Category Archives: Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Ida Skies

We had some nice skies for part of the week. I think they were offshoots of Hurricane Ida. The victims of the storm are in my thoughts. So many people had to leave their homes. It’s going to be a long time before they get the electricity turned on. The storm continued up to the east coast causing flooding and tornadoes. What a miserable storm Ida was.

I went looking for a geocache. The spoiler is that I didn’t find it but I found something else. I was looking at the these cottonwood trees and it looked kind of funny.

It’s hard to see it in this photo but there is a trail that starts out and goes down to the Arkansas River. I was checking it out and a guy with a fishing rod came by and we chatted a bit. For a minute I thought it was Jimmy John Shark. Apparently you walk down the trail to the river, wade across part of the river and climb up on a sandbar and right there is a big hole that he says is full of catfish. You learn something new every day. I tried explaining geocaching to him and I could kind of tell the young man was worried about me. He was wondering if I was right in my head.

I wasn’t fishing, I was geocaching and the cache was hidden in the rip rap. I clambered around looking in all the nooks and crannies and couldn’t find it. Apparently nobody else could either. I got an email from the owners who said that they checked and it was missing and they are going to replace it soon.

On the way out I passed a tube bending company in an industrial area. They built this thing to show off their craft. Tube bending is useful in making chemical and refinery processing equipment, especially heaters and such. Tulsa has a lot of oilfield manufacturing companies and expertise.

The next day I went on a bike ride on the RiverParks trails along the Arkansas River here in Tulsa. I stopped to check out the construction of the new low water dam and pedestrian bridge. I think that it is going to be another two years or so before they are done. I’m looking forward to it. Click here for a look at the conceptual design.

And finished up at what I call the Bear Fountain near where I parked my care. The temp was in the low 90’s F but the heat index was about a 105 F. Time to go get cooled off. I was going to go geocaching again but didn’t want to get back out in the heat.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday – come join in!!

Table Rock Lake’s Moonshine Beach

During our recent mini-vacay to the Branson, Missouri area we were looking for outdoor stuff away from people and the standard Branson faire such as shows and shopping. We did kayaking, swimming, and walking. We found a beautiful little beach area on Table Rock Lake called Moonshine Beach.

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It’s a Corps of Engineers facility that has clean restrooms, a sizeable roped off swimming area, and a beautiful sand beach. It also has a boat launching area separate from the swimming area. It also has a geocache for those who are interested. (Yes, of course I found it). Check out the Corps Website for all the details.

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There is a $5 fee per car access fee, or the take Federal passes that some of us old retired guys have. It’s well worth it. The grounds are clean and picked up and the bathrooms are immaculate. We went on a weekday and there was enough people there to provide a good vibe but one could definitely socially distance at least 50 feet from people. Alcohol is not allowed which contributes to the vibe. It’s open until 8 pm. At 7:30 a very polite Park Ranger showed up and reminded us of the 8 pm closure.

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And on top of all this, you get great views of the lake especially as the sun was going down.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come check it out.

Skywatch Friday – Vacation Edition

This week I didn’t know if I was going to be able to post a Skywatch Friday post. Our son is going back to school soon and we wanted to give him some sort of vacation after his summer of taking Spanish classes online (three hours a day, four days a week of Zoom, ouch, I hate zoom), working hard at Loews Hardware, and socially isolating during this resurgence of Covid in a state that is not doing anything it about in order to maintain “freedom and justice for all.” (Yes, literally the state is doing nothing at all.)

So we said goodbye to our worthless cats and incredulous dogs.

Loaded up the car like the Okies we are and headed to Branson, Missouri. (Aka, the “Baptist Las Vegas”) to stay at a cabin for fun and social isolation. No shows, no, Silver Dollar City, no elbow to elbow jostling with anybody, cook most of our own meals and go at off times and eat outside when we do go out to eat.

This cabin had some strict rules. Most cabins have don’t type rules, this cabin had “do” rules. We liked these rules, what about you?

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The first day we went kayaking. It doesn’t get more socially distant than this.

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So we went here, there, and everywhere in the cove of the place we were staying.

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So we have done a ton of reading, hanging out at the swimming pool, and just kind of in general chillaxing.

