This is my Mom snoozing on a tour bus in Ireland years ago. She loved Dad, her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, her brothers and sisters, and all their offspring. She also loved Notre Dame Football, Gonzaga Basketball (long before it was cool, she worked there as a young woman), the Denver Broncos, Joe Montana, Rose Kennedy, the Democratic Party, and especially Sandy Koufax.
She was a copper miner’s daughter, and a forest ranger’s wife. She was tough as nails and very loving. You crossed her at your own peril. She, my brother and I all graduated from the University of New Mexico the same day.
And she was Irish, not as much as ancestry dot com might say, but I wouldn’t tell her that if I were you. She loved Ireland and everything Irish. So on my Mom’s behalf, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. I love you and miss you every day.
I ran in Tulsa’s Saint Patrick’s Day 5K race Saturday. I was tempted not to run it because it was cold (about 42F at race time) and raining. But I had the right tech gear and decided to go ahead.
Heck of a shot of me here right? This isn’t going in the family album I’ll tell you. I do like my $7.49 cent top from Walmart a lot though. I am very visible. I was also very wet.
I decided to actually run this race a little bit especially at first and it worked pretty well. I got warmed up in a hurry for one thing. I would run a block and walk a block. Sometimes I’d run two blocks if we were going downhill. I was just going with the flow.
Here come the two leaders. They actually look like they are running. Me and these two guys swept the top two spots!! Aren’t you proud of me?
After a pretty good interval, here came the third place guy.
Here are my peeps in the back of the pack crowd.
So I was pretty pleased with my 43:50 time. I think that time is when I got to the starting line. my “gun time” which is official is more like 45 minutes or so.
So I finished 16th out of 18 in my age group. I was pleased that that I was able to run about half the race. It’s been about three years since I actually ran a race. It took about a year and half for my knees to quit hurting them so I baby them pretty good. I rarely run, I walk a lot, and do lots of the elliptical machine, bicycling, resistance training and yoga. I am going to continue babying my knees.
Kudos to the race sponsor, Special Olympics, Runners World Tulsa who always puts on a great race, the race director, the other sponsors, and the army of volunteers who make it all happen. It was cold and rainy but it was a great race.
This weekend I went down south of Tulsa to the banks of the Arkansas River. Away from Tulsa and the low water dam it starts to reclaim its identity as a wild, braided, prairie River. Lots of sandbars and funky currents and other things to get kayakers and canoeists in trouble if they are not careful.
I find me some dancing trees on the bank. I love spring but I love seeing the structure of trees.
I went hunting for a geocache in some woods away from the river. There was no trail and lots of bushwhacking. I didn’t find the cache, but that is okay. I loved the view.
I did find these worn out baseballs placed together. It amazes me what one finds in the middle of the woods in hard to reach areas. I have no idea what the story is with these balls. I left them there if you want to go looking for them.
Hmm, I caught a glimpse of something else out there.
I went for a closer look. I don’t know why but I think it is a portal to another dimension. A dimension away from adulting. Adulting is hard. You already know that. I decided not to go through the portal. I didn’t know if the wi-fi was any good or not.
We had a super moon the other night. Great!! But we also had lots of fast moving clouds that was kind of messing things up. So I did the best I could. I tinted it pink because I could and I liked the way the light ended up.
I got better results the next night.
How about you? Have you ever been tempted to enter a portal to another dimension? I am linking to Skywatch Friday
Sunday morning I headed out to Keystone State Park to help with some trail maintenance organized by the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition and the US Army Corps of Engineers. The rough and tough go getters were busy moving big rocks around, me, I always bring my loppers so I walk on the trails picking up litter and lopping off the limbs that might intrude on the hikers, runners, and bikers on the trail. That’s not a very manly job but hey I do what I can do.
The park is in the cross timbers region of Oklahoma which is dominated by rocks, lots of rocks and thin flinty soil so the trees don’t get very big. They can be very old but just not big. Many of the trees are post oaks and it is amazing the contortions they go through to get enough sunlight.
