It’s getting hot here in Oklahoma and so shade is at a premium.
My favorite pedestrian bridge has a quarter mile of shade across the Arkansas River.
And how about a shadow selfie of me riding my bike?
At work we have a fancy ramada that provides partial shade. Partial shade doesn’t cut it when it is really hot. I used the hyperspektiv app to give it a glitchy look. I love glitchy.
I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday
I went on a bike ride on Tulsa’s River Parks trails and everything was going great in my slow plodding kind of way when I saw some chickens on the trail where it passes the base of Turkey Mountain. So I had to stop and check them out. There were only two of them and the lighting is kind of dim. I had read facebook posts the past few weeks where people had discussed seeing chickens and there was lots of speculation on where they come from and what is to become of them.
They remind me of the chickens that you see everywhere in the rural parts of Hawaii. I guess they can thrive there I don’t know about chickens on their own in Oklahoma. We have lots of coyotes and I wonder what they will do when the weather gets cold. I’ll be interested in how they do.
I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters
We are back from our vacation to the gulf coast of Alabama (aka the “Redneck Riviera”). We had a great time as a family and will have lots of memories.
Son always has a good time. He also carries a book with him wherever he goes. That’s a good habit to have.
We cooked a couple shrimp dinners while we were there using fresh caught shrimp. We dined out on our balcony.
For the first time we explored Gulf State Park on bike. It is a sprawling park with beaches, lakes ponds, miles of trails, and multiple access points from the surrounding community.
We had a lot of fun and got to do some active relaxing.
The entire property is lush and provides lots of opportunities for photographs. I loved the greenhouse.
Our family recently took a detour on our vacation to visit the Bellingrath Gardens and Home, located on the Fowl River near Mobile, Alabama. The 65-acre property, which was the home of an early Coca-Cola entrepreneur and his wife, is now maintained by a foundation. The property was beautifully landscaped and we were glad we took the time to visit. If you’re looking to keep your own garden clean and tidy, consider hiring a professional landscaping company in Adrian, MI who are well versed in this field.
I love reflections.
This is one of those places that I have heard about for quite a while and I had high expectations and they were surpassed. The grounds are immaculate and the landscaping design is superb, especially for those of us with a camera. The gardens are just packed with great visuals wherever you go.
We stayed several hours and still did not see it all. I took over 130 photographs.s
The place has been maintained well and one can tell from our conversations with the staff and guides that their’s is a labor of love.
What a great courtyard with a the wrought iron fence on the balconty, big huge windows that open, a little fountain, and archways. And I love the brick.
We paid for a tour of the Bellingrath home and it is exquisite. It was built in the 1920’s and had several features that seemed ahead of its time. They didn’t have electricity at first, but the family anticipating it coming had the house prewired and included features you don’t see today such as automatic lights that come on when you open a closet.
A shady area with comfortable chairs.
It really looks like a place where one could relax. Lots of quiet shady spots and courtyards.
I am a sucker for flags and gas lights. REAL gas lights.
And as in the gardens, the house is surrounded by plants.
The guide showed us where the Bellingrath’s cooks kept the cookies.
The kitchen was superb. They have kept it as it was when it was lived in. Two big ovens and ranges, two big dishwashers, a couple of giant refrigerators. We loved the light airy feeling of the place.
This was my favorite room. Not the main dining room but another one. Again, big tall windows with great light.
If you want to visit, check out Bellingrath’s web site. Lots of great info on planning and what to see. Being a garden, they always have something going on.
I am linking with Our World Tuesday
One of my favorite photo apps is Hipstamatic. It is a photography app with a huge amount of filters, fashioned as different “lenses” and “film.” I love the all the technology that goes into dumbing down the excellent iphone camera into photos that look like cheap film cameras from my childhood. I love that look. I don’t think that anybody else does either. My Hipstamatic tagged photos score the lowest likes of any of my Instagram photos. That interests me but doesn’t bother me.
So today at lunch I went for a walk and came across a few sites.
Pretty close to the office is the once grand “Plaza of the Americas.” It used to be nicer with fountains and a bust of Simon Bolivar donated by Citgo before they moved their headquarters to Houston. Now the bust is at the Gilcrease Museum and the plaza is a favored place for housing challenged people to hang out.
I walked a little further to Civic Center Plaza. Burning hot in the summer, freezing cold in the winter it is pretty useless except don’t tell the midcentury modern fans of architecture. They swoon all over the place. I like this sculpture though. As you can see it used to be part of a fountain. The fountains leaked and were too expensive to repair. So no more fountain.
I turned around and a reflecting pool that doesn’t reflect much any more.
I don’t mean to diss Tulsa. I love Tulsa but I am fascinated how fast new ideas and memorials fade and are replaced by new ones but the ghosts of the past never quite seem to go away. It seems like we get amnesia about every five to ten years and we want something new.
On the lighter side, near the fountains was a food truck. I love how people are ambivalent to some lines. You can see that people are wondering where else they can eat besides the food truck. I also like seeing how people regard their personal space. I confess I do little experiments in elevators such as if there three of us in an elevator and somebody gets off, the other two respace themselves. I often don’t do that and I can tell that increases the tension of the other person. I love little things like that about people. People watching is my favorite sport.
Have a great week folks!
