Late Autumn always puts me in a mood. Not a bad mood, just an introspective mood. P. These photos kind of match my mood. Not necessarily sad.
Bixby, Oklahoma’s Washington Irving Park. It’s a very old park with a lot of big trees.
Tulsa’s Mohawk Park, a sprawling 2800 acres. One of the largest municipal parks in the USA and very underdeveloped. Lots of land for roaming around. The day I shot this, I was attending a Geocaching Black Friday event. Lots of people, lots of geocaches to find and chat with friends.
Tulsa’s RiverParks Trails. I found this tree and an instagram friend suggested naming it “The Tree of Life.” Works for me. Tulsans love the RiverParks, miles and miles of trails, playgrounds, the Gathering Place, and Turkey Mountain. Plus it links to other trails both east and west going to other trails in other suburbs.
Things change fast this time of year. At the beginning of the month we had lots of fall color on the trees.
We had some rain and some wind.
And now all the fall color is on the ground. I enjoy the bare trees though.
I went geocaching on a two mile long trail in Osage County. I found ten geocaches. It was heavenly. Didn’t see anybody besides a few cows and a bunch of squirrels.
One of my wife’s family in western Oklahoma since this photo from out there. Eastern Oklahoma has lots of trees and western part of the state has big skies. I love both the east and the west.
Wedenesday evening I saw what I called an auspicious sky. The whole sky was pink and gave everything on the ground an rosy pink glow. I loved it.
It’s a small crew of three at our house for Thanksgiving this year. Just me, Heather and our son Logan.
Heather is cooking a delicious dinner. Still a lot of work but we appreciate it.
And there is sadness this year. Bob my brother passed away last week. He had a debilitating illness for six years.
A Navy vet through and through. And a huge runner. Over 50 marathons and over a 100 half marathons and countless 5K’s. He had huge physical toughness.
When he wasn’t deployed, and after he retired, he would come to Tulsa for Thanksgiving and we would run together, go hiking, check out museums and such. He loved being active. He loved Thanksgiving also. We haven’t been able to do that for a long time but after he got sick my sister and I got him to Tulsa and I oversaw his care in various residences. He loved the activities that they had and then he discovered virtual runs. I paced out how many laps of in his residence were a 5K and then he would register and “run” them in his wheelchair and loved getting the medals. He was always happy with what he could do when he couldn’t do what he used to do.
Last Sunday morning, I attended Church of the Trees at Oxley Nature Center.
I saw the light right after I started. I loved the sun in the forest and I love the poem that a former “Artist in Residence” at Oxley wrote.
I love short poems. I really like the title of this one, “Sunfall.” There is a reason we need to have poets. They know what to call things, and how to describe them.
Found me a new favorite tree.
And instead of stained glass we had the light filtering through these leaves.
I loved the light on the trees bordering a water pipeline right of way in the park.
So last weekend I was part of a group of people that worked on the trails at the Keystone Ancient Forest in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. The organization that I volunteer with, the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition, sponsored the trail day and a big part of the community responded, especially a ton of students from the University of Tulsa. We split everyone up into three groups to do lopping of branches intruding on the trail, replacing trail flagging so people don’t get lost, and blowing leaves off the trail.
After getting organized we headed out to work. The weather was perfect. I led a lopping crew on one of the trails.
The students didn’t lollygog around, they got right to it.
We probably did a mile or so of trail lopping until we headed back. We wanted to get everyone back by 11:30 or so. You don’t want to wear out your volunteers.
The Keystone Ancient Forest is a preserve with ancient trees. Some of the cedars are 500 years old and there are 300 year old post oak trees on the property. It has an ancient and peaceful feeling to it.
The Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition got its start as an activist organization joining with other groups in a successful effort to fend off an outlet mall from being built on Turkey Mountain. Since then, the organization has pivoted to being an advocate for wild spaces in the Tulsa area and participates in and sponsors environmental education activities. We also do six or so trail cleanup days per year at various public wild areas in and around Tulsa.
It was a day well spent. The park staff seemed very happy with the work that was accomplished.
Last week I decided to participate in a Trail Race, the Backyard Bonanza 5K at Lubell Park in Tulsa. You notice I didn’t say “run” because I was going to walk it. I figured I could walk the 5K. I hike that much once or twice a week these days.
I get there bright and early in the morning. It was 36 degrees so it was a little nippy. No wind and clear skies, so sign me up.
I brought my electric heated vest that Heather bought me for Christmas a couple years ago. Nothing but the best for me.
Plus they had a fire going. It was very warm.
Getting instructions about the race just before the start.
There were two other concurrent races going on at the same time. A 25K and a 12K or something like that. They started earlier. That is the thing about trail races. Most of them are like that so you can run as long as you want or go shorter.
Since I was walking I went through the starting gate last. I managed to hold that position for the rest of the race.
The woods were beautiful and I just went into meditation mode being aware of the sun on my face and the various sounds I was hearing and making sure of my footing.
This little tipi structure has been at Lubell for years.
The course was pretty good. Not many rocks and good swithbacks going up and down the hills. Well marked. I’ve gone off trail a couple times during trail races. Easy to do if you are not paying attention. That can be disconcerting back where you are supposed to be.
And before I knew it, the Finish Line!!
The race photographer caught me at the end in my electric vest and my number 61 tag. I love prime numbers so I was proud of my 61. I was also representing the Dallas Cowboys!
Chatted with a few people and had some pancakes that they were making. That is the other thing about trail races. They generally feed you pretty good. They also had chili but I wasn’t in the mood.
