Tag Archives: Tulsa

Skywatch Friday – Pond Reflections

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Urban Geocaching

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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Turkey N Taturs 10K Trail Race on Turkey Mountain

Sunday morning, TATUR (“Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners”) held their “Turkey N Taturs” races,10K, 25K, and 50K all on Turkey Mountain. I ran the 10K which for this crowd is like a fun run.

The start was cool, sunny, and dry, perfect for running.

The course was a good mixture of flat and level, hills, rocks, and roots. It had a great rhythm to it. Being Sunday morning there were not too many other people out on the mountain.

I ran about half the race by myself and the last half with a friend who had about the same pace as I did. Running with somebody makes the race a lot easier. I tend to go faster when I’m with somebody.

One of the great things about trail races is the aid stations. I had a shot of some sort of liquor at this one. I’m not sure if that was a good idea or not. It kind of stuck with me for a while.

As you can see the course wound all over the mountain. The 25K and 50K guys looped over the east side to get their distances in. The 50K was two laps of the 25K route.

And a good time was had by all. Last I checked I finished dead last out of 32 men who had finished by then. But hey, I beat everybody who slept in that day right?

A big thank you to fine folks at TATUR and the many volunteers that it takes to put on an event like this and to my fellow racers.

Dia De Muertes (Day of the Dead) at Tulsa’s Living Arts

November 1st I got a kitchen pass from Heather and headed out to Living Arts in the Brady District to check out their Day of the Dead celebration. I first went two years ago and I thought it was wonderful. Dia De Muertos (Dia De Los Muertos is a back translation from English I read) is a day where people in Mexico honor and remember their relatives and close friends who have died.

Often the dead are remembered via Ofrendas (Offerings) which are altars built to honor the dead person. It may have photographs of the deceased or possessions and often contain favorite foods or beverages and if it is a child, a toy. Living Arts in their “Altared Spaces” Exhbit displayed Ofrendas made by people for their loved ones. In fact they solicit the public to put up Ofrendas.

Some were for people who had a long life and many children and grand children.

And others were for people who passed away way too young.

They were all works of art.

The Ofrenda above is for those people who died while trying to cross the border.

I love the concept of honoring lost ones with an Ofrenda.

Living Arts also had murals painted just for the event. I love them for their humorous macabre riff.

Dancing skeletons

Here is one in honor of dogs. Our dogs just don’t live long enough if you ask me.

The murals are beautiful. Even the ones with gas meters in front of them.

There was dance also. Ballet Folklorico Sol Azteca of Tulsa put on a great performance of folk dances.

The costumes were colorful

And the dancers were lively

It was beautiful and I had a front row seat for some reason.

And there was all sorts of other things going on. Food vendors, crafts, other performers. You can bet that I’ll be back next year!

In Search of the Rid(dle)diculous Geocache

I have been after a geocache named “That’s Just Rid(dle)iculous!!!” by a geocacher named M5. (Geocachers have names, I’m known as YogiABB.) Its puzzle cache which means one has to solve a puzzle to find the cache.

This puzzle involves arithmetic and some baffling wordage about the three kids and the sum of their ages, and the product of the their ages, and one’s a muggle and oh my. I don’t know what is going on.

Ithought I had it so I went out the area and bushwhacked to what i thought was ground zero and looked here and there and up there and down here and around and around. so I didn’t find it.

I didn’t find the cache but I had a pleasant hour in the woods, Plus One for ME! And found a new secret trail!! Score One More for Me.!! It is not very long but it is sweet.

So I’ll take that.

Skywatch Friday – Evening on the Arkansas River

Evenings on the Arkansas River this time of year are very peaceful. The weather is mild and pleasant and there are lots of people out strolling with the kids, bike riding, running, and skateboarding. Its the place to be.

I cheated on this and used a texture backed off about 75%.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Last Long Run Before the Race

Saturday I made my last long run before the Tulsa Run 15K coming up this next weekend. My training is not going like I thought it would.

Basically I have been running only one day a week because i have a sore back every morning. Weekday mornings is generally the balance of my training where I do my resistance traiining (essential to successful running) and my shorter runs.

My back is killing me in the morning in one particular spot about midway down my left side. And it disappears about 20 minutes after I wake up in the morning. No, the bed is not uncomfortable but the pain is not quite excruciating in the morning.

So I get up and make coffee and read the paper and check up on what is going on online.

So anyway, the Tulsa Run is 15K and I’ve only trained about 11. Things will be okay though. I know how to stretch things out. I first ran the Tulsa Run in 1994 and ran it every year through 2014. Last year I injured a knee and so I walked the 5K but I’m running the 15K again. It will be my 22nd time.

How about you? I bet you know how to stretch things when you have to.

YogisDen.us

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