Monthly Archives: July 2022

Badlands by C.J. Box

I received an advanced readers copy of the paperback version of Badlands, by C.J. Box. Ironically, I was reading a hardback copy from the library of the same novel.

This book features Cassie Dewell, a brand new Deputy Sheriff in Grimstad, North Dakota. Right in the middle of the Bakken Field, one of the biggest oil plays in history. Grimstad is a boom town. Housing is short, Walmart doesn’t have time to shelve their goods, they just put boxes in the middle of the aisle and let the customers paw through them for what they need.

Grimstad is an oilfield town with drillers and pipeliners working long days. It is also a town where a gang from California wants in on the local drug business and they are ruthlessly getting rid of the competition. Cassie’s job is find out what is going on.

Grimstad is also home to young Kyle Westergaard. A “slow” boy who delivers papers to help his mom out. During one of his paper runs early in the morning Kyle witnesses something he shouldn’t have and takes something that gets him in trouble as the gang is after him now. Cassie Dewell has to fight the Sheriff’s Department and the gangs to save Kyle and his mother.

I loved this book. It came out in 2015 when the Bakken was at its peak in oil activity and the cities and towns did not have the infrastructure and it was kind of a zoo. Box doesn’t exaggerate the burden the activity put on the town and portrays accurately the crews who did the well drilling, fracking, and laid pipelines. I strongly recommend this book.

Saturday’s Critters – Cats and Others

I got Covid the first day of this month. Bummer but I am quadruple vaccinated and in good health so I just stayed home and isolated during my recovery.

Our cat Lizzie would sneak upstairs from time to time to say hello. She is not a cat that likes to be held but she likes being petted.

So she would come and say hello and I’d give a few scratches and pets and then off she would go until the next day or so.

It’s one reason we like to have our critters with us.

And I’m doing fine. I didn’t have a severe case but I still have the old covid cough but have got my energy bike and am hiking and riding my bicycle.

I think we have more cottontails kits in the backyard. Mom has been hanging out under the bench and doesn’t leave when we approach.

It has been very hot so I haven’t felt like mowing the yard. They sometimes stash their kits in holes dug in the grass. I’ve run over them a few times in the past. Never injured them but I can’t imagine the trauma from having a noisy lawnmower blade just an inch or so from your head. So now the grass is really tall. I’ll have to face the music soon and mow it, and I dread it.

We continue to have midnight visitors.

I’m linking up with all the animal lovers at Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Go check it out.

A Sneak Peak the new Trails at Bales Park in Tulsa

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We’ve had days of over 100F heat for quite a while now. When the weather gets you down you have to learn how adjust if you don’t want to end up spending all summer on the dreadmill at the gym or mall walking. Me, I am getting up earlier and getting out before it is too hot.

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Back in March of this year the City of Tulsa Parks Department announced that they had a grant to build some trails at Bales Park. Bales Park is right across a four lane highway from Turkey Mountain and there has been some talk of connecting the two trail systems.

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The signs and netting were down on the ground so I figured I was good to go.

I saw on Strava that a friend of mine checked out the trails so I thought I would. I think they are having a soft opening while they do finishing touches.

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Downtwon Tulsa from the trail at Bales Park looking north. The highway department is redoing the intersection shown in the foreground. Rumor has it that they are making it so that Bales Park and Turkey Mountain can interconnect.

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Turn 90 degrees to your right and look east. That is Turkey Mountain right across the road. Oh well time to move on.

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The trails that city is building using Rogue Trails as a contractor look a lot like the recent trails built on Turkey Mountain. An emphasis on shedding water to avoid erosion and making the trails “flowy” back and forth and up and down, side to side.

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Sure the flowy parts are for the mountain bikes but they are good trails to hike on as well and they will last longer and require less maintenance.

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The trails go deep into Bales Park in areas where I doubt many people have been Lots of big oak and hickory trees there.

