I found this scary dude while hiking the other day, or maybe it found me. I survived though by promising it that it would be on the blog.
The family went out to the Tusla Botanic Garden the other day. We found some scarecrows.
In late September I started another year of reading tutoring at this school. The little person I am helping this year is a hard worker. I am loving not having to bargain, beg, and threaten them to settle down.
I am mowing two yards now. This is my former mother-in-law’s house near where we live. Her neighbors are begging us to move in. It’s a nice house but a long ways from where we like to go. Nice pool. we got to use it a few times before it got too chilly. We have some legal hoops to jump through before we do anything with it.
I love stoplight sunset photos. After months of not much rain we had a lot at the end of September.
And a neighborhood sunrise looking east from my front yard.
And a middle of the day, cloudy, skywatch looking the same way.
The trees at the edge of the prairie welcoming the morning sun.
A little further on I came upon Bird Creek.
Later on in my hike I came across Coal Creek. This is the lowest I have ever seen it. I’m told by the staff that if one gets here early in the morning one can see a family of otters swimming around. I have yet to catch them. I’ve seen muskrats which I think some people confuse with otters.
A few weeks ago, I found myself at the north side of the Tulsa International Airport and I noticed that the Tulsa Air and Space Museum had several new aircraft on their parking display so I checked it out.
First up is the iconic A-10 Thunderbolt, or “Warthog.” A legendary warplane built for ground support. It has a high speed cannon that runs almost the entire length of the plane and is designed as a tank killer. It has been around for decades.
Second up is Gruman Gulfstream II-B/ G-1159B Halo II. A modified civilian aircraft designed for research the US Missile Defense Agency. You know, secret spy type stuff.
And third is a 1965 North American Rockwell NA-265-40 Sabreliner. A pilot named Bob Hoover flew this. He is famous in aviation circles for being the best pilot in aviation history. Here is his Wikipedia Listing. Talk about great stories in his wikipedia. My favorite is that he was taken prisoner by the Germans in World War II. He escaped and found his way to a German airfield and then took off on one of the planes and flew to Holland and landed inside allied lands. They should make a movie about that but nobody would believe him.
Enough with the museum. I drove closer to the airport to check out the new control tower being built. Above is the existing 1959 vintage control tower. Looks kind of cute doesn’t it?
So just turned about 45 degrees to my left and took a photo, with the same magnification, of the new tower. Wow is wow is what I said.
Here it is magnified a little bit. It is huge. Looks like about seven stories tall at the top of the tower. What, are they selling condos? It is ginormous. Ginormous is a word in Oklahoma. We are easily impressed. What can I say?
In late July this year I went on a bike ride on the Arkansas River Trails here in Tulsa. I took a “good camera” along. I only take a good camera if there is no chance of rain.
Here is the Public Service Company Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. They have two sources of natural gas to run the plant. I worked for one of the source pipelines for eight years and then I went to work for the other source pipeline.
And here is my bicycle with the Williams Crossing Bridge in the background. It is a beautiful pedestrian bridge that is only about two or three years old. It was named “Bridge of the Year 2026” by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the National Steel Bridge Alliance. Read all about it here. I checked on the bridge construction almost weekly while it was being built. It was fascinating to watch.
Above is a photo from September 2025 showing the bridge at night. It has one of those funky lighting systems that can do all sorts of colors.
There were rowers on the river that day. Used to be Tulsa had quite a rowing community at one time, then Covid came, and then came the reconstruction of the Zink Dam and the Williams Crossing Bridge so it is nice to see rowing on the river again.
21 plus miles. Not a bad ride for an old fat guy is what I think.
Switching gears to the home neighborhood.
A neighborhood sunset in late July. If I don’t feel like launching the drone then I walk across the street to our neighbor’s driveway to get the right angle. The street is straight east and west and the sunset in July is a little north of west so I have to get a little south to see it.
This is a reverse sunset looking east on another day catching the glow of storm front off in the distance.
I am still way behind on posting my sky photos. These are from the last half of July
This is a neighborhood photo showing a front blowing through.
A sunset photo looking west from our neighborhood greenbelt.
A drone photo about 40 meters over our house looking west from Tulsa.
I was on a bike ride on a trail I hadn’t used in a long time. It’s closed, for repairs. It looks okay to me!
A view from a bridge across the Arkansas River looking north. To the right is a complex of buildings that used to be the Oral Roberts Hospital and Medical School. They are now regular office buildings. The high rise to the left is the Muskogee Creek Nation River Spirit Casino.
Here’s a closeup of the Casino from the bike trail around the riverside of the complex.
And from the same trail only a couple miles north is a view across the Arkansas River to Turkey Mountain.
And July’s Full Buck Moon. I love moon photos. I have hundreds of them.
And this is a drone shot that I modified by having a program called Dynamic Auto Painter using a modernist acrylic techniques. It’s not AI. DAP has been around a long time before AI ever showed up. I kind of like how it turned out.
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?
