Tag Archives: Tulsa

Greyhound Bus Lines – “Leave the Driving to Us”

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I found a Greyhound bus in downtown Tulsa last week at the bus station. Nobody any it but it looked ready to go. It is fully up to date it looks like with handicapped access, power, wifi,and reclining seats. Other than that, I am not sure that buses have changed much over the years. I would bet that of the features listed, only the reclining seats worked. I have never rode in too many buses but a lot of stuff didn’t work. Stuff like the restroom, the air conditioning, or even the bus itself. Anybody else spend some time on the side of a road in a broke down bus??

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My longest bus trip was from Albuquerque to Mexico City in 1971 as part of a High School trip. I don’t think we rode Greyhound but it was a long ways. The crow flies distance is 1172 miles. I’d add a couple hundred at least for the roads. I don’t remember much about it except it was fun. We got broke down a couple times. I wish I had a decent camera back then. I remember the small towns were pretty cool. Mexico City was great.  The highlight was the pyramids at Teotihucan. They were spectacular.

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So who rides the bus lines these days? I guess people who have a lot of time and not much money. To visit my Dad in Idaho would take two days and 23 hours but cost only about $200 one way or less than half what it cost to fly and be there in 6 hours, including layovers. I think it would be a miserable journey though.

I got on good ole youtube to look at old bus commercials. Back in the 60’s they showed people dressed up in suits and ties and nice dresses to travel on the bus. Kind of like flying used to be.

Things have sure changed.

Skywatch Friday – A Noon Walk and a Full Wolf Moon

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I got away from work for a little while Tuesday at noon and drove to nearby Gilcrease Museum. I didn’t go into the museum but I went for a walk on the adjacent city park, Stuart Park. There was a sign there to be on the lookout for a bobcat and to report sightings. So that kind of perked my interest. I didn’t see any bobcats but I did take a few photos. It was very warm, almost 70. This is after being 4F on Saturday morning. Now we are supposed to have an ice storm on Saturday. Oh well, this winter if you don’t like the weather just wait a little bit and it will change.

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And then last night when I got home I noticed the moon was almost full so I got my trusty camera out and took a shot. It is the Full Wolf Moon, or almost full I guess. I love taking shots of the moon. I have dozens of them. I don’t know why, it doesn’t really change does it. I imagine I’ll be taking lots more as time passes.

I’m linking this post with Skywatch Friday. Come join us. A new link starts Saturday at 2:30PM Central Time (US).

Fences Around the World – Oxley Nature Center

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I went on a run at Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center this week. I have taken off the whole week between Christmas and New Years and the weather has been quite mild. Unlike other parks around town, Oxley has their trails extremely well marked some even with gates like this. I’m a Forest Service kid and I love this type of construction. And, who can resist checking out a trail called the “Meadowlark Prairie Trail.”

And I am donating a free shadow selfie at no extra cost.

I am linking this post with Fences Around the World

as a PS I am ashamed to say that I have subscribed to Photoshop for over a year and just this week have been figuring out how it works. I had always discounted Lightroom before but I have learned it is an integral part of the whole process. You do the easy edits in Lightroom and then pass the photo easily on to Photoshop. And then you can pass it back. Easy Peasy. Plus I have some of the Topaz Filters and have learned that the they are easily integrated into Photoshop as well. In the photo above I used I used a free Nik Filter from Google. They made them free in March of 2016 and they are very powerful. Anyway, they are integrated into Photoshop also.

I feel kind of dumb but having a little time to study things shows me that I have been wasting a lot of time. Better late than never I guess.

Skywatch Friday – Pond Reflections

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My favorite go to 3 mile walking/running loop is Lafortune Park just a few miles from the house. The trail goes around a golf course, tennis courts, and a playground, and by a several ponds so there almost always moments to rest a little bit and snap a pic or two. I’m always wanting to yell “You the Man!” or “In the Hole!!” at the golfers but never have, probably never will. I used to work with a guy who when we played golf with the CEO of our employer would say, when the CEO hit the ball, “Oh my gosh, look at the ball go!!” He even said it when I hit it, or whiffed it as mostly the case. I always thought it was funny.

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We were celebrating my wife’s birthday yesterday and when we got home I noticed that we had a full moon. So I dug out my trust Canon SX40 Superzoom and took a few pics of the moon. I an one of them through Topaz Textures and then uploaded onto my Ipod Touch and used DistressedFX to further process the image to bring out the features of the moon.  This moon doesn’t have a cool name like some of the other moons. It is called the Long Night Moon.

Skywatch Friday

Our World – Philbrook Gardens in the Winter

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Saturday I dropped the kid off for his Comedy Improv Class and headed up to the Philbrook Museum to walk around a little while. It was their free second saturday promotion going on inside so I went outside to the gardens  to get a little air and breathing room. I went to the bottom of the hill and shot back up to Villa Philbrook. I never get tired of the view and in the winter it seems a little crisper even on a cold overcast day.

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This is the reverse view. I never get tired of the tempietto and its reflection but I pulled back the shot a bunch to take in the patchwork of colors, textures, and patterns.