We made one trip into the “Belly of the Beast” Branson Landing which is pretty much deserted. Taney County, which includes Branson has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the county, about 30% according to the state. I’m like wow! A city so dependent on outside visitors is doing everything they can to discourage travelers. Their brand new mayor is actually proud of their anti public health stance. What are we doing here!! We walked up and down the deserted area without entering any of the places that were open. Personally, I think they would be smart to get ahead of the issue instead of sticking their head in the sand.

Back in our bubble!! They skies are pretty cool. I tried to fly my drone but the cabin in in a no fly zone for some reason. Probably because we are so close to the lake.

Cabin internets are highly variable and I didn’t think that I would be able to post from there so I set Skywatch Friday up in advance and thought well I’ll just post when I get home but it turns out it is blazingly fast. So I am linking up with Skywatch Friday. Come join us!!

August Skies in Oklahoma

I have a mish-mash this week. Many of the photos are from my Go Pro Clone so the quality is not that great. I set it to take a photo every ten seconds during my bike rides so I get hundreds of photos and keep only a few per ride.

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I went riding on the Arkansas River Trails her in Tulsa. They have this huge flag at 61st street and I love it when the breeze makes it fly full. That happens a lot here in Oklahoma. Are you familiar with the musical Oklahoma! you may remember:

“where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. And the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet. When the wind comes right behind the rain.”

The wind blows here all the time, rain or no rain, wheat or no wheat.

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School is starting and so not very many people on the trails except old retired guys and moms with their babies.

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I always feel like I am in a cage going across this bridge. If I see somebody coming I stop and let them come across. After my head on bike collision last year, I know the unthinkable can happen.

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Went past one of the two Holly Frontier refineries here in Tulsa. I’m a chemical engineer by training and so I love the TST’s and LRO’s. (Tall Shiny Things and Large Round Objects). So you are now a chemical engineer also!!

Hey, here is a decent photo. I went on another trail south of Tulsa the other day. Only about 10 miles round trip but that is a decent length for me.

The same trail went across a revamped pedestrian bridge. It was so cool and up to date. I read that “Love Locks” are a pain for many places but here they have designed a couple Love Lock stations. I love responsive stuff like that.

They had seating and covered areas and built in musical instruments for kids. I thought the whole thing was marvelous.

Later I went to Mad Dog Liquors in east Tulsa. In addition to being a liquor store it is a graffiti permission zone. The liquor store part of it seems to be closed (again) but that doesn’t stop the taggers. I love this work. If you look closely you can see it has a pipeline motif. I am trained as a chemical engineer but I spent a bunch of my career designing, building, operating, and doing commercial things with natural gas pipelines. You know what they say, “Nothing finer than a pipeliner.” Actually only pipeliners say that. That doesn’t mean its not true though, right?

And so time to end this mish mash mess. I’m linking it up with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – August, Osage County

July, Osage County, Oklahoma

I actually took this photo in July, not August, but I loved the Play and the Movie. I have figured out where the exterior shots for the movie were filmed and I am going to visit the house one of these days. Not going to buy it though. Five bedrooms and one bathroom.

Went riding my bike on the RiverParks on Wednesday. I’ve always loved this group of cottonwood trees. One of them formed a rainbow over the trail and it finally broke off and the RiverParks Authority had to remove it. You can see the stump on the lower right hand corner of the photo above.

And a photo from Turkey Mountain from one of my recent outings.

I hope everybody is doing well. Covid in Oklahoma is skyrocketing so our family is back to avoiding people and wearing masks in stores and other inside places.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Running Through the Woods

I went on a recently on Turkey Mountain. It was morning but it was hot but the trails were shady.

I was also looking for a geocache. I thought it was below the above ledge so I climbed down below and nope, there is another ledge further down and I needed to get below that. It was too hot and sticky so, as we say in the energy biz, I temporarily abandoned that project for a day when I feel better. Getting down ledges is easy, getting back up is sometimes harder. Further south there is a trail I could descent to and walk out. So I’ll finish this on another day.

It was still morning as I made my way back and the morning sun was making the leaves glow green. It kind of reminded me of a stained glass window except it was bright green. It has been wet this summer and the leaves and grass still have that fresh green look to them.

Went by Wagon Wheel Lake and it was full and overflowing. I have seen it dry as a bone by this time some years.

Sky to the south one afternoon.

