Category Archives: Skywatch Friday

Skywatch – Standup Paddleboarding on Broken Bow Lake

Heather and I on our recent short getaway to southeast Oklahoma had a great combination of activity and rest. We spent a lot of time at the cabin reading but we also spent a lot of time hiking and one afternoon we rented a kayak and a paddleboard at Broken Bow Lake.

The lake is also part of Beavers Bend State Park and we found a concession who is open on the weekend. I got the kayak and Heather got the paddle board. I can do paddle boards, I really can, kind of, but they are a lot of work. Kayaking is a lot easier. Heather loves paddle boards. She teaches a class in our gym’s pool where one stands on the boards and does things. I take the class but I am pretty shaky.

The lake was beautiful and the day was gorgeous. A slight haze in the air. I was wondering if was from the horrendous fires in California, Oregon, and other places in the west.

Being the weekend after Labor Day there were not that many people out on the lake. Seems like most of them were from Texas.

Heather showing her chops with the paddle.

And busting out some yoga moves for good measure.

We were out for two hours. We went here, there, and everywhere.

And then it was time to bring them in.

And of course I wore my Garmin watch to document the adventure. I mean it didn’t really happen if it wasn’t documented, right?

And then back to the cabin to chill. It was a great place to chill. We didn’t spend much times indoors. We spent most of the time on the deck with its sectional couch and the hot tub which I didn’t take a photo of for some reason. So if I didn’t take a picture of it, did it really exist?

I’m so thankful that we could take this little trip.

Anyway, we had a great time. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Go check it out.

Skywatch Friday – “Pops” on Route 66

We had our son with us for the Labor Day weekend. On the way from college to home, we jumped off the interstate and got on a short section of Route 66, “The Mother Road” just for a change. We stopped at Pops. A convenience store with several hundred kinds of soda and a cafe in Arcadia, Oklahoma just northeast of Oklahoma City.

They feature this gigantic soda bottle. The bottle has a geocache that I found years ago.

Logan got a triple cola something.

And I got this peach soda. I generally try and get a blackberry cream soda of some sort but we were trying to maintain social distancing and there were people paralyzed with indecision crowding around the cooler in one area so I moved to the Peach section. It was really good!!

Anyway we downed our sodas and were on our way.

We are traveling this week and so I won’t be spending as much time online as what I usually do so I apologize for not being able to comment on your blog like I usually do. The Skywatch Friday meme is set up and should be okay. There is a fourteen minute delay in the Linky’s clock compared to everybody else’s in the world. I don’t know what to do about it.

Anyway, come join the fun at Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Bridges and Such

This is the beloved Pedestrian Bridge across the Arkansas River that I posted earlier. I posted a similar photo on the Abandoned Oklahoma facebook group and boy talk about a strong response. Most people want to keep it and are outraged that nobody got any notice. Seriously folks, its been in the news for three years. It’s a little late because the demolition contractor moved this last Monday. I got messages asking if it would be possible to get a bridge section. I don’t know folks, I’m just the picture taker. Call the River Parks!! I’ll miss the bridge but am looking forward to the new one.

A play castle at Tulsa’s fabulous Gathering Place. Oh to be a kid again.

A cool sign on the drive to Sequoyah State Park. I was by a year or so ago and the motel was all run down with a for sale sign. It sold, the place is spruced up and it looked like they had a lot of people there. I love it.

And a 90% full moon. We had a big bright moon, but it wasn’t full but with rain in the forecast I went ahead and took this photo.

I hope that everybody is staying healthy. Here in Oklahoma, Covid is surging and our Governor is not really doing anything about so our family is still hiding out, wearing our masks, and avoiding clusters.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Colorful Skies

We had some color in the sky the other day so I fired up the drone and sent it up from the back yard. The color was not to the west because there were no clouds. The above shot is to the north.

This is to the east.

And northeast across the greenbelt.

