Late Wednesday evening I finished my weekly run on Turkey Mountain. When I saw the CityPlex Towers brilliantly reflecting the low sun at my back.
It was at the perfect angle to reflect right back at me. The towers are the site where in 1980 the evangelist Oral Roberts claimed to see a 900 foot tall Jesus. (The building is about 600 feet tall.)
Now that would be a picture!
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Weekend Reflections
Saturday afternoon I went geocaching all by myself on Turkey Mountain. Sweetie had things to do at the Tulsa Garden Center and SuperPizzaBoy was visiting a friend.
So off on the trail I went.
Turkey Mountain has a wild wooly history. An old oilfield and moonshiners hangout. Lots of relics that I don’t understand.
Old campsite for “Occupy Turkey Mountain” maybe?
Anybody need basic transportation.?
Enough about the “things” on Turkey Mountain. Lets talk about the people. There is a pecking order on the mountain. Like the people below are strollers.
And above them, are the hikers.
And then above the hikers are the trail runners.Trail runners are very cool people. They have a lot going for them
And then of course at the top you have Geocachers, such as the lady below. Sophisticated and Classy, the two most common adjectives applied to geocachers. Surely you agree.
Sorry, I got off track. I did find something interesting. I didn’t know it before but I evidence of the little people on Turkey Mountain. Fellow geocacher M5 reported on them earlier. I knocked but nobody was home.
I also found myself in a situation that no old fat guy ever wants to be in. Can’t go down!
Can’t go up!
The Little People were no help.
Thanks M5 for another two great caches in Turkey Mountain.
I wore my fancy schmancy Garmin watch during my hunt. Below is the track. If you hit the green button it takes you to the Garmin website. Hit the play button and you can see the route I traversed.
Well, its October and the weather here in Oklahoma is wonderful. Cool nights, warm dry days. Makes me want to get out of the house. So I decided you know, its time to plant another geocache.
I had the container. Sweetie never complains but I use lots better containers for geocaches than she gets for our household use.
And then some Walmart camo duct tape. I scored the last roll they had. Sorry!!
Voila, makes me want to dig up all my poor dead arts and crafts teachers and tell them See!! I actually can do something. Is that terrible? You don’t know 99% of what I think!!
So off we went to Turkey Mountain. Sweetie begged off because of severe allergies. Poor old SuperPizzaBoy had no choice. We first checked out a cache we set out years ago called “Boys Night Out – Firefly Swamp.” We set it out in July 2007. It has been found 94 times. We named it because it was on Sweeties book group night which is our monthly boys night out and it was very muddy due to rains, thus the swamp, and it was at night and the fireflies were out in force. Absolutely beautiful.
This cache is a hybrid. It is a geocache and also a letterbox. Letterboxing is a precursor to geocaching. Boxes are hidden but the descriptions are given by written directions rather than GPS coordinates. Also, letterboxers use stamps, to show that they were there, rather than a written log. So, its low tech but involves hiking and finding. I haven’t really gotten into it except for this one hybrid.
I took photos of some of the stamps people left. I think they are very cool.
The last two on the left are SPB and my stamps. I forget whose is whose. We bought them on sale at Hobby Lobby. One family found the cache on Easter Sunday last year.
I went through the pages of the regular log. Those are always interesting. I’ll translate for you. “TFTC” means “Thanks for the Cache,” “TNLN” means “Took nothing, left nothing.”
Here I show the last page. A cub scout group came through in September. When I take groups to find a cache I make everybody sign the cache!! They are entitled.
That done we went looking for a good spot to hide the cache we brought. SPB was running out of gas.
We had to do some climbing and found this trail.
And then I found a good spot, hid the container, and found the coordinates. So now I have to get a permit from the Tulsa RiverParks Authority and apply to Geocaching.com to post. It took about two weeks last time.
Some vandalism we found on the way out. I don’t know if JJ Shill is the lover or beloved but whoever left this is a loser.
SPB brightened up as we got close to the parking lot.
Not a bad time, all told. Then off to dinner at NaNa’s.
Our route, I just love technology, when it works.
Well, I found another old recyclable camera in the house on Labor Day. I was looking for trade trinkets that we were going to plant in a new geocache. It has some exposures left on it so I decided to take it along to document the geocache planting process.
SuperPizzaBoy and Sweetie on the trail. It’s about a mile and half hike to the cache site from the nearest parking lot. People who want this cache are going to have to earn it. Many people think I’m crazy but I love the look of film, especially old film, especially old film that is exposed in a camera with a plastic lens. I’m just wild about it. I’m crazy about bad pictures. I really am.
It’s been hot here and many of the leaves have fallen off the trees. The temperature was in the 70’s though so we were lucky.
Here we are at Ground Zero. The place is called Rock City because, well I think because it has lots of rocks. Of course there are rocks scattered from one end of Turkey Mountain to the other but this area is called Rock City.
Sweetie is kind of acting like she is mayor of Rock City.
Here is your clue. If you don’t have a GPS receiver just walk around until you see that forked stick. The cache is real close. I hate giving it away like that.
