Category Archives: Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday – Oxley North Woods Loop Trek

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Saturday I went for a walk at Oxley Nature Center‘s North Woods. I love it there because it is remote, off the beaten path, and I rarely see anybody.

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I especially like it when it is windy because there is enough trees and brush to block the wind. It is near still at the ground and I love the sound of the wind in the tops of the trees.

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The trails are well kept. This time of year there is a thick matt of dried leaves that announces your presence as you walk along and sends the big and small critters scurrying.

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I started in late afternoon and the low sun made all the leaves radiant with color.

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There is something about a bench on a trail overlooking a creek that is restful without even sitting on it.

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The woods loom over parts of the trails. I call these tree tunnels.

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I love the color of some of the oak leaves.

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Another tree tunnel.

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The sun is getting low. Heading across my favorite boardwalk. There is a geocache here that took me three years to find. And one day I saw it without looking for it.

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Headed back to the car and saw these two critters. We watched each other for a while. I would move up twenty paces and wait twenty seconds, and then move up another twenty paces and so on. They got tired of my game and scampered off.

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A little bit further I found this single deer. She played my game and let me get a little closer before she turned on her heel and left.

I didn’t set any speed records but I had a good time. Didn’t see anybody else. I wasn’t looking for anybody either.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday 

Our World – Tulsa’s Renovated Central Library Opens

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On Saturday the Tulsa Central Library reopened after a three year renovation. They had speeches and presentations and all that. I missed them, but you and I know what they said probably.

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I was happy with what they did. They opened the structure up, added lighting, and all sorts of whiz bank technology. They still have lots of books but the emphasis is more on computers and education now. The days of patrons wandering through the stacks looking for books is over. Most of the books I get from the library are digital downloads to my Kindle or Ipad. If I need a physical book I order it and they deliver to the library of my choice. Plus libraries are storing more of their books offsite in non-public buildings. Lots cheaper than using expensive downtown real estate.

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They knocked out the center parts of the second and third floors to give the building a more airy open feel. It works.

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Plus they have all sorts of new furniture to facilitate what patrons do these days. The old library had tables with chairs and rows of chairs. Many people bring their laptops and so now they can sit in semi privacy with a laptop table and plugs and a place to stow their backpack.

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Or they have these cool chairs. I don’t like semi-privacy cuz I like people watching and listening in their conversations. You better watch what you say when you are around me because I have big ears. I like that the furniture has a midcentury modern “feel” to it in tune with the building it is in.

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One of the coolest things are these study spaces that they have extended off the second floor onto the balcony. They are climate controlled and have windows on all four sides, three of them to the outside. They are of various sizes and configurations. I think they are wonderful.

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And here is a view of one such study space looking to another. I think these are fabulous.

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And speaking of the balcony they have opened it up again and there are more seating out there. What a way to spend a lunchtime in nice weather.

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They have computers for the regular clientele plus they have computer education rooms of different types. They have literacy education spaces. It is all pretty exciting.

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As for the books they have new undershelf lighting. I don’t know about you but sometimes the lighting is dark in libraries the few times that I have tried to find a book rather than order it.

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I got all excited, a card catalog!! Alas, it appears to be a catalog of obituaries from way back when. Remember the good old days of searching through card catalogs and making notes with little stubby pencils on little pieces of paper and then going off to find the book. Yeah, I remember those days and they sucked. Give me a digital search any time!!

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See that glass and granite building over there? That is where I work, one block away. I’ll be resuming weekly visits to the library to sit and read, people watch, and listen in on your conversations.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – Over the Hills and Through the Woods to Nana’s House I Go

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Last Saturday it was hot!! We decided we would go swimming at my MIL’s Nana’s houe. I decided that I needed to walk there. She lives about six miles away and this was my third trip on foot over the years. The previous times I ran, this time I walked because it was hot, not that there is much difference in speed between my walking and running. I can say that, you can’t.

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I passed out neighborhood information board. We have lived here sixteen years and I have never seen any information posted there. I have always wanted to hide a geocache up under the roof of the thing but I would have to get permission from our neighborhood council and I hate dealing with those people. Why, well we had one smart ass attorney resident say that we shouldn’t allow people to store chemicals in their garages. Oh, okay, what about the oil and gasoline in your car dummy? Another guy, a retired Army Corps of Engineers guy complaining about an often damaged fence across a creek said that we could fix it once and for all for $50,000. Oh okay, you giving us the money dude? Somebody else wanted to ban residents from renting their homes. Oh okay… Anyway trying to get permission would be impossible.

