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.
I was at Tulsa’s Gathering Place Monday evening for a presentation having to do with Monarch Butterflies. After the presentation I wandered over to the nearby Arkansas River to see what I could see.
The Williams Crossing pedestrian bridge was open and all lit up. Just using my old iphone I took a few photos. They are not too bad. This is a view from downstream of the bridge.
And the view from upstream. The lights reflect nicely on Zink Lake.
Across the way, on the downstream side, is Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. An ancient old plant that is still active. Long time ago I worked for the pipeline company that delivered natural gas to the plant. It was always the last plant to come on during high demand periods and the first to be turned off when electric requirements tailed off.
I went kayaking on the Arkansas River’s Zink Lake last fall and got this photo of the bridge and power plant together.
The Williams Crossing bridge replaced and old railroad bridge that got converted to pedestrian service back in the 1980’s I think. It was a pretty cool structure itself. Here is a photo from before it was demolished to make way for the new bridge.
I checked on construction on the new bridge pretty frequently. About once a week or every other week depending on the season. Like all construction it seemed to go slow.
From our vacation to the Gulf Coast of Alabama earlier this year. This is an inland scene in a bay near Orange Beach. We had a great time and I took lots of photos.
This book themed sculpture is outside one of our local Tulsa libraries. I love all things books.
And an action cam photo from one of my bike rides here in town. I love this old natural gas powered electric generating station. The sign on top is neon and looks great from the other side of the Arkansas River. The camera mounts on my handlebars and takes a photo every three seconds. I don’t keep all of them. Typically I have about 1500 photos of which ten to twenty are ones I want to keep. I can do the winnowing quickly, typically in about ten to 15 minutes.
From our vacation last month. A distant rain shower moving across the Gulf of Mexico.
And in the neighborhood here in Tulsa a colorful sunset.
And not photo, not my copyright, although somebody holds it. A jigsaw puzzle I finished earlier this week. The sky was a bugger on this one. I’m working on a sea turtle puzzle now. It’s really hard.
This is a park just off downtown Tulsa. It used to be known as Centennial Park but is now known as Veterans Park. It’s a very nice retreat. Lots of landscaping and it has a trail that goes around and a big pond and some other water features.
Back when I worked this was part of one of my downtown running routes.
The building in the background is now home to Tulsa City Parks. I just happened to have a meeting over there and so I got there intentionally early so I would have time for a brief walk around the pond.
Not AI – I used Dynamic Auto Painter to modify a photograph.
The thing about a beach vacation is the beach and the water. Here is a scene from our condo balcony on the fifth floor with the gentle morning waves of the Gulf of Mexico rolling up on the beach. So we’d watch the Gulf from our condo with our morning coffee, breakfast, and newspapers. Then later we’d go hang out on the beach and then we would do a walk on the beach. Then we would go out and about town and return to beach in the late afternoon and then when it got dark we were back out on the balcony watching the Gulf some more. It was heaven.
Our beach vacation is ending soon. We’ve walked miles on the beach, spent hours on the beach. Ate a lot of really good food, read books, stayed up late on our balcony and really had a good low key time. Back to reality soon.
We are having our family vacation in Alabama’s Gulf Coast. We love the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. This is a shot on Wolf Bay at Orange Beach. So I am on “minimal blogging mode.” I’m taking lots of photos to generate “content” as the youngsters say. The Skywatch Friday pages are already made and will come up as normal this week and next.
On Sunday, July 20 a couple weeks ago I took off on a bike ride on the Tulsa RiverParks. It was hot and I didn’t start until midmorning for various reasons so things got a little warm.
Sunday is a big day for Tulsans to get outside and ride their bikes, run, walk, whatever on the RiverParks. The traffic is mainly on the east bank so I started out on the east bank and went up and down the west bank just to get away from people.
Still, it was pretty busy but not overly so.
I was passed by almost everybody except…
…for people standing.
I always love going by PSO’s old Tulsa Power Station electric generating station. That sign looks really nice at night.
I got to my predetermined turnaround point and rested a bit and drank some water and then reversed course. I always check the weather apps to see which way the wind is blowing. I don’t mind riding into the wind on the outbound leg, that way I have the wind at my back going back to my car.
I was one hot, thirsty, old bike rider at the end! 14 miles all told.