We are towards the end of our vacation this year on the Alabama gulf coast. The highlight so far was Heather riding a paddleboard in the open water. She teaches a pool based paddleboard class but had never ridden a paddleboard before this trip. Logan and I went kayaking during this outing.
I have been taking lots of photos. The water and surrounding area are always a rich source of images for me.
Here is a shot of Heather just starting out on the paddleboard. I am in my kayak so I guess this is a “kayakcam.”
We have been out on the beach a lot. Both sitting on it, in the water, and walking the beach.
I have fair skin so stay covered up but my feet really got burned on this trip.
We went on our first ever family bike ride. Logan has never learned to ride a bike so we rented him a three wheeled version. He did quite well. Heather and I tried it and agreed that it was a lot harder to ride than the two wheeled variety. Steering in particular was hard. The bike had a mind of its own.
We passed this sign. Lots of alligator habitat in Gulf State Park where we were. It inhibited by geocaching quite a bit.
We cooked a shrimp dinner one night. We have our shrimp place, so we boil them, and Heather prepares the sides.
And the skies. The skies have been magnificent.
We are on our family vacation so my SWF post is a little late this week. We toured the beautiful Bellingrath Gardens yesterday just south of Mobile, Alabama.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday
Tulsa has a big street party every year on a hill near the River Parks called “Crybaby Hill.”
In amongst (amongst is a word in Oklahoma by the way) the party a bike race breaks out. It is Tulsa Tough. A three days series of bike rides and races for everybody from Sunday cruisers like me to top professionals around the world.
They have it in early June every year and it is generally sweltering. Tulsa Tough is sponsored by Saint Francis Hospital, a local Catholic Hospital Medical System.
The last day of the race is the most popular. The races all criterium style which means that they go round and around the same short course multiple times. The last day’s though is brutal. You start by the river and climb up a very steep hill then you come down off the hill and at the bottom you have to make a very sharp 120 degree turn and most of these guys/gals don’t appear to use their brakes at all so there are some spectacular bike crashes.
So down on the river is where the races start, and the top is where the party is. It appears to get a little bigger and a little wilder every year. Couple that with no parking, very few sidewalks and the crowd and the races get very close to each other. They have painted the race lanes in bright colors and there is an army of volunteers who are constantly yelling, “mind the gap.” The race lane area.
So I went out and made a lap of the course with my camera, walking and with the heat it about killed me. I cannot imagine riding the course up to nine times or so.
I love the contrast, the party with people getting drunk, and laughing and having a good time, and a high stakes race in the brutal heat and humidity.
Previous Year’s Tulsa Tough Posts
Thursday night Heather and I attended a fund raiser “Top of the Town” in downtown Tulsa benefiting the Community Service Council of Tulsa, a social services organization
So you pay some money, you get a wrist band, and you get access to some cool buildings downtown that are not public. So we got to see some really neat rooftop patios, and a deluxe apartment and other spaces. They had some kind of either drink or food or both at each place.
This is the old Petroleum Club. It went defunct years ago and now some internet based company ripped out the flooring, ceilings, wall coverings, put in some funky lights and miles of tables. Cool, trendy, yes and I think a comment on where our society and culture is going. Things are changing, whether we want them to or not is what I say.
We got to go into somebody’s private apartment in another building. I fell in love with the place. I loved this cozy space in the corner with the big windows. We have three dogs though who are thoroughly spoiled and like going outside a bunch to do their business and give the neighbors a good barking. And books, the people that live there are readers, reading decent books.
And from the living space you open a big double door into an office suite. How nice is that!! I don’t know though, that may not be enough space.
One of the neat things about Top of the Town is that from one party you could see the other parties going on. We attended all of them, except for the VIP venue. I heard it wasn’t that good. sniff, sniff.
And here is another one attended.
And yet another.
And got to photograph and see some great buildings from the oil capital days.
And here is the Mayo Hotel with its beautiful terra cotta details and the big neon sign. I love that sign but it is hard to get a decent pic of it.
And one of my favorites, actually a little bit out of downtown. Bruce Goff’s magnificent Boston Avenue Church in all its art deco glory.
We enjoyed music at several venues.
We ended up at the 110 West Seventh Street building, everybody calls it the Oxy Building or the Cities Service building. I worked in the building up until 19 years ago. The top floor was out of date back then, and they haven’t changed a thing!
We had a great time!!
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Kind of a mishmash this week for Skywatch Friday. This is the last full moon that we have. I love all the names Full Corn Growing Moon for example, I like Milk Moon the best.
Last Sunday I was in my first bicycle race ride. It was a grueling 24 miles over roads in hot weather and I loved every minute of it. I learned that hills are what makes rides interesting for me. They are never as bad when you are climbing them as it looks when you get close. I think that I am addicted. Help me to figure out how to sell the idea of a new bicycle to Heather.
I went on a flat as a pancake run on an old railroad bed that cut through ranchlands and oil fields and we had a great sky.
And a visit back to the magical Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch.
Hey everybody, what are you doing about the European General Data Protection Regulation? I am considering getting out of blogging because of it. You can see I have no ads. I don’t sell email addresses or any other information you guys/gals share with me. I just want to publish photos and look at your photos and exchange emails about my thoughts. I am a big believer in privacy but not a believer in regulations. Anyway let me know your thoughts.