And here is the route. Started and ended in Lubell Park with an incursion into the Mooser Creek Greenway. The only thing better than trails is interconnected trails like Lubell and Mooser Creek. Notice that the distance is 3.9 miles which is more than a kilometer longer than a 5K. That’s the other thing about trail races, the distances are approximate because they use existing trails. Part of the charm in my book.
And here I am. I won my age group in the 5K. In fact I was the only one in my age group in the 5K. It was a fun time.
After chatting with more people I headed home.
I’ll be back next year! I have to defend my title if nothing else.
Last week I attended the funeral of former coworker. I was sad for him and his family but I also got to see a bunch of other coworkers who came to the services as well. Afterwards I felt like checking out some of the new attractions on Tulsa’s portion of the Route 66, aka, The Mother Road, or the America’s Main Street. Turns out America’s Main Street is on Eleventh Street in Tulsa.
For some reason a half mile stretch of Eleventh Street has been taken over by “Muffler Men.” Supersize fiberglass sculptures. I love them, they are so oversized and colorful, how can you not like them.
As you can read on the mural behind him, this is “Meadow Gold Mack.”
I don’t know what this gal’s name is but I like her. Quite fetching don’t you think.
I love all sorts of Route 66 attractions. You know what my favorite is? A very little known sign where Paul McCartney stopped in the 2000’s while driving Route 66. He stopped and knocked on the door of a farmhouse and asked for directions. Can you imagine Paul McCartney knocking on your door? He was driving a 1989 Ford Bronco so he had no GPS in his car. I found this sign as I was looking for a geocache.
It’s the hundredth anniversary of the Mother Road next year and Tulsa is at its epicenter. National Geographic has some great information.
To recap, about two weeks ago I slipped and fell while hiking. I’ve done that a lot but this time my knee and the rest of my body went different directions and I was sore. So I hiked back to my car, went home, took a shower and then my wife took me orthopedic urgent care where they took xrays, said that my new knee was in good shape, wrapped my knee in a wrap patted me on my head said go see your surgeon.
I talked to my surgeons PA and said no damage to the knee so released me to do whatever as I felt able. I didn’t do much for a couple days and then gradually started getting more active.
My first hike was a mall walk where I saw that rugby shirts are a thing again, along with earth colors. Oh well.
I graduated to slow walks at local parks. Much better!
I love this fence.
And then back to Turkey Mountain for hikes on trails that are flat and don’t have technical feature.
This is the best vista on Turkey Mountain.
And then little bit longer hikes on more challenging terrain.
I found this bike jump on my a hike. Mountain bikers are crazy. You jump over the trail and onto a very steep slope on the other side. That’s a big nope for me. I have yet to ride a bike on Turkey Mountain.
I love this trail bridge over the dam at the YMCA at Turkey Mountain. Tulsa has the best fall weather of any place I have ever lived. Cool night, warm days, blue skies. Sign me up for all you have.
My beautiful wife Heather had an afternoon free, so we did a two mile hike at Turkey Mountain on the Sanctuary area.
I love old appliances on the trail. Turkey Mountain is an old farming, ranching, and oilfield area so there are lots things to look at that are interesting.
And at one spot, there is an old oil well with rods sticking out of the ground. I reminded Heather that we had been here before, 11 years ago. We were on an outlaw trail. The land was private but some bikers and hikers blazed a few trails through the tract and Heather, Me, and son Logan checked it out.
So this is wife and son from nearly eleven years ago. Except, now RiverParks owns the land and it is legal to be on it.
Lake Bixhoma is a water supply lake for the Tulsa suburb of Bixby. It’s a not a big lake but is very pretty especially in the fall. This is from an outing a few years ago. I’m kind of out of commission temporarily I went and fell during a hike last Friday and not getting around too much lately. But hey, I’m healing fast!
Lots of people go fishing on the lake and there is a decent network of trails there as well. Plus geocaches. In fact I took these photos during a geocaching event at the lake.
It is just a great place to go wander around in. Kind of snaky though so watch your step!!
Part of the trail system goes by this beautiful cliff. I’m told by my geology minded people that those rocks are about 330 million years old and are full of small fossils. I’m a lousy paleontologist. I can see the fossils when they are pointed out to me otherwise all I see is rock.
Those rocks from deep under the earth played a role in a nuclear test treaty between the United States and Russia under the terms of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in 1990 at the nearby Leonard Geophysical Observatory. Check the link for the story here. They monitored American and British underground explosions in Nevada from the site. The arrangement only lasted a few years and then the Russians gave the site back to the Americans and left. I’ve read other articles that I couldn’t find online. One thing that amused me was that the Russians refused to honor no smoking rules in the buildings. They’d say, this is now part of Russia and we don’t have no smoking in Russia.
I’d love to see the old test monitoring site but it is all fenced off now.
Here: Taken on a recent morning hike with a friend through The Sanctuary at Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area. It’s kind of an isolated part of Turkey Mountain so we don’t generally see anybody early in the morning.
To the Moon!: The Full Harvest Moon for a couple nights ago. Clear skies in Tulsa made this one easy. Social media blew up as thousands of people posted their Full Moon shots that night. I loved it.
And back: From an October 2019 trip to Jackson, Wyoming. My wife and I hiked all over Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park. What a beautiful place that is.
I was out with the dogs the other morning admiring our sunrise when what did I see?
A spider on a web also admiring the sunset!!
Another sign of autumn is that I am starting my gig as a volunteer reading tutor. I’ve already met the young person I’ll be working with and am looking forward to helping them learn to read.
Another sign of autumn is that an organization I am with, the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalitionhas restarted our trail maintenance projects. It’s too hot in the summer!! Our latest project which we co-hosted with another organization had over fifty people working on various projects on Turkey Mountain.
I love autumn, it goes on for months here in northeast Oklahoma.