I am thinking about the victims of Hurricane Laura which made landfall early Thursday morning in southwest Louisiana and is still causing damage far inland as I write this.

Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Pavement and Totem Poles Edition

The past week I’ve been walking the paved trails in Tulsa and suburbs checking out the condition of the pavement. INCOG (“Indian Nations Council of Governments”) asked trail users to participate so they can determine the condition of the various trails. INCOG is an agency that works with the various city and country governments on infrastructure planning and coordination.

This section has it all, transverse, longitudinal and alligator cracking.

They gave us a cool GIS (“Geographical Information System”) app on our phones to report what we find. Plus we got some materials on what to look for. So I have found out about longitrudinal, transverse, and net cracking along with skreveling and other technical terms.

Easy to find, hard to open. Bring Deet and don’t come if you allergic to poison ivy. Pro tip, if you don’t know if allergic to poison ivy, just assume that you are.

I’ve taken the opportunity to chase after a few geocaches in the adjacent woods. This one is a “gadget cache”. Easy to find but hard to get into. I pondered this one for a several minutes before I figured out what to do then about 20 minutes to open it up, sign the log, and put it back together.

Here is another one that I found. Unfortunately it has been vandalized by somebody so it didn’t work right. Gadget caches are all the rage now in geocaching.

I also found this deer feeder deep in the woods on public land.

And I did a daily good deed in helping this little old turtle across the road like a good former boy scout.

So far I have only done about 4 miles. That takes 8 miles of walking because I have to walk back to my car. Not too many loops of reasonable distance. There were about fifty volunteers I am guestimating but it doesn’t look like very many of them are actually doing anything. There is about 200 miles of trails all told, I think.

On another note, last week after I went to the Will Rogers Fly-In I drove over to Ed Galway’s Totem Pole Park near the small town of Foyil. I had been there before but this time I took my drone so I could take a better look.

It is right off US 66 and is a must see stop if you are touring the highway.

It was built by a guy, Ed Galway. The main totem pole was built by him between 1937 and 1948. The park has other totems but on this trip I was just interested in the main pole. I think this is my third trip to the park. Here are some links of previous posts.

Ed Galways’s Park is one of my favorite Route 66 Stops. It is so over the top and unique. And it is free!! I like free. They have a gift shop. Go get a cap or something.

And finally, our beloved Ginger went to the big puppy park in the sky yesterday. She was fourteen years old and had multiple issues. She is in a much better place now. Our critters just don’t live long enough.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come join the fun.

Skywatch Friday – from the Archives

This week has not been a good one for picture taking. We are getting our son ready to go back to college and working with contracts getting ready to freshen the house up a little. So I am off into my archives. I searched for photos taken in August.

This is Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. A regular 18 hole golf course, par three course, little league and Pony League baseball fields, Tennis Center, Memorial High School, a Library, Gardens with fishing ponds, and wrapped up by a three mile walking path. If I had a dollar for every lap I have run or walked on that route, I would be a major thousandaire.

Two years ago in August I visited my sister Ellen, working as a Seasonal Park Ranger at Yellowstone Park. We had a great time. The forest fires out west that year made for great sunrises. (and sunsets).

And of course we visited Old Faithful, and she blew off a steam to a big crowd.

A workover rig on a recently fracked well in western Oklahoma a couple years ago. Not too much drilling or fracking going on right now!!

Morning sky over some horse stables north of Tulsa. Son did therapeutic horseback riding for years at this place.

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

Skywatch Friday – Views From Above & Below

We are still having nice skies along with a lot cooler weather. Yesterday morning I walked outside to get the paper and was greeted with a great sky. (And yes, I did use a filter, I hope you don’t mind).

I’m still flying my drone, mainly in periscope mode. The above video is an example. I just take it straight up and the gps in the drone holds its position. I couldn’t take it too far up because of windy conditions in this video.

Earlier, I got it higher and took some pics of the neighborhood and sky. I used a filter on these because otherwise the items on the ground were black.