I’m still flying my drone. I am kind of boring. I send it straight up and rotate it. I don’t want to fly it over anybody’s property but mine. Most of the time I go to 50 meters. Doesn’t seem very high but I can hardly see it at that height. You don’t get much better views higher than that and I can maintain control of the aircraft. I went up to 75 meters and suddenly the controller said it had lost contact and was going to try and land the drone automatically. That was kind of panicy but the drone came on down and reestablished contact so I kept it up in the air.

Sky to the northwest another day.

So I am not too adventurous it. It costs too much money. I know guys who fly their across rivers and subdivisions and all that. Not me I am not flying it anywhere I can’t walk to it, legally. Plus if it fell it could hurt somebody and I would feel terrible. It is tiny, only 249 grams in weight but something like that falling from 100 feet would give somebody a headache or worse.

I am amazed by the device. It is a technological marvel. It can fly for thirty minutes, it takes great photos, and stays rock solid when you stop it due to its built in GPS. If I can fly it, anybody can.

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

Skywatch Friday – Summertime non-Blues Edition

We’ve had some pretty good skies up until just very recently when the smoke from the forest fires in the west showed up and grayed or pinked everything out.

The morning that I took these pics, the air was cool and fresh, a front was blowing through. We live for such summer mornings here in Tulsa.

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A 5/8ths moon on a clear night a few days ago. Last night the moon was orange because of the haze.

Last weekend my wife and I visited some Parade of Homes houses. We love checking out the new styles. Here in Tulsa we are seeing a lot less brick and stacked rock on the outside and lots more stucco and squared off lines with dark trim. Times and styles change. I captured the above pic at a new subdivision. Pretty darn muddy.

This is a good place to get cleaned up. We like to look at the big expensive houses. It’s the only way we’ll get into one, legally. Wealthy people apparently like big bathrooms and I guess to save time they like to shower together. I hope they have a big water tank. Most likely they have a tankless water heater. We priced one as our old tank water heater has got some years on it and wow! They are expensive.

And here is a big tub with a built in diving platform. Careful!! The water is kind of shallow.

Here, you can belly flop off the vanity if you like. I like the frosted glass. This was a very light room. We see so many houses with big picture windows right over the tub. Kind of a waste. We have a big picture window over our tub. We installed blinds on that window and they have never been open. Nor will they be!! Ever!!

That’s enough foolishness for today I think. Everybody be safe out there! Oklahoma is now a top ten state in Covid cases per capita. We have only 40% of the population fully vaccinated. Fortunately the most vulnerable population, 65 and over, is about 80% vaccinated. Unfortunately ages 12 to 20 is only about 20% vaccinated. So we have a situation here. It’s frustrating because so many other countries do not have widespread access to a vaccine yet and so many people here disdain it. My wife and I, fully vaccinated, have started limiting again our exposure to indoor crowds and wear masks in indoor situations.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in!!

Skywatch Friday – Bike Ride at Oxley Nature Center and Mowhawk Park

Monday I loaded my bike up and headed to Oxley Nature Center and Mohawk Park which are located adjacent to each other in north Tulsa.

The Zoo is there also and it was a zoo both inside and outside the cages. Everybody in town was there. Hardly anybody was out on the roads and paved trails of Oxley and Mohawk.

Handmade Cloth Marigolds

I saw some of the installations for the The American Dream that I missed on my last outing here while hiking with Logan. The American Dream is part of the Greenwood Art Project that was held in conjunction of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Here is my post on my last visit. Check out the The American Dream site for more information on it.

This tent is part of the installation. It symbolizes the tents that the massacre survivors lived in after the homes were burned. Reportedly some of the survivors escaped the massacre by going to what is now Oxley.

The inside walls are covered with photographs from the Massacre. Most of the installations for this project at Oxley were vandalized just a few weeks ago. It’s unknown who did it.

But I was back on the quiet trails of Oxley. I saw four deer, a small green snake, and lots of birds and butterflies.

Here’s a track of my wibble wobbly route.

Back at home, I am still launching my drone from my backyard when the skies look interesting.

I caught a rain shower to the north on midafternoon.

Other things going on. Wife, Heather taught a cardio drumming class at our gym. It was a “pop-up” class. Everybody had a good time.

First Light on Backyard Flowers

The flowers are still growing. Here is a shot from early Wednesday morning catching the first light.

The grass is still growing. I turned on my Garmin GPS Sport Watch while mowing the yard so it tracked my movements. Our lot is about 1/6th of an acre, so very small and I walked about two miles. The grass was long and I cross hatched it so you can see that in the front yard (lower part of map). It also looks like I ventured into both of my neighbors houses. (I deny everything!)