The rocks are amazing as well. Many of them are layers of soft sandstone and harder shales. A gazillion years ago all these rocks were at the bottom of the ocean. Since then through uplift and faulting the rocks are all this way and that way. Luckily the land is very poor for farming and ranching so the animals and plants that live on it are undisturbed for the most part.
Another one of the dancing trees that seem to sprout right of the rocks.
The area has small intermittent creeks running through it.
The trails were in great shape. I didn’t have a whole lot of lopping to do or really much of any litter to pick up. Most of the litter I picked up was near the parking lot.
I love the lichen that grows on trees. Despite what you may hear, in the more shady parts the stuff is on all sides of the trees. Northeast Oklahoma is so wet and humid you can’t count on telling north by lichens.
So I finished up after a few hours as did the more studly men. Many of them brought their mountain bikes and did a turn or two on the trails cuz that is what you do if you are a manly man. I went to go find a geocache.
The other day I went for a run on Turkey Mountain. I pretty much had the place to myself.
I always try and see things I have not noticed before. This well worn birdhouse is totally out in the open and close to a trail I have traversed many times before and I swear I have never seen it before in my life.
The Arkansas River far below was running full and the trees seem kind of excited about it.
Late winter is the last chance for these rocks to be seen.
The most photographed wagon wheel in Oklahoma, maybe even the world!!
Two trees dancing!!
2.96 miles, I’m calling it three!! I’m also linking with Our World Tuesday
We have had some strange weather in Oklahoma lately. Except that all the weather in Oklahoma is strange. It makes for some nice sky scenes. The above is from south Tulsa looking north. You can just barely see downtown Tulsa in the left center.
From the same vantage point to the southwest. The high rises just to the right of center is the former Oral Roberts City of Faith Medical Center, now just office buildings.
I always say a prayer when I see an ambulance, fire truck, police car, or medevac helicopter.
And a helicopter came buzzing in to the hospital building where I shot these images. The heliport is on the top floor. My brother still has serious medical issues and your thoughts and prayers are appreciated. I am thankful for the dedicated doctors, nurses, nursing techs, therapists, case managers, and others who are in the medical field that work hard to take care of sick people.
Friday after work I headed up to Post Oak Lodge north of Tulsa to get my runners packet for the quarter marathon event on Sunday as part of their three day Post Oak Challenge series of races this past weekend.
Post Oak Lodge is a privately run event and retreat center and it is absolutely beautiful and their races are some of my favorites. I took these pics after picking up my packet.
Strangely enough, through some unforeseen circumstances I didn’t run the race on Sunday. That’s okay, they’ll have the race again next year and I’ll be there. In the meantime I have my memories. Four years ago I won second in my age group in the race. Next year I will be in an older age group!!
I have subscribed to Photoshop for years and I have fooled around with it, looking at their videos and taking free classes but not really getting anywhere with it at all in terms of understanding what it does and how to go about using it. Our local Junior College, Tulsa Community College advertised classes and since I had good luck with them with other photography classes I signed up for their six class session course on Photoshop.
There was six sessions and we went through different aspects of photoshop and on their computers modified their photos for the first five sessions and then their was a project for the sixth class where you applied what you learned to five photos. People can check out Andrew Defrancesco if they need photography lessons. Learning how to modify other people’s photos is okay for learning but not very much fun as modifying one’s own photos. The above photo was my project illustrating how to enhance old automobiles.
This is my wife Heather. This photograph was the result of creating “dreamy” photographs. Heather gave me an F on this photo. She didn’t like it at all.
And this was a photograph where we used photoshop to enhance natural features. This is Fairy Falls in Yellowstone National Park. I can’t really brag about this photo but I hey, I am still learning. Photoshop is such a big powerful tool and I am feel that I am finally like I might be able to get my head around it. I think now that I can understand some of the videos that Photoshop