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It’ll provide a great alternative to Turkey Mountain which on weekend afternoons can get crowded in the parking lots. Although, you get a quarter mile down any of the trails you are basically by yourself on the busiest of days.

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Today, it was just me. And an equipment operator from Rogue building trail.

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I gave him a wide berth. Supposedly there will be about 3 plus miles of trail. I made it to just over two miles today.

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I didn’t see any critters besides a few squirrels and birds. Despite being early in the day it was still kind of hot.

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I’m very happy about this latest addition to the Tulas Trail scene. The Gilcrease museum up in north Tulsa is raising funds to build an extensive trail system on property they have adjacent to the museum and connect their trail to the Katy Rails to Trail system which connects to the Tulsa River Parks system (as does Turkey Mountain’s trails). I love interconnected trails.

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I think the city is having a grand opening set for sometime in August or so for their new trails. I am not into crowds so I’ll just be happy with the mini grand opening I treated myself to today. I do think that the people of Tulsa will be happy with the new trails at Bales Park.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Check it out!!

2022 Photo Contest Entries

My former employer has a photo contest every year and they let retirees enter it. It’s always a lot of fun. I have a talented group of former coworkers who make great photographs and I have been lucky enough to win some awards over time as well.

This is what I submitted this year. I don’t think it is my best year but hey we’ll see what happens.

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This is Logan Lake at the YMCA on Turkey Mountain. I submitted it in the “Landscape” category.

And this is Rascal when he graduated from Physical Therapy. It was hilarious they put a cap and tassel on him and the little ham posed. This is in the “Flora and Fauna” category.

This is a scene from the Arkansas delta country last year as we returned home from our vacation on the Gulf Coast.

And this is the Union Pacific Big Boy Locomotive at one of its stops in northeast Oklahoma. I love this shot but I doubt my previous employer will want to use anything that was part of another company’s promotion campaign. This is the “People” category.

This is a tribute to the Choctaw Code Talkers of World War I and II. This is in the “Our Company Values” category.

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And this is the moon. I entered it in the “Creative” category as I always edit my moon shots to make the details stand out.

So there you go. You get an advance look. I think all these shots have been in my blog the past year. Wish me luck!!

Shadow Shot Sunday – Halfway Rest Stop

I’ve been riding my bicycle more these days. I try and start in the morning to beat the 100+F heat we have been having (and are going to have for the foreseeable future.) I only go about 15 miles or so. This fountain is my turnaround spot to head back. I don’t rest at the fountain; I rest in the shade of a tree.

Stay cool everybody, find some shade.

I’m linking with ShadowShot Sunday 2. Nice posts over there.

Tulsa Wildlife Update

I went hiking earlier this week on Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa. I came across this tiny frog traversing the trail.

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I also went for a bike ride and took my camera with me again. As I was going down the trail I spotted a bald eagle flying high over me but headed down to the river. So I pulled out and spotted this guy fishing. That’s two weeks in a row I’ve seen a bald eagle in approximately the same location. Sorry for the fuzzy photo. I was at the far end of the range of my Canon Superzoom.

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I also found this egret, or white heron or something several miles north of the Eagle out in the river looking for lunch.

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And white pelicans on a sandbar.

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And a log with two pairs of turtles. I didn’t know that momma turtles gave baby turtles piggy back (turtle back?) rides.

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And a great blue heron. Again at pretty good range. They are skittish!!

That’s it for this week. I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Lots of really good posts there. Check it out.

Skywatch Friday

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We had a break the other day with unrelenting heat and cloudless skies so I launched my drone from the back yard. These were rainless clouds but hey they shaded us a little bit. This is looking northeast from about 50 meters high.

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And looking straight west. Not a drop of rain in them.

"Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church"

I went downtown for some reason and ended up going by the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church across the freeway from downtown. I love the domes that are on the Orthodox churches.