Another view looking soutwest showing the local elementary school.

And straight west, one can see clouds starting to pile up.

And straight north across the greenspace.

And we had a Full Moon the other day. Since it is August, they call it the Sturgeon Moon. I love full moons, what about you.

Prior to the Trump Rally in Tulsa way back in June some local community members went out and painted this mural on Greenwood Avenue. Now the local community and the city are trying to figure out what to do with it. Many people would like to keep it but the problem is of course what keeps other groups from painting streets with their own messages. I’m hoping that they can keep it somehow.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Rainy Season

After a dry June things have been rainy in July. Makes for green country side and interesting skies. Northeast Oklahoma is called Green Country for a reason.

Here’s a shot from directly over our house to son Logan’s first elementary school less than a block away. Remember when schools were open and had classes. Good times right! The state of Oklahoma is letting every district decide for themselves how to handle the coming school year and it is amazing the variety of programs the administrators of the various districts have come up with.

Went on a walk yesterday at Lafortune Park and got rained on a little bit. I don’t mind, as long as I can keep the phone dry.

Here is a beer truck Skywatch shot. Too bad it is crap beer.

Lafortune Park has the prettiest crepe myrtle I have ever seen. It has all sorts of room to itself and gets full sun all day long. I think the staff has been taking very good care of it as well.

Son and I took the drone to north Tulsa’s Reservoir Hill subdivision and took some shots of the Tulsa Arrow. The Tulsa Arrow was originally put up for Charles Lindbergh’s transcontinental flight to show the way to the airport. Apparently all sorts of cities put arrows for that purpose way back when. A few years ago the subdivision’s residents recreated the arrow. You can see the story here. I think it is pretty cool. I have a geocache nearby.

That’s it for this week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in!!

Skywatch Friday – More Droning On

After basically a month of no clouds except blue sky we are finally getting some weather. So if the winds are down I launch my drone from my back yard to catch the clouds.

Evening is best when you get a little color in the sky.

This is looking east at the back side of a storm system that came through.

We had a quick rainstorm pass through Thursday morning. Here’s our back patio afterward. Nice to see all that water!!

I took my drone to my MIL’s house who lives not too far away and launched it during the middle of the day. I love big old fat clouds against a blue sky.

Hey somebody in a swimming pool. No, I am not spying somebody. That’s son Logan in MIL’s swimming pool. It’s a great place to hang out on a hot day.

Here he is when he was four years old. Is there anything sweeter or more rambunctious than a four year old?

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

Skywatch Friday – Harvey Young Airport

I was out geocaching in east Tulsa the other day when I noticed a sign for Harvey Young Airport. The name sounded vaguely familiar so I drove down the road until it dead ended into the airport which had no gate or fence but a big No Trespassing sign. I always respect those and so stopped and took a couple of photos. There was not a whole lot to take photos.

There was this old hangar. I posted this on Forgotten Oklahoma facebook group and somebody responded that it once housed an aircraft mechanic’s facility. The glassed in part was the office and the rest of it was where the work took place.

The airport was started by a guy named Harvey Young who landed in a pasture back in 1940 and ended up buying the land. It became a base for training military pilots during World War II and then reverted back to General Aviation afterward. Somebody bought the airport and announced big plans in 2017 to demolish the buildings and build new and cater to vintage airplanes. It doesn’t look like much has happened since then. The developer still has his web site up.

This was the only aircraft I saw. A Beechcraft Bonanza. They have been in production since right after World War II. The V tail is its distinctive feature although there are Bonanza’s out there with the conventional tale. I found out that the Bonanza is also known as the Doctor Killer because it is a very expensive, high performance aircraft, and lots of professionals like doctors buy them but don’t have the necessary skills to fly it. Someone who is a pilot and has flown it told me that the V tail model in particular is very hard to control if you get into a spin.

A brand new Bonanza will cost you about one million dollars.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday.