Category Archives: Skywatch Friday

2022 Thanksgiving Skywatch

DSCF0495 — RiverParks painted the storage container at Turkey Mountain. I love it.

It’s Thanksgiving today. This day always brings back floods of memories going back decades.

DSCF0502 — Crooked Trees on Turkey Mountain

When I was a kid we would travel frequently to southeastern Idaho. I think my mother was related to half the people there. We would gather at a family member’s ranch near Dubois, Idaho. All sorts of aunts, uncles, cousins and such would be there. Lots of fun for the kids, lots of rest for the men and a huge amount of work for the women.

I’m glad that I have those memories. My parents and everybody in that generation is now gone on my mother’s side of the family.

Over the years since, the Thanksgiving’s have grown and shrunk and changed considerably. Not as much food, not as much work the guys are expected to help out with the cleanup. It’s all good.

Thanksgiving is a time to remember people who are no long with us.

IMAG1601 — Our crew from 2016. Sorry for the glare from the window. One of the many reasons I call myself a “picture taker” and not a photographer.

I’ve been married for a long time now and many of my in-laws traditions are now ours. For example I smoke the turkeys and other meats instead of roasting them in the oven.

Also, the moderate weather in Oklahoma compared to Idaho means that there have been some Thanksgiving dinners have been eaten outside.

AI Thanksgiving — Artificial Intelligence generated photo of a Thanksgiving feast.

We’ve all gotten older and cannot eat as much. I confess we use disposable plates to speed up the cleanup.

5568BD09-47E3-435A-8FCE-03D9C8293DB0 — Jigsaw puzzle I completed recently.

I wish everyone a great Thanksgiving!!

New Update!! Today’s Thanksgiving Photo

Clockwise from upper left, Me, Logan, brother Bob, wife Heather, and MIL Jeanette

Linking with Skywatch Friday

A Walk Along the River in Tulsa

The other day I went on a geocaching hunt on the Arkansas River. The hunt was fun but I really loved the walk even more.

It was very chilly, windy, and sunny. The sun was getting low and I loved the light on the trees and leaves against the clean blue sky.

It was magical.

So I took my time.

At one point I could look all the way down the river to downtown Tulsa.

A closeup.

Back to the sunlight and trees.

What a nice break in the afternoon! Tulsa has lots of nice winter days like this. Of course Winter is 35 days or so away.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in!

Skywatch Friday – Mid November Edition 2022

It looked like a nice sky was possible at dusk the other day so I launched the drone and captured this image. Looking west from south Tulsa.

I went and voted Tuesday morning along with millions of fellow citizens. The highlight was a lady come in to vote. She was 100 years old and very spry. She said Truman was the first President she ever voted for. I loved it. Saw this tree just off the parking lot of my polling place.

I love the trees at Tulsa’s Lafortune Park.

A view from the Ridge Trail on Turkey Mountain looking east out over the Arkansas River and south Tulsa.

A rainbow in our neighborhood.

Some fall color in my mother-in-law’s neighborhood.

And now an image generated by Artificial Intelligence based on the text string I inputted which is below the image. Go generate your images for free at freeimagegenerator.com.

AI mountain lake with fall colors — “mountain lake in the fall with trees fall colors photorealistic”

I’m still trying to decide whether I like AI images or not.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun.

Skywatch Friday – Autumn Beach Vacation

Bridge across the Mississippi on the very long drive to the beach, 13 hours or so.

Mississippi State Forestry Service fire tower. I don’t think they use it any longer.

At Orange Beach, we found this treasure dredging sand at Perdido Pass and making more beach by pumping the dredged material ashore. This is as close as they let us go. Isn’t it beauty. I used to use similar barges laying pipelines in south Louisiana.

Isn’t she a beauty?

I got a few decent beach skies.

Lots of pelicans skimming the waves.

We had several decent days on the beach. The water was way too cold for me. My feet got toasted good in the sun. I promise, no more feet pics. At least for a while.

I got up early one fridged morning and got a decent sunrise. Yes, I used a filter if you must know.

We saw a catamaran out on the water one late afternoon. Nothing better than photographs of sailing vessels I think.

We drove to nearby Pensacola and checked out Pensacola Beach. Gorgeous beach and water. We got out on the pier and saw fisherman catch fish. We saw a sea turtle surface briefly and sharks lurking about. Lots of manta rays. I didn’t have the right camera to capture any of that.

Back at Perdido Pass. We have learned that dolphin cruises and fine and good but the fisherman on the beach will tell you where to go see dolphins. We got to the pass late afternoon and there were tons of dolphins going back and forth. Didn’t have to pay a thing and nobody presented us with a tip jar.

I’m fascinated by Artifical Intelligence generated photos. I got on my goto site for that kind of foolishness, freeimagegenerator.com, and entered: “most colorful orange beach alabama skywatch photo hdr realistic detailed concept art ” on the text prompt and a few seconds later it gave me this image. Strangely enough it looks like about half the shirts for sale in the state. The whole concept is freaky to me. Try the link and let me know what you think. You want to try something really disturbing, enter your name and home address in the text prompt.