Yep, that’s me, I saved my biggest widest grin for this pic. I hope you appreciate it. And I know I’m thinning a little on top. I’ve been warned by the FAA not to take my hat off if I’m within five miles of an airport. Pilots have been blinded by the glare off the ground.
Mission Accomplished! We’re all happy, especially SPB. He doesn’t understand pointless walks in the woods.
So we went somewhere he could understand.
Next steps? I have forms to fill out for the Tulsa RiverParks Authority that administers the park to get a permit. That in hand I submit the cache to Geocaching.com and hopefully they post it. Could take a week or so. I’ll let you know.
Also, when I got the camera developed I found some photographs I took during my Dad’s 80th birthday party a few years ago.
Last Tuesday I went on a run on Turkey Mountain. I was going to run with a group, the TATUR running group, but I was a little late. I actually saw them take off while I was still in my car but it took me a few minutes to make sure that I had all my stuff together and they left. I wasn’t too worried about it though. If I caught up with him them, great, if I didn’t, I’d still have a great time. I run Turkey Mountain in the summertime to beat the heat of the concrete trails and to get my head on straight.
I like to stop and take pictures. Turkey Mountain has a bunch of pretty good sized ponds.
Sometimes you can spot things. Like somebody using a battery to illegally shock fish. Turns the sport of fishing into catching.
When I lived in Texas close to a lake I knew several people who unashamedly would use such devices. Game laws to them were just a means to make sure that the suckers among us left plenty of fish and game for them.
The mountain bikers flew past me. The TATUR’s passed me on their way in. I could have turned around and gone with them but I wasn’t ready to quit. I was rewarded a little later with this sight.
I’ve seen lots of deer on Turkey Mountain. This one is the only one with the manners to wait while I got my camera out and ready. I have seen three fox on the Arkansas River trail, they seem to know when I don’t take my camera with me. Mannerly wildlife are always appreciated.
I passed through an area that burned last year. I don’t think it took many trees but it sure cleared out the brush and opened things up.
I got up to the top of the hill and had a good look at downtown to the north. To the south though, where I parked I had a ways to go. See the notch on the left side of the road? About where the car is on the road? That is where I parked.
Here is a closer look.
That is a long ways away. I made it though. I considered going down the highway or the adjoining power line right of way but I didn’t. I went down via a trail. Everybody was packed about and about to go. When you are a slow runner like me and take lots of pics, that happens a lot.
One last pic though and time to head home.
I had my handy dandy Garmin running watch with me and heart rate monitor so this is the fully documented route.
I ran a trail race Sunday morning. The Turkey N’Taturs Trail Race on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Park. I’ve come to love Turkey Mountain and trail running. They had races of 10K, 25K, and 50K lengths. I opted for the 10K (about 6.2 miles). On trail runs I start at the back and pretty much stay there the whole race. I like to take photographs, and pics and fast times are mutually exclusive. Of course, those who know me think that I’d be at the back with or without a camera but I digress.
The weather was great, cool and sunny. A few pics:
About 0.1 miles from the start. Sorry, I had to stop and get an image.
A muddy pond near the end.
I just loved that for a little while we ran on the “Fairy Dust Trail.”
I just love a sense of humor.
Luckily we just had to run besides these rocks, not through them. I refer to these as “snake condo’s.” Great place to hide a geocache huh? The clue would be “Look in the rocks.”
Isn’t this nice? A flagstone running path. Here in Tulsa we don’t have enough money to pay our police and fire departments but nothing but first class for our runners.
Going up hill behind the “Three Graces.” Three ladies that stayed ahead of me until just before halfway then they let me pass. They were very nice and great runners.
Wow, just as I was in the groove running in the woods with the birds and the squirrels and fixing to go totally Ralph Waldo Emerson mode I pop onto a power line right of way, whoa, urban chaos and a strangely empty Arkansas River.
I finished the race and rested a bit. I went looking for a malted beverage. Some lady told me, “Don’t you think that it is way to early to have beer especially on a Sunday morning?” Boy, she gave me a look when she saw what I grabbed out of the cooler. So I had two, hey, she didn’t want hers, beer doesn’t drink itself you know.
The race was great. Everybody was very chilled out. I won a technical shirt as a door prize, and ate some great barbecue. Some amazing times were run.
Kudos to the Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners (“TATUR“). Kudos also to my blog friend Trail Zombie (aka Ken) who spent hours and hours marking the trails and who knows what else and was also a sponsor of the race.
Of course you know the most important part of a race,
It’s the shirt and the participant medal. I’m the king of participant medals.
When is the next race Ken? I’m ready!
I’ve been running and exploring the trails on Turkey Mountain after work. There is a ridiculously fabulous complex network of trails and just a few of them are marked, there are very few people there, and so I’m lost half the time but I love the feeling of not knowing exactly where I am.
This was near my turnaround point, you can see the sun is getting kind of low. It was almost pitch black by the time I got back to my car.
Check out Weekend Reflections for other mirrored surfaces from all over.
Everybody have a great weekend.
