
Son Logan is ready to go.
It is a short but steep hike from the parking lot.
And then it got very steep and rocky. Watch your step. It was also hot that day.
A view back down the trail and off to one side. Beautiful vistas.
The partially reconstructed observatory. They used about two million stones to build it. All of them had to be hauled up from the valley floor by hand along with food and water for the work force. The guides said that there was some agriculture and some water from rainfall up on the ridge that they impounded by a series of dams.
Here’s the closest that we could get. Those flat rocks above the step once supported a Forest Service Fire Lookout tower that was removed in 2010. The site was opened to the public a couple years later.
So I moved off to the side and used my telephoto lens to get this view.
You can see why this would be a great place for a fire lookout tower. You can see everywhere.
We went back down the steep rocky trail to the car and drove down into the valley.
They have a small but very nice visitor center. The Forest Service partners with 26 tribes who trace ancestors to the area. They help govern the area and make sure their ancestors are honored and that their treaty rights to the area are preserved to the full extent of the law. I found the whole arrangement fascinating.
I am also fascinated by the amount of information now available. The Ancient Puebloan and Chacoan Cultures did not have a written language so the information we have is from archeological research including reinterpretation of data from past excavations. The modern ethic seems to be to limit new excavations and use old data to the maximum extent possible. They also seem to give much weight to the stories and history as told by the elders in Tribes today.
The second phase of our vacation last month, after visiting Santa Fe was going to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We had never been there and didn’t know what to expect except it seemed to be family friendly type town in the mountains.
The San Juan River runs right through the middle of town and they have made the most of it. There is a deluxe pedestrian trail along the river, the full length of town. They have quite a business most of the summer renting out innertubes to people to float on the river.
As you can see, the river was way down and there was not a whole lot of floating going on. The few souls that tried it, just paddled around the few places the river pooled up. So we didn’t even try. But hey we had a good time anyway.
We found a nice craft beer place just up the river from our motel.
We walked a ways and found a place where the water pooled up enough for some good reflection shots.
We walked the city streets. There were lots of tshirt shops and other places for visitors. We did find a couple of restaurants that were very good.
And there were some Forest Service guys staying at our hotel. Hard workers, they were long gone by 7 am when I woke up and were checking things out. I kind of miss the old green color they used to paint their trucks. But hey things change right?
Early in July, we left Santa Fe to go to the next stop on our vacation, Pagosa Springs. On the way we passed through the town of Espanola where I was born. I was on the lookout for Cerro Pedernal. A flat topped mountain that Georgia O’Keefe painted over twenty times.
And hey we found it along with a handy oversized parking lot right off the highway. Cerro Pedernal is close to the place where I have my earliest memories. Coyote, New Mexico. A village up in the mountains where my father was the Coyote District Ranger of the Santa Fe, National Forest. I don’t remember the mountain at all. We had lots of mountains up there.
O’Keefe liked to claim that because she painted the mountain so many times, that God gave it to her and it was hers. I read a story somewhere, I can’t find it to confirm it. that she climbed the mountain once. It stands at 9866 feet above sea level. The last segment, I read, involves scrambling up a steep slope with and hand over hand climbing. So kudos to her. The trail up there is about 7 miles so I don’t think I’ll be making the trek anytime soon. Upon her death in 1986 at 98 years of age she was cremated and her ashes spread over the mountain.
Cerro Pedernal in Spanish means flint hill. The Tewa people call it Tsi Ping and it is sacred to them. There is an ancient village nearby, Tsi’pin-owinge—translating to “Village at Flaking Stone Mountain,” occupied from 1275 to 1450 AD that housed about a thousand people. They still call the mountain Tsi Ping. It was renamed by the Spanish when they explored the country and claimed it for their country and renamed everything they could. Earlier in our trip, at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, they had an exhibit of art by Tewa members. One of them was on a project to paint Tsi Ping 30 times and thus reclaim the mountain for his tribe from O’Keefe. I find this all fascinating. There seems to be a movement by indigenous Americans to reclaim their history, including place names, as a way of reestablishing and confirming their identity under their own terms.
Here is one of O’Keefe’s paintings of the mountain. (You can see their entire collection online and download many of the works, subject to their terms of use at the museum web site.) It looks to be close to the same vantage point as my photographs. Both live and in the art, the mountain seems like a living being and just dominates the whole landscape.