I just love that place.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – A Run on Turkey Mountain

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Saturday morning started out cool with a chance of rain. I thought about putting up the outside Christmas lights on house but I don’t like doing that in the rain. I don’t mind running in a light rain though. I have the gear for it. So after dropping the kid off at his Improv Comedy class I headed to Turkey Mountain. There was hardly anyone there.

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It was kind of a dreary gray day, just the way I like them, and so off I went with a vague desire to do about five miles plus or minus and take some new trails. The big well used trails are fine but I love the fainter seldom used ones also. As you can see there were lots of dry leaves on the ground. The squirrels were having a field day running around in them making a racket.

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I take it as a point of honor to never (well almost never) turning back on a trail because it disappears or requires climbing up or down a cliff. This trail ended up requiring it. It is at the far north end of Turkey Mountain and I had to climb down a steep hill and then climb back up out on the other side of the draw. Oh well. Slows me down but I’m not in it for the speed.

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I saw only one bicyclist and very few other people the whole time I was out there.

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I guess that somebody lost their camo hat and some other person picked it up and stuck it on a tree. I always wonder who besides a hunter needs camo gear. When I’m out in the woods, I want to be seen.

Being out in the woods in nature is a great escape. Maybe I’ll do the lights on Sunday. The Cowboys aren’t playing you know.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday.

Downtown Fall Foliage

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A lot of trees have lost their leaves and a lot still have their leaves on in like a last second burst of glory. I found this tree just south of downtown earlier this week. I loved the view underneat the leaves with the sun shining through.

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The same tree a few minutes later across the street and it has a decided more reddish appearance. What’s the deal!!??

Urban Geocaching

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I dropped the kid off at his Improv Comedy Class on Saturday and went in search of a few geocaches. First up was Evergreen Palace by TJFirey at Tulsa’s Heller Park. One of those you know easy park and grabs that everybody finds. I didn’t find it but walked around and took a few pics.  There have been a bunch of caches at Heller Park over the years and I don’t know if I have found any of them!!

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The area around “Up Joe Creek” Cache.

Not very far away was Bridge of Sorrows, by Thurstonhowell1. Another one with a great hint and everybody else is having a great time finding it but not for me!! A homeless guy came by with an old carpet sweeper that he found somewhere close by. He was pretty proud of it mainly because of the handle. He said, “Look, it still works.” and he ran it on the sidewalk and then he says “Damn, I’m picking up the pebbles.” I said, “Yep, its working great. My mom used to have one.” And he said, “I’ll have to figure a way to get those rocks out, but later, I have places to be now.” I said take care and he said nice to visit, “Same here, see you later!” I answered. I kind of like non mentally ill, non drug using homeless people.

Oops, sorry, this is a geocaching post and I didn’t find it. Next was Up Joe Creek by BlueStar99. This one took a little figuring out to get close to the cache. I had to use a business parking lot. I park far away from the building and was mindful of No Trespassing Signs, there were none. It took me a little bit to find this clever little cache but I did. First find of the day. I am big into the concept of Geocaching is all about the hunt but I do like to find them every now and then.

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It was getting close to pick the kid up so I headed north and stopped at “Keep Speeding” by mindfulmomma right near Insterstate 44. I parked nearby and crossed the frontage road and found it. No homeless people, or anything. I found it. I’m on a roll!! Yeah Me!!

I head over and pick Logan up and we get something to eat and then I take him to his volunteer gig working for the Animal Rescue Foundation. Logan has a soft spot for dogs and cats and hates geocaching with a passion. Where did I go wrong that I have a kid that would rather clean out cat boxes than look for ammo boxes? Oh well, one of us needs counseling.

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So I headed up through north Tulsa on my to Oxley Nature Center. I stopped short of Oxley to look for a cache named Heat Wave by The Sooners. It took me a little bit and then, Oh yeah, I’ve seen this before.  I drove a little further to another one of those, easy to find, fun caches that everybody else can find but me, named TICO #2 by glenjonz. And yep, I didn’t find it. I have a complex about easy caches.

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Next up was a full size cache in Oxley Nature Center that was had some good reviews called Nature of Mohawk by Skitzo666. I live for full size caches in the woods. So I parked nearby and looked around and walked here and there and looked high and then looked low and then got down on my hands and knees and went looking in the tough spots and easy spots and started looking farther and farther away and then repeated the whole process

I decided to log and DNF and go do something else. Just then a car drove up and parked and a guy popped out and asked if I was looking for the cache. He said he was the cache owner and somebody reported the cache was missing. He went to one of the spots where I looked and reported yep it was missing. He said he was going to replace it at a different spot so I wandered off far enough to where I could hear him but not see him and then he left. He told me the general area where it was so I found it easily enough. What a great cache owner Skitzo666 is. Salud to you guy. You are doing it right.

So I turned off the GPSr, retrieved my “good”camera from the car and headed up a water pipeline into Oxley’s Northwoods Loop Trail that I posted about on Sunday.