Our little family and sister Ellen spent a long weekend in Idaho Falls, Idaho visiting our Dad. While there we went on a walk along the Snake River. The city has some beautiful trails along the river. Idaho is such a beautiful state even in “The Falls” where the land is kind of flat. The skies can certainly be spectacular.
Skywatch Friday
The 240th edition of the Fourth of July is over (241 actually because you have to count the original one right) and we celebrated in fine style in Tulsa by gum Oklahoma. I got up early in the morning and went downtown and ran in the Firecracker 5K. The above is a feature of my phone called “Crop me in.” I love it even though it looks strange. Anyways, I ran it, hard, didn’t place but had a good time including three craft beers. I’m old, crafty, and sneaky so I know how to cut in the beer line without anybody noticing. I have to be that way because I run so blessed slow that I get to the beer line late. Just think of it as a way of handicapping.
Tell you what, I don’t know how many houses are on our street, maybe forty or fifty over several blocks, but there were only three showing the flag. Less and less every year. Can’t get much less than three.
Later that day, in the evening we made our way downtown to see fireworks. The city always does a good job with them. It always seems like a hassle but in the end it is worth it.
Everybody went Ooooh
And Ahhhh
So anyways, I’m an infrequent and irregular blogger these days. Busy, busy, busy, so I’m doing my Skywatch Friday post early this week. I hope that is okay with everybody.
Take care
I captured this on one of my evening after work runs on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. I carry a Nikon AW110 point and shoot camera when I run. It is water proof, shock proof, and idiot proof. I also found out that it has “in camera” editing of the pic. So I did that on this photo of Pepsi Lake on the mountain. I loved what it did to the sky and to the reflection on the lake.
I have also been experimenting around with blog buttons. Below is my first attempt. Copy the URL and use it on your blog if you wish.
Skywatch Friday
I snapped this a few weeks ago while walking our dogs in our neighborhood green space. I liked the big fluffy clouds.
I’m going way old school here. This is a double exposure of a road crossing in east Texas in 2014 using on of my analog Lomography Cameras with a square frame. I love analog cameras although I haven’t used one in a long time for various reasons. With film cameras is a high cost, high risk endeavor because it may take a few days to see if what you tried was usable or not. My batting average is not very high but I like this.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday
Hawaii last year during our cruise. The weather is wonderful and the skies ever changing. I will always remember our trip and and hopeful that I will be able to return.
Earlier this week I sneaked back up to my old work area on the 17th floor to take a late afternoon pic of the sky to the west along with the Arkansas River. Of course me being me had to try out a few filters on the photo to give a little more character than what it had originally.
It turns out okay but I wish I could get the Aloft Hotel chain that bought our old City Hall and converted it to a loft hotel (whatever that is) to take their sign down. I can’t imagine that an old office building would make a very good hotel but what do I know? I mean besides nothing.
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday
This is the sky on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain late one afternoon last week. We have had so many beautiful blue skies so much lately it was nice to see some clouds. Clouds mean rain and rain is generally good. I saw my first snake of the season literally about 10 seconds after I took this photo. He was a little tiny guy so I wasn’t too worried about him. After the weather warmed up a few weeks ago some of my trail running friends posted photos of the first copperheads of the season. I’ve seen lots of snakes on the mountain but never a copperhead. I intend to keep it that way.
I went running in the Tulsa suburb of Jenks a couple weeks ago and when I finished up in the late afternoon this tree was yelling for my attention. I had to maneuver around to get a photo free of billboards and power lines but here it is. You can see one of the Cityplex towers of south Tulsa to the left. And I confess, I had to improve on nature a little bit, or at least the image my camera presented me, so I jacked it up with some Topaz Impressions software.
Anyways, this Friday is the 13th, the only one we have in 2016, so watch yourself!!
Heather, Logan, and I were in western Oklahoma Wednesday evening and most of the day Thursday for the funeral of Heather’s cousin who died unexpectedly last Saturday. Funerals are a good thing. We honor the deceased and the survivors and the family gathers to mourn their losses together and strengthen ties. We also get to see people we haven’t seen in a long time. After the funeral, when everybody goes home, is when the real work starts for those most affected. They have to figure out what they are going to do now and tomorrow, and the day after that.