Here is wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas from Oklahoma.
Ruby Tuesday 2- First Christmas
It’s Christmas Eve!!
Fourteen Years ago SuperPizzaBoy thought Christmas was pretty cool. (He still does!)
Such balance!!
From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!!
Scavenger Hunt Sunday – Guilty Pleasure
Another Scavenger Hunt this week, so lets get to it.
1. Joy
This is my niece Jillian at her wedding reception. She is joyous. Her mother, my sister, Ellen is to our left in the champagne colored dress. Jillian’s sister Mary (another beautiful niece!) is to our right in the black dress. My third beautiful niece, Dana is not pictured but she is also a knockout. I hit three for three on beauty on nieces with their personalized jewelry. Of course they take after their mother who thank goodness doesn’t look a thing like me.
I had to show Jillian’s handsome husband Brian.
2. Tangled
I found these extraordinary roots at the Woolaroc museum. I wondered what I was going to do with the picture and now I know!
3. Silver
I love silver and turquoise jewelry. I always choose silver for custom name ring. I find this beauty at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Most jewelry stores will let your try on most anything do you think a museum would if I asked really nicely?
4. Guilty Pleasure
Where am I going to go for some comfort food at lunch. The Coney-I-Lander in downtown Tulsa. Three coneys with chili, grated cheese, and onion. I add the cayenne pepper and tabasco sauce. Don’t knock it.
5. Angel
My wife’s has a Birthday Angel to celebrate her birthday. We hadn’t brought it out in years. I love it. One is never to old for a birthday angel are they? I love little family traditions.
That’s it for this week.
Christmas – The Home Stretch
(Sweeties delicious gluten free Gingerbread Men)
The Christmas Season is heating up just a few more days.
(Large balls that came rolling down the street during a windstorm.)
And the big day will be here. The preachers have been preaching to us to slow down, pause, reflect. Doesn’t seem like anybody ever does it.
(One of many building Christmas Trees in downtown Tulsa)
Hustle and Bustle, get this, get that, do this, do that. Drives me crazy, although I don’t have to do any of that. Sweetie bears the brunt of Christmas in hour house. Hats off to her. She does a great job but it is exhausting.
(Christmas Tree at SPB’s school)
Christmas is many different things to many different people. It’s a Christian holiday to be sure but other faiths join in also. Personally I think there is room for everybody at Christmas.
(SuperPizzaBoy, Gramps, and Brother Bob at Philbrook Museum during Thanksgiving.)
One big thing for me is a rest time. I love taking time off and spending it with the family. Especially this year. The energy industry is going berserk. Sometimes I just cannot believe the amount of money being spent. Billions of dollars in high stakes investments. It is paying off though. The USA is on its way to being a net energy exporter. In the natural gas industry there is genuine excitement with the producing companies I deal with. The technology they are applying to locating where to drill, the drilling process, and especially the fracturing and completion of the wells is awesome. It is also very expensive. Some areas about $12 million dollars per well. We are dealing with producers who have “pilot projects” involving 50 wells, 600 Million dollars.
Sorry, I’ll get back to Christmas. I am looking forward to resting for a week or so. Then it is back at it. Exciting times, but stressful also.
(Oklahoma City’s Bricktown Christmas Tree, Devon’s new $760 million building in the background)
I love Christmas even though I am the only person in the world who doesn’t understand what the “Spirit of Christmas” is. I am also puzzled but the abrupt end. We spend two months gearing up for it and then it is like a car driving a 100 miles per hour that hits a bridge abutment. Its the sudden stop that gets me. It takes me me while to gear up and just when I’m really into it is over with. Yeah we may leave the tree up for a few days but now we gotta get ready for New Years Day, the ball dropping, the Rose Bowl parade and football. Whatever happened to the twelve days of Christmas?
Merry Christmas from Yogi, Sweetie, and SuperPizzaBoy!
Many bloggers quit during the Christmas season. I am not one of them. I’ll be at it every day probably. But if I don’t see you have a great Christmas, or Holiday Season as you prefer.
Weekend Reflections – An Old Swimming Hole off Route 66
All that is remaining from an old swimming hole in Catoosa, Oklahoma right off Route 66.