Moon

I usually shoot full moons but we didn’t have one this week so here is a 1/8th moon. Sometimes we just have to go with what we are given!!

That’s about it for this week. I hope you are doing well and staying safe.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join us!!

Skywatch Friday – Turkey Mountain Hike

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The other day I went to my yoga class and decided that I wanted to go hiking or walking so I went to Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa.

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I parked in the lower lot, which I hardly ever do, and took the Red Trail which is kind of short. It has been a long time I have been on it. I was looking for just two miles or so. It was hot and humid.

About a quarter mile in on the trail I came across this electric cord strung across the trail. I have no idea why it was there. I hope somebody wasn’t trying to injure somebody. It was too high for a runner or walker but somebody on a horse could be injured or a bicyclist maybe sitting up. So I sent in the lat langs and the photo to the RiverParks office for them to take a look at it. I didn’t have any way of cutting it down. I have no idea why anybody would do such a dangerous thing.

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At the bottom of the Red Trail it was pretty muddy.

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And then you finish the Red Trail by going up to the parking lot on the paved trail. That was only about a mile so I wanted one more so I headed out on the Yellow Trail to get some extra distance.

RiverParks has put in a new selfie station on the trail. So here I am. Older, fatter, balder, and dumber than the last time you saw me.

I went out on an overlook I had never been on before and explored briefly a couple trails I had never been on. I could have sworn I have been on them all.

So here are my wibbly wobbly wanderings. No, I was not drunk!! I was pretty sweaty.

And from an earlier evening, a drone shot of the sunset from about 30 meters over our back yard.

And a morning skywatch shot from ground level.

And from three years ago plus or minus. A drilling rig in the STACK play of Oklahoma. The fracking vendor was setting up his frack tanks and positioning the pumps in preparation of fracking the well. You can see the green pipes laying on the ground. The gas gatherer is building their pipeline to the well pad. The well is fracked over a day or so and then they flow the water back from the well into tanks and then the gatherer takes the gas as soon as it is available. If the gatherer is a day late, the economic loss is permanent because you can’t flow twice as much the next day. So lots of pressure to get the timing right right on everything. Despite all that it was a pretty summer day in Oklahoma with beautiful clouds.

I hope that everybody is having a good week.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Road Trip to Osage County

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Tuesday, I didn’t have anything going on and son, Logan, didn’t have school or work so we decided to head up to the little city of Pawhuska in Osage County about an hour northwest of Tulsa.

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Martin Scorsese is filming “Killers of the Flower Moon” in Pawhuska. We were able to get some glimpses of the set. They have taken a big part of downtown and transformed it back to the early 20th century by putting dirt down on top of the asphalt and redoing the fronts of many buildings. The movie people have taken over the whole town with all their trailers and equipment. It is very interesting. The movie is being directed by Martin Scorsese and is starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.

The movie is based on a non-fiction book that describes how Osage Indians were systematically murdered in the early twentieth century for their money. It was the first case that the newly created FBI worked on. It is a great read.

After checking out the movie guys and gals, Logan and I went to Pawhuska’s swinging bridge across bird creek. It is pretty bouncy but I felt safe on it. It bounces more than it swings.

And great photos of the sky over the muddy Bird Creek.

And then we decided to head out of town to check out Blue Stem Falls. I had to stop and get photos on the way. Osage County is beautiful.

But just short of our destination the road was overrun with water. Turn around, don’t drown is my motto. So we’ll check it out next time.

And I saw this sign. I asked Logan if he had news for me and his mother.

Price Tower

We went back to Tulsa via Bartlesville. Home of the Price Tower. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only high rise he designed that actually got built. The 19 floors are cantilevered from a central core which gave Wright the opportunity to use lots of glass on the exterior walls since they had no structural function. The structure now houses a hotel, restaurant, and an arts center. I think it is the coolest high rise in Oklahoma.

And Route 66 doesn’t go through Bartlesville but it is home to Phillips 66 who has this big 66 just waiting for me to use it in honor of me being 66 years old this year.

And then after some barbecue in Bartlesville we headed home. Still had big skies but the threatened rain didn’t happen.

And that evening we had a pretty cool sunset which I captured with my drone.

And so we had a pretty cool time. I’m linking to Skywatch Friday. Check it out. I’m also linking with Skyview!