Last week my sister, Ellen, and her husband, Irv, came down from Colorado to visit us.
While here we joined our brother Bob at his residence. Management was throwing an Oktoberfest, food, drink, desert, entertainment! We were all up for that.
Music was provided by a local accordion band. I didn’t even know that accordion bands were a thing. These folks were great. They all played together, you know, like they were a band! It was jam packed with residents and guests and I think everyone had a good time.
The next day I showed off Turkey Mountain. They were very polite. They live on some acreage where they have a front row seat to Pikes Peak at 14,114 feet. Turkey Mountain is 804 feet. They did not snicker, not even once!! Hey you know, we in Tulsa are proud of 804 foot tall hill. We can call it a mountain if we want.
Irv is a fellow geocacher and he found one on the moutain.
Ellen made friends with Sasquatch.
We went by Pepsi Lake. They didn’t ask why the ponds on the Turkey Mountain hill are called lakes. I don’t know!!
We ended up going about 4.5 miles or so. I was worn out.
We are still at the beach on our family’s vacation. We had a couple of warm days to wear we could sit on the beach for a few hours. The water was warm enough wade in but not for me to get in. Son got in for a little bit but he is young, right? And then it got cold so we go beach walking and hiking in a nearby State Park. Hey you know, a cold day at the beach is still okay.
I hope everybody is doing well!! I’m linking withSkywatch Friday.
I like to go to the Tulsa State Fair every year. I only spend about a couple hours.
All I do basically is take photographs.
As you can tell I like Ferris Wheels.
And I love this two story merry go round. They have had it for years.
Some of the ride parts are amusing, or scary. If I was a kid this would scare me to death. I don’t ride any of the rides. Nope, not a ride person.
At least this guy is smiling. Not for me though.
And I like taking photos of the food stands. I love this faux corner brick pizza place. Nope, not going to touch it.
Not tempted by Chicken City either. I love the design though.
Another Chicken place.
You know, I don’t even know what a funnel cake is. Nor do I want to find out. I generally get a corn dog. Kind of hard to mess that up. I only get one corn dog per year.
I like all the 4H and FFA projects on display. Someone restored this beautiful tractor.
So at the end of my 2.5 mile wibble wobble of the Tulsa State Fair I found the German Beer tent and had me a wheat beer, or two. Later on I got a corn dog.
For a more traditional skywatch photo, here is a crescent moon from a week or so ago.
Thanks for sticking with me. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.
We had a Full Corn Moon last week paired up with a crystal clear sky.
And some more clear skies on a day when I sneaked onto the new Bales Park trails here in Tulsa. They are putting up a fancy rustic wicket over the trail.
They have a nice boardwalk over a marshy area.
And Bales Park has an overlook to downtown Tulsa not very far away. That land across the freeway to the right is the very northwest end of Turkey Mountain. Nice to have two great public areas so close together. The highway department is redoing a freeway interchange at the center left of the photo. As part of the work the highway guys are putting in a bench to be used as a trail connector between Bales Park and Turkey Mountain. It was a big enough deal that US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came to town and made a press conference at the interchange to talk about the project as part of a project to reconnect parts of Tulsa that have been semi-isolated since the 1950’s. Here is the link to an article about it. Hilarious because Oklahoma’s Representatives and Senators all voted against the project and now they are all taking credit for it.
And switching gears, here is photo that is not mine.
Jigsaw puzzle – not my photo
Another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. I think of Monument Valley. I am not sure.
We’ve had some pretty good sunsets in Tulsa lately. Late day weather helps with the clouds in the western sky. One evening I launched my drone and went up about 50 meters. Not much wind which is rare for Oklahoma.
Another day I was taking son somewhere and we had good skies so I was taking shots as I safely could while driving. This is from our house looking west.
And at our church a little later.
And the drive home.
Another day I had to get my car serviced. We live only 0.8 miles from the mechanic so if the weather is good I walk back home. So this is an early morning shot to the east. I have to confess that since I have retired I have not seen very many sunrises.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Check it out, lots of great posts there.
On a bike ride a week or so ago I stopped and took a photo across the Arkansas River to this power plant. Yep, I used a filter.
From the same spot I turned about 30 degrees to my right and captured this scene of the new pedestrian bridge and low water dam going on. They are really busy, busy, busy with all the work going on. Who knows when it is going to be done.
A few days later I took my bike back to the river to do another dam inspection trip and the skies opened up. Fortunately, I hadn’t started my ride yet.
A few days later I was walking in a park and captured this scene.
I took a hike on Turkey Mountain and captured a scene at Pepsi Lake.
The trail I was on came out on a powerline right of way and hey, there is the office building I worked in for about half my career way on downtown. I waved, “Hey guys, get your butts back to work.”
That’s about it for this week. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join in the fun!!
Below is not my photo. This is a jigsaw puzzle I did on my Ipad of the Mouton Barn at Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. This may be the most photographed barn in the world!!
I’ve always loved Mormon Row, it reminds me of a ranch that my aunt and uncle had in Idaho not that far from this scene in Wyoming. The closed up barn with great patina. The brutal winters mean not too many windows.
This is a photo I made a few years ago. Just looking at how the west barn eave cuts into the tree line I think I was standing just 10 to 20 feet west of where the person who took the photo for the puzzle was standing.
And while we are loosely of the subject of architecture. Above is a photo of Westhope here in Tulsa. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I think it is one of only three of his designs in Oklahoma. I knew of it but had never chased it down until last week when I did a geocaching AdventureLab focusing on oil millionaires houses in Tulsa.
And this is from a bike ride I did earlier this week in Tulsa. The river is the Arkansas River and the hill across the river is Turkey Mountain. An Urban Wilderness in the middle of Tulsa.
And here is the monarch waystation I help take care of on Turkey Mountain.
And a couple of sky photos from a hike at Oxley Nature Center.
And a shot of a prairie at Oxley.
And a drone shot from our backyard in south Tulsa looking west toward the sunset.
That’s all I got this week. I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come check it out!!
The heat is down just a slight bit nowadays so I took a walk around Lafortune Park. I’ve taken around a thousand pictures of the pond with the trees in the background. The water was clear and still and there were some clouds and some decent reflections.
I’ve been launching the drone again from the backyard. This is looking west.
And on another day looking north.
The software on my drone is a bit of a nag and very bossy. Like when our previous president flew into town for his rally the drone wouldn’t even get off the ground. Good thing to as the guy had Air Force One make a slow and low pass over south Tulsa before landing at the airport. I bring it because one recent evening it was pretty dark out but still some color in the sky and the drone wasn’t really in the mood. Said it was too dark so I had to affirm that I was flying at my own risk before it let me send it up. I liked the result.
And on another day it fussed at me again but I still sent it up and got another decent shot.
And this is not my photo. It is a jigsaw puzzle that I put together on my ipad. It took me weeks to complete. About drove me crazy. What I love though is that there is a tipping point in a puzzle where you have enough pieces down that the remaining pieces go very quickly. My next puzzle is going to be of the Mouton Barn at Grand Teton National Park.
Anyway that’s it for this week! I’m linking with Skywatch Friday – come join the fun!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Turn 90 degrees to your right and look east. That is Turkey Mountain right across the road. Oh well time to move on.
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.
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.
The trails go deep into Bales Park in areas where I doubt many people have been Lots of big oak and hickory trees there.
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.
Today, it was just me. And an equipment operator from Rogue building trail.
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.
I didn’t see any critters besides a few squirrels and birds. Despite being early in the day it was still kind of hot.
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.
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.
