2019 Broken Arrow Chalk it Up Art Festival

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Saturday the family headed out to the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow to check out their “Chalk it Up Art Festival” held in conjunction with the Broken Arrow Rose Festival.

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The event is held on Main Street in downtown Broken Arrow (aka the Rose District). Contestants use chalk and create their works right on the street. It is pretty amazing and it looks to me like a lot of work.

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They had a lot of entries, maybe over thirty or so. The only other time we came was years ago and they had maybe a dozen.

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They were very colorful and showed a wide variety of themes.

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Unfortunately it started sprinkling when we got there so I turned into a man on a mission, photographing almost all of them before it started raining so I was not able to go back and study them in more detail. Plus there were a ton of vendors set up in tents selling all sorts of interesting arts, crafts, and other things. We usually try and check those out also but not this time.

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So just as I finished it started sprinkling pretty heavy and we had parked a ways away so we headed back to the car. Turns out that maybe we should have not left so quickly but oh well. I didn’t care if I got wet I was more worried about my camera.

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I liked this one showing some of the flora and fauna of Oklahoma.

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And Tulsa’s iconic Golden Driller.

Here is a link to my last visit to Chalk it Up seven years ago.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

The Flooding Winds Down in Tulsa

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Keystone dam on Friday, flowing 195,000 cu ft per sec through the gates.

The waters of the Arkansas River in the Tulsa area are rapidly falling. The waters flowing into Keystone Dam above the city declined rapidly which gave room for the Army Corps of Engineers to start closing the big Tainter gates and reduce the water drastically.

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Close up of the Tainter Gates controlling the flow out of the dam.

The peak flow was 275,000 cubic feet per second, now is down to 120,000 which is high but low enough that the river is back in its banks.

Downstream of Tulsa things are still bad, Muskogee still has a lot of flooding, and it is even worse in Arkansas where a major levee has been breached.

The images above and below are screen shots from a Corps web site. People had them open on their screens all day, refreshing and posting what the latest inflow and outflow numbers were.

I think that this has been a wake up call for the whole community. Personally, I thought with a big dam upstream that a major flood was pretty much impossible. Well, it is possible and we were lucky that the levees held and that the rains held off. With the climate change we are experiencing I am wondering if we are going to see these occurrences more often.

The local paper, the Tulsa World, produced the video above and the links I reference below.

An oil and gas producer who had tanks flooded mishandled the situation and ended up in hot water. Read about it here.

The waters are lower and residents are starting to return to their homes.

The Tulsa World also has a listing of handy phone numbers and internet links that might be helpful.

Skywatch Friday – to the Moon and Beyond

I don’t have a theme for this post besides the Sky. So here goes!

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This is the last full moon that we had a couple weeks ago. I love the Native American names for the various moons. This one is known as the Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon, or the Flower Moon.

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I shot this with an HDR camera on my phone while stopped at a light. It may be overdone a little but I kind of like it.

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This is from one of my bicycling outings.

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This is a sky over a stripper oil well near a city park in north Tulsa.

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Our local AA Minor League baseball, the Tulsa Drillers schedules day games during the week. This year I took a few hours of vacation, bought me a ticket and went to see them. There is nothing like daytime baseball. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

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Another sight from biking, this one along the Arkansas River. With the flooding the RiverParks are closed now. Who knows how much damage they sustained.

I hope you have a great week!

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

ABC Wednesday – “U” is for Unions to Submarines

I don’t have a whole lot of “U” tags but here goes with what I found.

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U is for United States Flag!!! Here is our flag along with a bunch of others snapping in the breeze at a local high school.

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U is also for University Club Apartments here in Tulsa. It is the eight tallest building in Tulsa!! Okay, that is not impressive but it is also the first building in the US designed with a computer. Read about it in Wikileaks.

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U is for Union Picketers!! For a long time we had these guys picketing a job downtown. Now, here is where this gets complicated. These are not carpenters or any other tradesmen or actual union members. These are homeless people recruited by a union to picket. I guess that the actual union members couldn’t be bothered. I explain it all here if you are interested. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with unions.

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U is for the USS Batfish, a World War II era submarine now on display in Muskogee and available for tours. Son and I have done it and it is very cool. Interesting story is that it is now refloated. During the floods the past week, it floated and broke the chains holding it and the community had to work together to keep it from floating away. Read about it here, and there is a video.

So that is all I have for U’s! Go check out others at ABC Wednesday

Our World – Tulsa Oklahoma Flooding – 2019

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We went to Colorado last week and while we were gone, it flooded in our home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our home is high and dry but not everybody is so lucky.

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I take pains not to be a problem and so I didn’t visit where people’s houses were flooded. I took a couple trips to the RiverParks area of Tulsa, a strip of public park along both sides of the Arkansas River as it flows through town.

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In 27 years of living here I have only seen the trail covered for a 50ft section or so once or twice. Now, whole section of the trail are under water and the water is a foot or two higher than what is shown in these photos.

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These are newer photos from Sunday when son and I visited the northern section of the RiverParks. The water is even deeper now and is expected to get worse over the next week or so as it continues to rain in the Arkansas River watershed.