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We have a nice little duck/swan pond in our neighborhood. I like it a lot.

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Out on 81st street and going by Meadowbrook Country Club. Nice place.

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On past our local Starbucks. I am addicted to their new Cold Brew iced coffee. Not today, too hot and too far to go.

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On past Tulsa Community College. This is where son Logan will be going to college in a couple weeks. I said a prayer for the guy.

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The Sheriff’s Department put up this spedometer right near the college. I have never registered on it. I have tried waiting for a car going by at a high rate of speed so I could claim that same speed. Hasn’t happened yet.

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The trail gets really intricate and interesting. That is why I don’t mind walking or running to see Nana, the trail is almost four miles out of the six. Lots nicer than walking the streets.

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A brand new medical building with a big welcome sign. I had to do some checking on it. It is a new building for an outfit that does colonoscopies. Probably dozens per day. I had one a few years ago but I couldn’t bring myself to write a blog post about it. Much too personal. But there were nice things also. I read the night before the procedure that beer was allowed so I had a couple of Fat Tires. The doctor laughed the next day. He said that was allowed but hardly anybody had ever admitted to it. Plus the heavy heated quilt the day of the procedure was very nice. And then the weird way your memory goes backward when you come to in the recovery room. All in all something I dreaded for no reason.

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And then this lady running wierding my out. She passed my a couple times. Hmm. Should I have been concerned?

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And then by the highway hill where runners have worn trails in the side to do hill repeats. Did I do a hill repeat?

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Well, I went up once, but didn’t go up twice. So that is half of hill repeat right. Meanwhile the lady runner passed me again, not on the hill though.

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And then under the Creek Turnpike.

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Yep, I do PokemonGo and I captured a couple. I looked, and didn’t find a geocache also. Don’t get all Luddite on me on me for Pokemon Go.

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And here is Nana’s house, about 6 and a quarter miles and over two hours later. I love the Angel that she keeps on her front porch, and the beer that she lets me keep in her beerator in her garage, and she has a great pool. Plus it is a treat to visit with her.

I’m linking this post with Our World Tuesday

Our World – The Grand Canyon – 1960’s Edition

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These pics are some that my father took in the mid 1960’s when we went on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon, among other places. He had a nice Canon Canonette camera (which he gave to me a few years ago) and I remember him taking photos but I never remember seeing them.

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I think we went to the North Rim because it was far less crowded than the south. We were never much for crowds on vacation.

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That was probably the last time I was at the North Rim. Heather and I took a trip back when we were childless to the South Rim in the mid 1990’s and I remember it being a zoo. No parking and lots of pushing and shoving and rude behavior by our fellow tourists. It wasn’t much of wilderness experience. If we go again I’ll head back to the north rim and maybe see my favorite Park Ranger, Gaeyln. Check out her blog, it is some sort of fantastic.

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This is the Angel’s Window.  You can reach it from a short trail. The other thing about our vacations is that we never strayed very far from the parking lot. Oh well, we had a good time anyway.

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I’m thinking that this is a photo of me, my sister Ellen, and brother Bob. It is hard to get these kind of pictures exposed correctly. I kind of like it though.

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And the Grand Canyon Lodge. Back then, as now, it was booked up well in advance. We stayed in a trailer on a National Forest campground, miles and miles away at a little town called Jacob’s Lake, if my memory serves me correctly. My memory is pretty poor so I am not going to swear to it.

I’m just gotten started on scanning Dad’s pics and I’m looking forward to what else I can find.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday.

2016 Tulsa Tough and Cry Baby Hill

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Sunday morning I ventured down to the Tulsa River Parks to watch the River Parks Criterium segment of Tulsa Tough. Tulsa Tough is a three day series of races of all kinds here in Tulsa. The River Parks Criterium is a short cycle race that loops from river level up a steep hill overlooking the river and then back down to the river via a 120 degree hard right turn at high speed at the base of the hill. And then they do it again, and again. It is brutal.

Copied from TulsaTough.com I hope they don't sue my butt

Copied from TulsaTough.com I hope they don’t sue my butt)

There are about fourteen races in all on this course lasting about a half hour each.

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The course is not for the faint of heart. The leaders are working the whole way. Y

This is where they head up the hill, and they are just flying.

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Not only are they going fast, they are going fast while being close together. If one guy or gal goes down then the risk is high that others are going down also. It looks nerve wracking to me.