A shot from the short road trip Son and I took on Sunday.
SuperPizzaBoy Road Trip Skywatch
Son, SuperPizzaBoy took this image of the sky while we were coming home from our little roadtrip Sunday.
Signs – Automobile Alley in Oklahoma City
I was in Oklahoma City late last month at a conference. I took a few pics of the Christmas Lights on Automobile Alley. The area also has several great old school neon signs.
Not only old school signs but old school businesses. Nice to see an urban restoration without Old Navy or Kohls.
This is my favorite. I love the big long looping glass coils that make up the image.
This probably isn’t really neon, but what the heck it is a great regional chain and the pizza is wonderful. I recommend the barbecue chicken pizza. It’s delish. They also have a great gluten free crust available.
Have you seen any good signs lately? Do you have a good pizza joint? I’m needing to know stuff like that?
Hey also, any instagrammers out there? Have you cancelled your account yet? I sure have. I think this may go down as a MBA case study on how to destroy a business one day. Or maybe they’ll back off a little and this will all blow over. Any good alternatives out there? I’m suffering mightily from Instagram withdrawal. Don’t judge me if I go crawling back! I am not worried about the privacy concerns. I mean if you want things to be private don’t be uploading it to the internet, right, duh. I’m concerned on how they are going to use my poorly lit, out of focus, photos of my new shoes.
ABC Wednesday – “W” is for …
This week’s letter is “W.” “W” matches two of Oklahoma’s home state heroes.
Who doesn’t love Will Rogers. Could he poke holes in windbags or what? In a nice way of course.
And speaking of poking holes in windbags, how about Woody Guthrie? People still get riled up about him in Oklahoma. I wonder what he would think of the tea party?
Our World – Road Trip to see Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park
Sunday, SuperPizzaBoy and I loaded up and headed up Route 66 northeast from Tulsa to the little town of Foyil, Oklahoma to check out the world’s largest concrete totem pole.
The totem pole is 90 feet tall and is made of concrete over a metal and sandstone base. He started working on it in 1937 and finished in 1948.
The exterior has many bas relief native American inspired designs.
Apparently when asked why he built it he just said that he needed something to do when he retired.
The base of the tower is a turtle. He fashioned it from a sandstone outcropping that was already in place.
There is a small room inside that contains more artwork and an informative sign. If you start googling you will see find that there are lots of totem poles taller than ninety feet. So maybe this is the tallest concrete totem pole.
(SPB photo)
SPB brought his camera. Of course a self portrait was in order.
(SPB photo)
Hmm, this is also a pic of his, That is the scariest face on the Totem.
(SPB photo)
SPB also captured images of some Galloway’s other pieces. I love the arrowhead below.
(SPB photo)
I’m guessing this is a tree trunk.
The park has a gift store inside the “Fiddle House” that includes a variety of fiddles carved by Mr. Galloway.
This was my favorite
The park has a short nature trail which of course we tried.
Galloway died in 1961 and the park fell into disrepair until rescued in the late 1980’s by the Rogers County Historical Society who runs the facility today.
We’ll post the second half of our road trip next week, unless of course we decide to do something else.
National Park Service Article on the Totem Park
Roadside America Link on the Totem Park
Scavenger Hunt Sunday – A Few of My Favorite Things
This week’s hunt was hard for me but here it goes
1.Sparkly
I was thinking blingy, but I couldn’t find sparkly blingy so I’m using fireworks. They are kind of sparkly.
2.Door
I have photographed this funky blue door on the outskirts of downtown Tulsa several times. I’ve seen several professional looking photo shoots also. I don’t know what is behind the door. I hope it is something cool.
3.Decorate
I dabble in lomography which is a fancy word for using toy cameras loaded with film. We have family friends who decorated a juniper tree with bulbs. They were widely spaced so I put two of them together with a double exposure.
4.Stripes
I found this last week last week during a lunchtime walk in an otherwise, down at the heels, but up and coming, funky neighborhood.
5.A Few of My Favorite Things
There is almost nothing cuter than newborn lambs. Sheep are cool.