Category Archives: Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – A Busy December

December was hard, we buried my brother in Colorado and that was sad. He was a good guy. But we also got to visit my sister and her husband, and two of my top three nieces were there, one of whom had her husband and daughter with her.

We got to see our greatniece, Miss G, skate. A vivacious young lady who although very young is an accomplished skater and we got to see her perform with her ice skating team. That was a thrill for us because they live a long ways from us and we had never seen her ice skate live before. They competed at an event in a Denver suburb. The emphasis is on the team rather than individuals and I was very impressed with the team. They were great. Miss G is a very smart and a natural born athlete.

Back in Tulsa, we had a nice backyard sunrise one morning.

And a strange sign at one of our local water supply lakes.

Stopped by Oral Roberts University to check out the giant healing hands sculpture. The legend is that it you toss a silver dollar up between the hands, then they clasp shut. That was mean wasn’t it. I still like the legend though.

And our small family visited the Tulsa Botanic Gardens for their annual light show. It was wonderful.

I Love Tulsa

I heart Tulsa as well!

And we started going back to church. We hadn’t been since before Covid. Everything was new. I guess that is the way it is.

And part of our Christmas meal. I smoked chicken quarters and pork ribs. Heather cooked a bunch of sides and we had quite a feast.

We went on a family New Years Eve Hike on Turkey Mountain. This is one of my favorite spots. The Lookout Hub on the very highest point overlooking the Arkansas River and south Tulsa. It is ridiculous that NYE was a shorts and tshirt day.

And I went on a few hikes of my own. I’ve found three improvised cedar Christmas Trees. Most people that put them up show up soon after New Year’s and dismantle them. Those that don’t, I dismantle them. I like to have fun but these things don’t age well. Am I getting grumpy in my old age? Probably.

Here is a bicycle flyover on one of the trails. I’ve never taken a bike on Turkey Mountain and I never will. Gravity at my age is not my friend. Can I get an amen??!!

Beach Scene Jigsaw Puzzle
I don’t own the copyright to this.

I’ve done a couple more jigsaw puzzles on my ipad. I love this beach scene.

Teton sunset jigsaw puzzle
I don’t own the copyright to this.

And I love this scene of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming.

So that closes out 2025. The New Year so far is looking great! More to come.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Healing on the Trail

On our trip to Colorado Springs last month when we interred my brother Bob. My sister Ellen suggested we go for a short hike at the Fountain Creek Regional Park where she volunteers weekly in their visitor center.

What a great idea that turned out to be. I’ve been escaping to nature my whole life to get rest, comfort, and rejuvenate myself and this was the perfect park for that. What a jewel, El Paso County has in this park. So the five us hiked a one mile or so loop trail.

They pack a lot in that one mile loop to see.

We saw several mule deer. This butt belongs to one of them. Sorry, that was the best photo I could get.

BIL Irv, found this tiny little geocache (called a nanocache). I went ahead and signed the log even though he found it. Please don’t turn me in to the geocaching police.

“A walk in nature, walks the soul back home” – Mary Davis

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” – Psalm 19:1

“Nature itself is the best physician” – Hippocrates

“I go to nature to be soothed, healed and have my senses put in order.” – John Burroughs

“Allow nature’s peace to flow into you as sunshine flows into trees” – John Muir

So one hike isn’t going to bring anyone peace. It’s a process, not an event and I will always miss my brother.

I’m a big fan of Fountain Creek Regional Park now. Hopefully I’ll be back.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

A Very Merry Christmas Skywatch to You

Today is Christmas, Merry Christmas to you!! This pic is from back in August. My dream is Christmas on the beach one year.

Kodi, the mean Pomeranian wishes you a Merry Christmas. Just don’t try to pet him, or pick him up, or even look at him. Unless you are Heather or Logan, he loves them.

And Lizzy the Christmas Kitty.

And Sadie, the Christmas terrier. She loves everybody, even me. We got her to settle Kodi down and she does. If he gets out of line she flips him over on his back and puts a paw on his chest. Works every time. That’s Lizzy in the background. Sometimes Sadie thinks Lizzy is a squeaky toy but over time she has got more gentle with the cat and now they play pretty good together.

We are not going anywhere for Christmas, just us.

I’m linking up with Skywatch Friday.

Dirty Window Cross Country Road Tripping Skywatching

We drove from Tulsa to Colorado Springs last week. The drive takes all day. My wife and I take turns with the driving. When I’m driving, I just drive. When she is driving, I google all the small towns we pass and give her interesting (to me its interesting) tidbits about the town’s history, attractions, or culture. When I’m not doing that, I take photos.

The entire trip is across the Great Plains of the Midwest. To many they are very boring. I love them. I look for things. Is the land grassland or crops? I’m on the lookout for pipeline infrastructure and try and guess if it is for liquids or natural gas. I also look for wind farms. About 11% of our electrical needs come from wind. Think about all the carbon dioxide not being put into the air because of windfarms. That number is from 2022. I bet it is more than that now.

I love grain elevators. They are so photogenic. When you are up close and have good light. Not so much when you are shooting through a dirty window.

I love hay bales as well. There are hay bale enthusiasts that regard them out the field as an art form. I guess I can see that. Back when I was building pipelines I talked to a lot of farmers about all sorts of things and cutting and baling hay was fascinating. If you don’t let the hay dry out enough before baling it, it will have spontaneous combustion and start on fire where it is. Hopefully in a field, if you are unlucky it will be on your trailer or truck. Just one of the many useless little farming tips I picked up while buying pipeline right of way.

Most of the drive was in Kansas. I love Kansas, especially the work I did there. The thing about Kansas and business is that Kansas likes to protect Kansas based businesses and everybody can look out after themselves. That’s why I called Kansas, the People’s Republic of Kansas. Sometimes I think they took their protectionism a little too far. It’s a nice state though and the people are great.

And cows, there are lots of cows in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. I’ll give you a fun fact about cows that I bet you didn’t know. They only cows that fall into open pipeline ditches and die are prize breeding stock. At least that was what ranchers would tell me when I was trying to settle damages. Yep, they drove all the way to Maine to buy the animal, paid $50,000 dollars for it. For some reason though the cow on the bill of sale is a different color than the cow in the ditch. Ranchers tell me that can happen though. (Actually, 99,9% of ranchers are honest and just want to be treated fairly, but every once in a while you get “that guy.”

And trucks, freeways have lots of truck traffic. I have lots of stories about truckers from back when I was working. Most of them are pretty boring so I’ll spare you.

And then the sun started going down. Sunset lasted a long time.

I like road trips. The wife not so much. I get it.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday on the Drive Home

We had quite the sunset Wednesday evening. I got to photograph it because son Logan now has a drivers license so I get to sit shotgun and kibbitz and take photos and all that because I’m leaving the driving to him. Only occasionally do I scream in fear for my life.

We are heading east so this is a not bad reverse sunset. The sun is behind us and ahead is the sunset reflecting off the sunset.

And then he turns south, still kind of a reverse sunset and getting a little more intense.

And we park at our house. I get out on our driveway and am looking just west. Great color, and no filters, honest!

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

A Season of Moody Introspection

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.

The Tree of Life

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.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanksgiving 2025 Skywatch

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.

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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.

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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.

We miss him. Definitely a happy sad today.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – A Fall Outing at Oxley Nature Center

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.

And another long boardwalk.

And a maple leaf near the end of my walk.

And bonus video content, only 71 seconds long.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Keystone Ancient Forest

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.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Backyard Bonanza 5K Race

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!!

Alan Race 2

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.

Alan Race 1

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.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.