Tag Archives: Tulsa

Skywatch Friday – Sneaking in a Run

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I love this newly renovated substation on the edge of downtown.

Monday I had a lunch meeting that and so I left a little earlier than my regular time to sneak in a run downtown before going home. It was right about 5 pm and the skies were clear and the light bright so I took my camera. Of course I take my camera no matter the lighting.

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A good view of downtown and am empty desolate parking lot. The domed structure off to the right is the First Church of Christian Sciene.

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As I got closer to the Arkansas River I ran close to one of my favorite structures. It is a fountain, or it used to be a fountain. I love the mid-century modern design with a bunch of geometry. It is quite a striking structure.

Not a long run by any means but a nice way to end the day.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – The Lakes of Turkey Mountain

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One of the ponds on Turkey Mountain late in the afternoon. We have had a good amount of rain on the mountain this spring so many of the ponds are full of water. For some reason, the ponds are called lakes. I’m okay with that. The sky is a little vague in this photo but I like the light on vegetation in the foreground and I like the reflection of the sun also.  So I’m going with it and hope you don’t mind.

Come join us at Skywatch Friday!

Taking Care of the Kitties

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One of the things we do as a family is a couple times a month we go the Broken Arrow Petsmart and take care of the rescue cats. This is through an organization called Partnering for Pets. We started  on it because son, Logan, needs volunteer hours as part his college requirements but it turns out we really like doing it.

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It only takes a couple of hours to tidy up their crates, clean out the litter boxes and give them fresh food and water plus spend some time with each of them.

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The cats of are such hoots. We love our dogs but we like cats also. Cats have such different personalities and temperments and of course they take everything we do for them as their due. That is part of the reason we love it so much.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday;s Critters

Easter at Nana’s House

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This is Nana, the world’s great MIL. We had Easter dinner at her house this year.

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And this is Nana’s daughter, my wife.

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And Logan, the kid, the big kid.

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We had quite the spread. You can tell we are really heavy drinkers.

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And after dinner, while everybody else is working I am snooping around. These are Heather’s cowboy boots from she was just a toddler. Her grandfather had a ranch you see. No matter, if you live in Oklahoma you have cowboy boots even if you hardly know what a horse looks like. Next the boots is a photo of our son Logan on a horse.

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And this is Nana’s mother’s Easter hat. Nana wouldn’t model it for me. When I was a kid, all the women had Easter hats, and gloves, and white shoes. The little girls had little muffs and me and my brother Bob had bow ties.

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Yep that’s us, rocking the bow ties. Better than muffs but still torture. In case you were wondering, I’m the good looking guy.

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Back to Nana’s mother. These are her Iris’s that Nana transplanted from the family home in western Oklahoma. I love these flowers.

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And this is Nana’s father’s saddle and hat. I love this old family stuff.

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And here is our family photograph. We hope you had a great Easter with family and friends because we sure did.

Our World Tuesday – Half and Half Run at Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center and Lake Yahola

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For my weekly Wednesday after work run I changed things up a little bit. Instead of going to Turkey Mountain with its rocks, roots, and hills I headed out to the best kept secret trails in Tulsa, the Northwoods trails at Oxley Nature Center and then extend it by running around one of Tulsa’s raw water supply sources, Lake Yahola.

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The Norhwoods trails are not used very much. They don’t even have a parking lot. You just park on the side of the road. I hardly ever see anybody else on them. And there is a chance of seeing deer. I haven’t seen a deer on Turkey Mountain in a long time. The thing about Oxley is that there are very few rocks and no hills. My legs were a little sore and I wanted some distance but I couldn’t face going up and down the hills of Turkey Mountain.

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I did find an old snag that toppled across the trail. A real trail runner would have leaped across it without slowing down. Then there are guys like me who deal with in a different manner.

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There is quite network of trails in the North Woods section but they only add up to 3 miles and they loop around on each other so if you miss a turn it is no big deal.

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So I took the Oxbow lake Trail to get to Lake Yahola.

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And here it is. See the little specs to the left of center on the far shore? That is the high rises of downtown Tulsa just a few miles away.

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I turned to the right and started running on the chat gravel path. I didn’t bring my trail shoes and the gravel was hurting my feet and the grassy part was too soft for really good running. What a cry baby I am!!! I was running into the wind also but I was having the time of my life. I come upon about a dozen fishermen scattered around the lake. There is something peaceful about fishing and watching fishermen.

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About two thirds of the way around the lake I come upon the city water treatment plant. I love infrastructure stuff like this.

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Back close to the main trail at the Oxbow Lakes.

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Fuzzy pic of me with the lake. Do you like my socks?

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Back down to the road. I love how the trees tunnel over the trail. I love running here when there is strong winds because the trees just plain stop the wind and it is neat because you can hear the wind howling through the tops of the trees. I love stuff like that.

Got my run in. Almost six miles at a leisurely pace. Oh well, it is what it is.

I’m linking with “Our World Tuesday“

Skywatch Friday – Turkey Mountain -Tulsa’s Urban Wilderness

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A view of Turkey Mountain from across the River.

I spend a lot of time at the Turkey Mountain. It is called an Urban Wilderness with a big emphasis on “Urban.” It sits on the Arkansas River only a few miles from downtown. It has freeways on its north and west side and a major street on the south. On the east side tucked in at the river is a seldom used railroad spur line.

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That is downtown Tulsa in the distance. Along with a pipeline and a powerline to boot.

It has at least three pipelines running through it, two major liquids lines and a large diameter natural gas pipeline. There are two major power lines running.In addition there are remnants of oil wells and some abandoned flow lines and remnants of houses.