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They alternated the pace cars. This one was a Jaguar. They run a couple hundred yards ahead along with a motorcycle to alert everybody to get out of the way.

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The races are very exciting.

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The riders are concentrating hard.

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At the of the hill is Cry Baby Hill. It is kind of wild. It is in a residential area with not many sidewalks so you have to stand in the street. The residents have parties in their front yard. It is quite the party. I left about noon so I think I missed the peak of the madness.

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Everybody is there to cheer on the riders and spray water and beer on them.

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There are marshalls in zebra shirts with whistles and flags to keep the crowd behind the line. I guess this guy lost his shirt or something.

Lots of cowbells and a band cheer the riders on.

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And toy baby dolls if you didn’t bring one.

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It is quite the spectacle.

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As I left people were still piling in.

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And the races were still going on.

Last Year’s Tulsa Tough Post

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Addendum #1 Not my video – a collection of crashes from Tulsa Tough.

Our World – New Orleans

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I am in New Orleans for a convention this week. This is the third time that I have come here for this event and I love it.

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I would love it even more if Heather were here but alas not to be. Last time she came with me was years ago, the spring before Katrina hit the city. We had a wonderful meal at KPauls. It was on our own dime.  The convention had a banquet featuring the Oakwood Boys. We opted out of the banquet mystery meat and spent more than we could afford. And it was worth it.

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New Orleans is a beautiful city. It has a charm to it. It has all the cheesy tourist shops sure but it also has some beautiful balconies above the shops.  It is kind of mysterious. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the way Santa Fe was when I was just a little kid. The cheap tourist places but glimpses of courtyards behind wrought iron gates captivated me.

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The street buskers of New Orleans are the best I have ever seen. Everybody gets in the act. The little boy above felt moved to join in. Nobody seemed to mind.

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The city is always in transition. Nice areas breaking out in not so nice neighborhoods and other areas seemingly in decline.

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I just love it here. It is unlike any place I have ever been. Even other places in Louisiana.

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So I’ll be here until Wednesday at noon when I fly out. I’ll be trying to take in as much of the convention and the city as I can.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday – Checking Out Chandler Park

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Sunday I decided to explore a new area with Logan. It is the land west west of Chandler Park is far northwest Tulsa. I was inspired by the facebook posts of TrailZombie Ken who is my guide pretty much for anything having to do with trails and trailrunning in Oklahoma. 

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We start out at the very southwest end of Chandler Park and cross the gate and head down the road. The first thing you run into is this sign. This is the Compass Industries Landfill EPA Superfund Site. A gazillion dollars was spent cleaning up “…620,000 cubic yards of solid, liquid and sludge wastes, including acids, caustics, solvents and potentially carcinogenic materials” in a former limestone quarry.  The cleanup was paid for by the polluters themselves but all that stopped in 1995 and now we taxpayers get to pay for cleanups. I guess because it is unfair to ask the polluters to pay the expenses. It might cut into their campaign contributions budget or something.

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We go a little further and we find the that the fence has been breached in a major way. I wonder what kind of morons trespass out there on a regular basis?

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Shortly thereafter the trail gets away from the site and continues on west. We only saw one other person during our outing. Turkey Mountain is great but on nice weekends some of the main trails get crowded and Logan doesn’t like the constant bikers coming up behind us. No traffic problems at Chandler Park, yet.

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And then it got a little rocky and I spent 40 fruitless minutes looking for a geocache and we continued our trek until the trail looped around to Avery drive.

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We took a little break and then decided to head back on a different route.

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If it looks steep, it is.

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Just ask Logan, he’ll tell you.

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We got into some of rock formations that make Chandler popular with the local bouldering and climbing enthusiasts. We are not into any of that.

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Logan took a picture of the old man in full nerd regalia standing on a rock.

So it was a nice easy out and back introduction. I can see when daylight savings time returns that I’ll be coming out here some to do my Wednesday night runs. The area is lots bigger than Turkey Mountain but literally about 1% as many people. I’ll be learning the trails and looking forward to it.

Timely column today in the Tulsa World: Do we even need Chandler Park? I say yes!!

Have you been anywhere new lately?

Linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – Oklahoma’s Historic Fort Reno

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Officer’s Quarters

Fort Reno is located about a half hour west of Oklahoma City just off Interstate 40.  I have been driving past it off and on for about 30 years and always wanted to go see it but you know I was always busy and in a hurry. Superbowl Sunday I said what the heck I’m stopping. Son Logan was with me and he didn’t really care as long as it was not geocaching. He hates doing that.