I ran my first photo above through the Dynamic Auto Painter Program and it came out like this. No match for Georgia O’Keefe but hey, it’s mine. I cropped it to make it the new header for the blog.
So like I said last week, while in Santa Fe we spent every evening at the rooftop pool and lounge. It was pretty popular especially at the end of the day.
So here are Heather and Logan on the rooftop. The clouds were just right and gave everyone a healthy pink look.
A view looking west.
And another view looking northwest.
And looking east, a reverse sunset.
And another midday view. The skies of Santa Fe are magical.
Late last month we took a vacation to Santa Fe and Pagosa Springs. We drove from Tulsa to Santa Fe. It’s not that bad of a drive. Almost all the route is Interstate 40.
I love road trips and road trips to the west are wonderful because of the big skies you see once you get past Oklahoma City and are on the Great Plains.
Lots of people think it is a boring drive. Not me! I love it.
Big storm brewing up in the mountains of Santa Fe.
Once we got to Santa Fe and checked into our hotel we found out it had a rooftop bar and swimming pool. We went to check it out when the sun was about to set. We went up there and there were a lot of people. They were not at the bar or in the swimming pool. They were looking at the sky.
Sunset over the Jemez Mountains in the distance.
And a reverse sunset looking south. You can see the New Mexico State Capital and the Sandia Mountains that overlook Albuquerque. I always forget that when one has real mountains, you can see them a long ways off.
And this is looking to the southeast. That storm brewing up that I showed you in the earlier photo. It is still there.
And looking to the southwest.
Back to the Jemez Mountains to the west.
To the northwest. Great skies everywhere you look. We went up to the rooftop every night of our stay. We never got tired of the view.
We have had a lot of stress recently in our family, not caused by anyone within our immediate family. We had been looking forward to our family vacation and we ended up going on it and we had a good time. In amidst the weeks before I dealt with the stress by taking photos. That always settles me down. They are not works of art but they are mine (that is why I call myself a “picture taker” and not a “photographer.” Being a picture taker is so liberating!!
This was the Full Strawberry Moon at the end of the month. I’ll admit I missed by a day or so but close enough.
And this was a few days before. The moon isn’t quite full.
A drone shot at 40 meters over the backyard looking to the northwest.
A local shopping center has a concert series in the summertime on a weekday night. This was at the end of the concert. The music was great but the sky said “my turn” and did not disappoint. This is looking west.
And another shot to the east. We don’t normally get reverse sunsets as nice as this.
Here is a neighborhood sunrise from our house looking east. I used a hipstamatic filter on this. I love the Hipstamatic App on my iphone.
And a jigsaw puzzle photo.
And this is the Goosenecks of the Colorado River in Utah. This has been on my bucket list to get in real life for some time. I’m told that during peak times there is all sorts of pushing and shoving amongst people to get the best spot for a photo. So until I get there myself and use my picturetaker skills to get my own photo, I’ll just use this. I’m not into pushing and shoving.
The family just got back from a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We had a good time but it was one of those active trips where we were on the go every day as opposed to sitting on the beach a bunch. We had a great time, saw a lot of stuff, and ate lots of good New Mexican style Mexican Food. I’ll have photos from the trip in the coming weeks. Right now, I am still working my way through photos from June.
Here’s a drone photos from 50 meters over my back yard in Tulsa, Oklahoma looking north.
And a shot from my across the street neighbor’s driveway looking east.
I love infrastructure of all kinds. This is Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. It’s an ancient facility on the Arkansas River right in the middle of town. I used to work for the sister natural gas pipeline company, Transok Inc., that supplied the natural gas to the plant.
This is the Arkansas RiverParks trails right across the river from the power plant looking north. You can see that bicycles are to the right and pedestrians to the left.
And at the north end of the Trails, and across the river is where Route 66 crosses the Arkansas River. The city has installed a collection of replicas of vintage motel signs in a little park. Pretty interesting to me. This year is the 100 year anniversary of Route 66. I’ve lived a bunch of my life on Route 66. I love all the attractions on Route 66 but don’t care much for the road itself. Luckily in Oklahoma to the west coast most of the route is paralled (by the powers vested in me, I am declaring “paralled” to be word) by Interstate 40. I’m good with traveling on I40 and getting off to see the attractions as I feel led. Route 66 is too slow!!
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