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The poop plant in the foreground and Instate I44 crossing the river.

On its northeast side it has a large sewage treatment plant. Sometimes the aroma wafts up on top of the mountain. Sometimes the parking lot is crowded and you have people with their fleece pajamas walking along the trails smoking, talking loudly on the cell phones on speaker mode.

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I love sunsets on the mountain. At this time of day the mountain is deserted.

But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I have run and hiked hundreds of miles on its trails. The rude people never get more than a quarter mile down the trails and get bored and leave. For as much use as it gets there is not much litter. Thousands of people love the place and a while ago when an out of state developer proposed putting an outlet mall of all things on a privately owned portion of the park the community got together and said NO!! And then passed a measure to buy the tract from its owners. A couple of Tulsa companies provided the interim financing so the deal could close.

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That is son on the left during a Fall hike years ago.

Even on its busiest days Turkey Mountain is big enough where you may see only a few people once you get a half mile down the trails. It gives people space and room to breathe.  And the people take care of it.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Resources

Urban Wilderness Coalition – A great group of people who led the successful struggle against the Outlet Mall. It looked hopeless at first but they stuck with it and persevered.

Turkey Mountain Web Site – Turkey Mountain is administered by the Tulsa RiverParks Authority. Lots of good info on what is going on.

Miles to go before I sleep…  Blog by Trail Zombie – A great guy who also lives on the mountain. Lots of posts about Turkey Mountain in particular and trail running in general.

 

Birthday Weekend 2017

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Me and Rascal. Rascal adopted us. He just showed up at the house one day years ago. We tried hard for about a half day trying to find his owner. He is the smartest, most affectionate dog we have ever had.

I had my birthday last week. Or I should say birthdays. A birthday is much too important to be just one day. One day only is very harsh, don’t you think? Fortunately, my family plays along with the concept. I’m a blessed man for many reasons.

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Look at that big ole cake, look at the old man huffing and puffing, look at the young son looking doubtfully. Just so you know, I didn’t get them all blown out with one puff. Overconfidence I guess.

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And Heather sang.

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Look at the big pile of cards and gifts. Like I said I am a blessed man. I don’t deserve all that do I. My favorite line from Clint Eastwood’s character is “None of us get what we deserve.” That has an entirely different meaning to it.

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And I played some happy music on my way to work.

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Saturday morning we worked with the rescue kittys at the the Petsmart in Broken Arrow. We do that twice a month or so and it is really fun. The cats are fun. We are all about rescue critters in our house. You can see this one really likes Heather. Everybody really likes Heather, including me. She is awesome.

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Friday night she took me out to dinner in the Brady District during the area’s First Friday celebration. I found this beauty in the Philbrook Museum downtown.

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Yes indeed, life is good, and I am a blessed man.

2017 Tulsa Auto Show

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I took some time off work early today and checked out the 2017 Tulsa Auto Show at Expo Square in Tulsa. It is the 100th Anniversary of the Show!

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I’ve been going to the show off and on for over two decades and it has steadily shrunk. Maybe this year will be a turning point.

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They had new cars of course and many vintage cars. The vintage cars in my eyes are just plain a lot more interesting than the new cars. Most of the new cars look like Toyotas in my opinion. Nothing wrong with Toyotas. I love them that are very good dependable cars but a bit boring.

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Not that many new cars have a sense of style. There are exceptions. I love the Ford Flex above and of course the car above it, the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. I got on the web site and configured one for only $75,000 bucks and change. That is about five times what I paid for my Kia Soul.

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For about the same price as the Hellcat you can have this Toyota  uh er,  I mean Maserati Levant boring if you ask me.

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Now this Range Rover has a little style.

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Or this storm chasing vehicle. I don’t get storm chasers. Do storm chasers do anything useful. Here in Oklahoma we watch storms on TV a lot. The typical storm chaser report is like “Yea Dan, we are in downtown Bartlesville and there is definitely some wind and some rain!” Seriously dudes. Stay home, get off the road. Where you can do something useful like take out the trash.

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I love the older cars like this mid 1950’s Chevy.

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Or this vintage NASCAR stock car.

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I love the older Thunderbirds, lots of funky colors. No Toyotas back then.

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I even like the Corvairs.

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And I love the restored mid century pick up trucks. The curves and colors on this.

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And this

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Who doesn’t love an old British Sports Car?

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Adn I love the really old cars. Don’t want to own one mind you, I just like looking at them.

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These cars are beautiful but give me a boring modern car any time to actually own and operate.

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Cars have come a long way over the decades. Our family always had sketchy cars. I never knew if they would start or not. I don’t know how we did it back in the days before cell phones. I had lots of experience with getting a jump from somebody and other skills necessary to get things going. I don’t even own jumper cables any longer.

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OSU Tech had a demo car that showed the engine and drive train moving. I loved it.

Check out the Tulsa Auto Show if you are interested. It has two more days to run. 10 to 9 on Saturday and 10 to 6 on Sunday. Get two for one tickets at Quik Trip and save some money. Check out the Hellcat!

Outdoor Wednesday – The Flowers are Blooming at Woodward Park

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I took my “good camera” to work Tuesday just do I could check out Tulsa’s Woodward Park at lunch. The tulips and azaleas and other plants are blooming right now and the old park was putting on a show.

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There were hardly any people there and I had the place pretty much to myself. I ended up taking 72 photos. Makes me glad for digital photography. I love film and have several film cameras but it is an expensive habit to get into.

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It is such a beautiful time of year.

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Even the hula hoopers were out.

I’m linking with Outdoor Wednesday