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Cavalry Barracks

So I checked it out. Fort Reno was established by the US Army in 1875 to help control the Native American’s in the area during  the Indian Wars. The post was abandoned in 1907 but stayed in service for the Army as a Remount Facility for horse breeding until 1949.  The Fort has a bunch of old buildings and I’ll be making several more posts of my visit there in the coming weeks.

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Close by is the Fort Cemetery. I found this grave of Corporal Pat Lynch who died in the Battle of Turkey Springs in 1878. That battle was the last fight in then “Indian Territory” now Oklahoma between the US Cavalry and the Native Americans. Guess what, the Native Americans won. Check out the details here. Better than any movie is what I think. The Northern Cheyenne were trying to get back to their lands in Montana and fought the US Cavalry all through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska during their flight. It didn’t end well. 

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Fort Reno was a prisoner of war camp during World War II and the Fort Cemetery has many graves of German soldiers. Most of them died in other prison camps and were interred there and then reinterred at Fort Reno after the war. The man above is the most famous German POW buried at Fort Reno. He was held at another POW camp in Oklahoma, the Tonkawa Camp. While there he was accused by some hard core Nazi prisoners of being an informer and was beaten to death. The five who killed him were tried and convicted by the US Army for murder and then were executed by hanging at a makeshift gallows in an elevator shaft of a grain elevator at Fort Leavenworth Kansas. Their execution was delayed until the surrender of Germany to the Allies in order to avoid Germany from executing American prisoners in retribution. There are two books about this, “Extreme Justice” by Vince Green is a novel by Vince Green written in 1995 and “The Killing of Corporal Kunze” is a non-fiction book published in 1981 by Wilma Parnell. Both book are on Amazon for under a dollar plus three times that shipping.

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And there were a few graves of Italian POW’s. 

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And I love serendipity. As Logan and I were leaving the cemetery I saw this old barn on the outskirts of the Fort and I so I drove up and took a picture of it. Later that night I posted it on a Facebook Group “Forgotten Oklahoma” as kind of an open ended post. Turns out that several people knew all about it. It was Mule Barn Number Three and was heavily damaged in the last tornado that came through the area in 2013. Further, the US Cavalry Association is raising money to restore the barn.

President John F. Kennedy

Courtesy of the US Embassy of New Delhi of all places on Flickr (click on photo for full license info). Trying to find third party photos to post without running afoul of copyright matters is a devil.

Fort Reno bred at least one famous horse. Black Jack, the riderless horse in John F. Kennedy’s funeral procession was foaled at Fort Reno. Black Jack did that funeral gig and those of Franklin Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson and thousands of other funerals during his 24 year career. He was laid to rest with full military honors in 1976 and is buried on the parade ground of Fort Myers.

The next little tidbit of information that I am trying to verify is that the sire of the famous Depression era  racehorse Seabiscuit spent time at Fort Reno.  The horse’s name is Hard Tack. The US Cavalry Association headquartered at the Fort has a photograph of him at the base. I am still trying to find out more about that.

Anyways, what I thought was just an old barn turned out to be quite historic.  I love that kind of stuff.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – Tulsa Themed Art Piano

Tulsa Themed Piano

Seen through the window of the SIP Gallery in downtown Tulsa is this Tulsa themed piano. It has several Tulsa landmarks painted on it such as Cain’s Ballroom, the Tulsa Driller, the Praying Hands at Oral Roberts University, Tulsa’s CityPlex Towers, the Philbrook Museum, US Route 66, University Club Apartments, Bartlesville’s Frank Lloyd Wright designed Price Tower,  the Tulsa Skyline, and the Arkansas River. I think this is superb. I don’t have room for it but it would certainly be the gift for somebody has everything.

Linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

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Pearl Harbor now is such a pretty place. It is very hard to imagine that anything evil could happen at this place. But it did, 74 years ago on December 7, 1941.

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Photograph, from a Japanese aircraft, of the harbor under attack.

When Japanese planes attacked the Pacific Fleet in a surprise attack.

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When the Navy launch approaches the USS Arizona Memorial everybody gets very quiet. It is more than a memorial. It is also a grave site.

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USS Arizona in the middle of the photo.

The Memorial is the final resting place for 1,102 Sailors and Marines who were killed when the USS Arizona sank during the attack.

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It is one of the most moving experiences I have ever had visiting the memorial. It had been on my bucket list a long time.

Linking with Our World Tuesday