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Check out the Tulsa World site for more photographs of the flooding.

The Arkansas River is flowing swiftly. It now reminds of me the Snake River in Idaho which also moves swiftly.

So what is happening? The Arkansas River gathers water from a huge area. The basin in drains ranges from Leadville and Colorado Springs, Colorado and almost to Santa Fe, New Mexico to Tulsa. It all funnels through Keystone dame above Tulsa a few miles and it is way over flood stage behind the dam.

And to add insult to injury, we have had tornadoes. We spent Saturday night in our desigated safe room, our downstairs guest bathroom, with our cats and dogs in crates and we three humans holding flashlights and our cell phones waiting for the all clear. Our son said at one point that it was all a roll of the dice! Yep that is right son.

We are lucky though. The tornado passed about a mile south of us and our house is high and dry. So we are blessed but are remembering those who are not so fortunate as us.

Here is a link to a live infographic by US Army Corps of Engineers for the Keystone Dam showing lake levels, inflows, outflows, and other data.

I am linking with OurWorld Tuesday

High Plains Skywatch

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This past week we ventured to Colorado Springs from Tulsa for our great nephew’s high school graduation. We had quite the adventure going up, wind, rain, snow. Yep snow in May!!

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Yep, snow, luckily it was very slushy and not icy and Heather’s new car has all wheel drive with a “snow mode.” I love snow mode but not snow.

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Heather found this cool little Casita for us to stay in an older part of Colorado Springs. Ultra cool and snug in the freezing May weather. It was adobe and I love the look of snow and adobe.

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We went to my sister Ellen’s place out in the plains east of town. Here is son Logan out in the pasture.

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Ellen is an artist and she showed off her new “She Shed” where she does her painting.

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And we got to see her horses.

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And I found my BIL Irvin’s geocache out in front of their house.

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The trip home had some great skies that looked threatening but we didn’t have the rain and snow that we had going out. While we were gone Tulsa had some pretty bad flooding that is continuing. Our home is high and dry I can report.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Horses and Skies

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I went on a bike ride the other day after work. I took a trail alongside a rural turnpike that has lots of hills and if I am lucky some good skywatch shots. I found these horses, they were not too friendly so I just have photos of their rear ends.

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Headed back, some clouds showed up and threatened rain. It didn’t.

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Another uncooperative horse in a pasture. We have had lots of rain and the grass is high and green.

I had a good outing of about 16 miles of some nice hills and good scenery. It doesn’t get much better than that.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

ABC Wednesday – “S” is for …

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S is for Sailboat – this one seen during a family kayaking expedition on the Bon Secour River in Alabama near Mobile Bay.

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S is for Sarcophagus for the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

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S is for Sasquatch. I met this friendly fellow at a trail race here in Oklahoma.

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S is for School Desk.

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And S is for Seals. Or maybe it is a sea lion!!

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S is also for Sea Plane. This one landed on the intercoastal canal in Gulf Shores, Alabama and taxied to a restaurant for lunch. The pilot and the passengers. The plane didn’t get lunch. But you probably alraeady knew that.

I am linking with ABC Wednesday

Our World – Buck Atom on Route 66

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Buck Atom

Route 66 cuts right bisects Tulsa from east to west and we have a bunch of Route 66 monuments in Tulsa and the surrounding suburbs. Well we have one more. Buck Atom, a 21 foot tall statue holding a rocket marks the location of a tourist shop. It is right on Route 66 where it is 11th street just east of downtown Tulsa. Right next to Meadow Gold sign.

The unveiling was quite the scene with crowds of people and speeches. The mayor even showed up. Read all about it in local newspaper.

I love the goofiness of your typical Route 66 attraction. They are made with the express purpose of being an attraction. If you are going to do that, make it stand out is what I think and I think that is what Buck Atom does. Oh well, at least Buck Atom was done entirely with private money (as far as I know!)

Are you a Route 66 fan? I am kind of. I like the attractions and the many geocaches on the road but to get from point A to point B give me an interestate highway!!

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

Alaskan Smokejumpers

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Small Forest Fire in Idaho, early 1960’s. Photo by Dad.

My father was in the Forest Service and early in his career he fought a lot of fires. He was never a smoke jumper though. He rode in a truck and then hoofed it to the fire. Later on, on big fires he stayed behind the lines in various capacities. During dry summers he would be gone almost the whole time to Idaho, Montana, California and then show up one day unannounced and exhausted.

National Geographic Online has a superb article about Alaskan Smokejumpers along with some great photos. Hit the link to check it out.

We had a few family friends who were smokejumpers early in their career. And it turns out that I had friend in high school who became one. His career in the Forest Service overlapped my fathers and he told me on facebook a lot of nice things about my Dad that I had never heard before. Dad was never one to talk about himself much. So, facebook is good for things besides political arguments and cat videos!!

I’ve seen a few big forest fires from afar. I have never seen anything else as terrifyingly awesome even from miles away as a big fire with a huge column of smoke over it. I never felt a need to go fight them!! I respect those who did though.