That’s about all the foolishness for this week. I’m linking to Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Cool Beach Vibes

We are still at the beach on our family’s vacation. We had a couple of warm days to wear we could sit on the beach for a few hours. The water was warm enough wade in but not for me to get in. Son got in for a little bit but he is young, right? And then it got cold so we go beach walking and hiking in a nearby State Park. Hey you know, a cold day at the beach is still okay.

I hope everybody is doing well!! I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Full Hunter’s Moon and More

The Full Hunter’s Moon from earlier this week.

A vampire muffler man on display on Route 66 in Tulsa.

And a sky from last weekend on Turkey Mountain.

And another sky from Turkey Mountain. You can tell autumn is asserting itself more and more.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!!

Skywatch Friday – Hot Summer Hike

I was up on Turkey Mountain Tuesday afternoon, watering the Monarch Way Station. A nursery had donated some plants to us on Saturday and we planted and watered them that day. It’s been scorching since so I watered them again. Still hot. Fortunately I have pretty good place to watch the watering, and the goings on in the main parking lot. Took me about an hour to do and I decided to go on a short hike.

I drove up to the upper parking lot and took off to what some call the “back country” to the northwest. Not near as many people that way. I saw two mountain bikers and another hiker during my trek. I used a combination of new trails including the above, and…

the older trails which still hold most of the mystery of Turkey Mountain to me. I can feel the history on Turkey Mountain. It’s had farmers, cattlemen, oilfield roughnecks and drillers, moonshining, and up until the cartels put them out of business, meth labs. I still think that there is a lot of monkey business goes on.

I was checking out the trees, many of them are wild and twisted. The competitive forces of nature at work.

Nature is just awesome. Below is the route I took.

And now a bonus section courtesy of NASA. It is the clearest view of Neptune us earthlings have seen since the Voyager 2 satellite moseyed by in 1989. This was shot with the James Webb Space Telescope.

New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades — Photo courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA, STSc under a Creative Commons License. Click on photo to get the details.

It is shot in near infrared light so it is not as blue as previous images. You can see the rings (Neptune has rings? Now I know). And 14 moons!!!

Skywatch Friday – the Moon and More

We had a Full Corn Moon last week paired up with a crystal clear sky.

And some more clear skies on a day when I sneaked onto the new Bales Park trails here in Tulsa. They are putting up a fancy rustic wicket over the trail.

They have a nice boardwalk over a marshy area.

And Bales Park has an overlook to downtown Tulsa not very far away. That land across the freeway to the right is the very northwest end of Turkey Mountain. Nice to have two great public areas so close together. The highway department is redoing a freeway interchange at the center left of the photo. As part of the work the highway guys are putting in a bench to be used as a trail connector between Bales Park and Turkey Mountain. It was a big enough deal that US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came to town and made a press conference at the interchange to talk about the project as part of a project to reconnect parts of Tulsa that have been semi-isolated since the 1950’s. Here is the link to an article about it. Hilarious because Oklahoma’s Representatives and Senators all voted against the project and now they are all taking credit for it.

And switching gears, here is photo that is not mine.

A9597DAC-216F-41B4-882F-60825ABFBE3D — Jigsaw puzzle – not my photo

Another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. I think of Monument Valley. I am not sure.

Fiery Skies in Tulsa

We’ve had some pretty good sunsets in Tulsa lately. Late day weather helps with the clouds in the western sky. One evening I launched my drone and went up about 50 meters. Not much wind which is rare for Oklahoma.

Another day I was taking son somewhere and we had good skies so I was taking shots as I safely could while driving. This is from our house looking west.

And at our church a little later.

And the drive home.

Another day I had to get my car serviced. We live only 0.8 miles from the mechanic so if the weather is good I walk back home. So this is an early morning shot to the east. I have to confess that since I have retired I have not seen very many sunrises.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Check it out, lots of great posts there.

Skywatch Friday – Oklahoma and Wyoming

Below is not my photo. This is a jigsaw puzzle I did on my Ipad of the Mouton Barn at Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. This may be the most photographed barn in the world!!

I’ve always loved Mormon Row, it reminds me of a ranch that my aunt and uncle had in Idaho not that far from this scene in Wyoming. The closed up barn with great patina. The brutal winters mean not too many windows.

This is a photo I made a few years ago. Just looking at how the west barn eave cuts into the tree line I think I was standing just 10 to 20 feet west of where the person who took the photo for the puzzle was standing.

And while we are loosely of the subject of architecture. Above is a photo of Westhope here in Tulsa. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I think it is one of only three of his designs in Oklahoma. I knew of it but had never chased it down until last week when I did a geocaching AdventureLab focusing on oil millionaires houses in Tulsa.

And this is from a bike ride I did earlier this week in Tulsa. The river is the Arkansas River and the hill across the river is Turkey Mountain. An Urban Wilderness in the middle of Tulsa.