Tulsa Fire Station 4

And just down the street is Tulsa Fire Station 4 which is located right on Route 66 as it goes through town. They had a spiffy new (to me) Route 66 sign that I thought was cool. I posted it on Instagram and on a facebook Route 66 sign. Somebody from out of state asked if that was the only Tulsa fire station on Route 66. So I checked and no, there is one other Tulsa Station Fire Station.

Tulsa Fire Station 66, way out in city limits but in the country on Route 66. They call themselves “The Keepers of the Mother Road.” I thought I knew all the Tulsa US 66 attractions and no I didn’t. Check out their facebook page. They like people to come by and visit if they are not doing anything and host all sorts of school and other groups.

One of the things I do is water the monarch waystation on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain. I went up there Wednesday morning and it had rained!! Not much of a rain but it soaked the parking lot. I didn’t feel much like watering after it rained plus the park had a contractor there laying down sod and I felt that they would probably be wanting to use the water tap and hose that I would be using so I just plugged and abandoned the project (oilfield lingo for giving up) and decided to go hiking. I’ll be back in a few days.

I went by one of the small lakes on Turkey Mountain on my hike. Something about skies and woods reflected on water really attracts me.

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Earlier this week I went on another bike ride on the RiverParks trails. I stopped and inspected the progress on the new pedestrian bridge and dam. Going pretty darn slow is what I think but I got a shot of the crane.

NASA’s Webb Sheds Light on Galaxy Evolution, Black Holes

And this is a photo from NASA from the new James Webb telescope that is taking some spectacular images of space. Click on the photo and you’ll get a description of what you are looking at. I’m still in the stage of just looking at the imagery, the text dulls the mind. (Sorry). They are letting everybody use the pics under a liberal creative commons license. Awesomeness is what I think.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma

In 2016 the Tulsa based George Kaiser Family Foundation purchased Bob Dylan’s archives from him and several years later opened up the Bob Dylan Center in the Arts District just north of Downtown Tulsa. I visited it recently.

The archive consists of over 100,000 items. Everything from clothes, to piano frames, to manuscripts, art works, music recordings, diaries, all sorts of records. Dylan was some sort of pack rat it appears and now his collection is in a place where it can be cataloged, preserved, and put on display.

The center starts with Bobby Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota and goes on from there through all his various personal permutations and tribulations.

One of the supercool features of the center are these Ipods that are activated at dozens of touchpoints throughout the facility. You can hear interviews, music footage, reviews and all sorts of stuff. I thought these were very nice and worked lots better than similar things I have used at other museums. And it is covered under your admission price.

I’ll have to admit that I was never much of a Dylan fan. He was about half a generation ahead of me and so he and I never synched up except for a few songs.

What I learned about Dylan though was that he was all about the music and not so much about sales. He morphed several times in his career, folk music to rock, to country, to gospel. Sometimes his fans didn’t really want to go with him, he didn’t care, he did what he had to do.

The center picked out several songs and displays in detail the painstaking process that Dylan went through writing and rewriting the songs, sometimes it would take years. The guy put everything he had into his music.

He kept his scribblings as he worked things over and over and changed the songs over time.

They also have many of the costumes he wore over the years in his concerts.

There is a gigantic virtual juke box machine curated by Elvis Costello containing almost every song he ever did, or wrote, or collaborated with somebody else on. Turns out he wrote lots of songs for other performers.

I was there for a couple hours and went over everything twice and listened on the ipod to at list a little bit of dozens of songs and interviews. It was overwhelming. I told me wife about it. She is all about music and now she is all excited about going, so I get to go again!!

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for his body of work. Reading his thoughts about it, it took him a while to understand that. He just couldn’t figure out why a songwriter was deserving of the honor. He accepted it though.

I strongly recommend the center. I loved it. And right down the block is the Woody Guthrie Center. Go check it out. I did a few years ago.

Here is a musical interlude. I told you that I wasn’t much of a fan but I loved Hurricane from 1975’s Blood on the Tracks album.