At lunch yesterday I took advantage of the perfect sunny cool weather and put on my big funny looking high spf hat and took a stroll over to the east side of downtown to see what was happening. It has been a long cold winter and I hadn’t been exploring as much as what I usually do.
The east side is booming with condo construction. Find Out More about condo conversions here. Both new and conversions. Downtown Tulsa is now a cool place to be ever since the BOK Arena went in several years ago. I don’t know what came first after that, cool bars or condos but it is amazing the housing that is being built that accompanies the explosion of bars and restaurants. It wasn’t that many years ago that Michael Buble at a concert here joked that he left his hotel to check out the local action and all he he saw were tumbleweeds blowing down the street.
There is growing pains of course. The city has again started enforcing parking laws and the residents downtown are complaining. I’m told that parking in not prime areas averages about $70 per month. It may not sound like much to you big city folks but people in Oklahoma think that free parking is somehow in the Bill of Rights. A codicil of the Second Amendment I think.
The other thing is that the smaller the condo the bigger the dogs the owners have and there is not enough places for the dogs to go relieve themselves and I see people trying to coax their oversize dogs into small planters so the dogs can do their business. Something is going to have to give on that.
Anyway, it is great to see new construction going on downtown and people moving in and making it their home. I really do think that a strong downtown is vital to any city.
It was a great day for a trail race on Saturday morning. Cool, humid, and very little wind. It was very early spring like.
The sun was trying to burn through the clouds and never did quite make it.
Here is a mini video of the walk from the parking lot to the race start.
I got up to the old parking lot and checked out all the mud.
And checked out the race bling. This is as close as I’ll ever get.
And inspected this bad boy. I think I need one of these to mow my yard. I think it would do a pretty decent job. Anybody want to float me a loan?
The Race Director, Ken, aka Trail Zombie gave the runners some instructions. Follow the pink ribbons, don’t cross the yellow ribbons. Have a good time.
And the Six Hour Runners were off.
And then the Three Hour Runners, including moi. The races are a little different. Most races are a fixed length and whoever has the least time wins. In the Snake Races, the time is constant and whoever runs the longest wins. So there were two loops. A big loop of about 3.7 miles. We run that over and over, and if you don’t think you can finish another big loop before the time is up then there is another half mile loop that you can run over and over until the time is up. It is really very clever. I like it because I can always tell people that I had the same time as the winner.
Even though it was spring there wasn’t much color out on the mountain. The whitebuds blooming was about it.
There was one aid station out on the course that we hit twice each loop because of the way that the route folds in on itself. It was full service though, water, gatorade, baked potatoes rolled in salt, cookies, pickles, bananas, oranges, beer.
Nope, not for me. Actually I think it was a joke. I think. Although if you had an urgent need it may not be much of a joke.
And the course had a beer stop. This was my favorite. I hit it twice each loop. Going and coming. This guy had everything: All sorts of nice craft beers, and shots of various liquors including some home brew. Soft drinks for the kiddies.
I fell twice during the race. About six weeks ago I fell during a night run on the mountain and had a pain that still endures. That was on my left side. I was carrying my camera in left hand today and so I made sure that I fell on my right side. We bloggers know that ribs will heal but cameras won’t. I was telling that story to somebody at the end of the race and she said “You fell twice? You must have been one of those people hitting the beer stop pretty hard.” She had that “I got you look.” She must have been a school principal. The truth hurts sometimes. Now my left and my right sides hurt besides.
I wish that I had read this sign earlier. Maybe I would do better if I ran faster. I’ll have to check into the math and physics of that concept.
Here is the beer tent again on another stop. Lots of good stuff here. And no I didn’t stagger into the table to get this shot. Well, I didn’t mean to anyway.
And here is Brian Hoover, the force behind Tatur Racing and Chip Timing. I think that I had asked him if I run the race or something.
Brian and Ken started handing out the awards after the Three Hour Race.
No, I didn’t place. I don’t think that any of the people that placed took any pics out on the course or sampled any of the beer. You know beer doesn’t drink itself. I might have won the race if I hadn’t been fulfilling my journalistic duties. Hey you don’t know.
Or maybe I need a cool headband. I think it cuts the wind resistance or something. Or maybe it diverts blood supply to the legs. Something like that I’m sure.
And here is a guy taking a selfie. Sorry, if I see you taking a selfie, I’m going to get a pic of you.
And here is the record of my race. My strategy was to run for a quarter mile and walk for a minute. I did that through the whole race and it worked. Plus I drank lots of water and some Gatorade at the food stops along with the salted baked potato segments. I got pretty sore still which is not surprising because the longest distance I have run in the last several months is only six miles.
A goose Trumpeter Swan I encountered Wednesday night. He was very cooperative and even posed for me. When I got a little closer he decided he had enough and waddled off into the water. Telling me to back off the whole time.
Thanks to my friends DrillerAA and EGCamera girl for setting me straight on what species this is.
A man fishing in one of the ponds in Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. This particular pond with the willow trees and fountain is one of my favorite subjects. I thought the intensity of the fisherman adds some interest to the photo. I also used a program that adds a painting effect to photos.
The Tulsa Garden Center is housed in the former David Travis Mansion on Peoria Avenue.
It was built in the early 1920’s by David Travis (formerly Rabinowitz) an early day Tulsa Oilman and immigrant from Russian who in true wildcatter fashion didn’t get live in for very long and lost it because of an oil price crash (I have to say that he wasn’t a wildcatter but he was in the oilfield supply business). It had various owners, finally ending up with another oilman who sold it to the City of Tulsa.
It’s a busy place as it hosts thirty gardening groups plus countless weddings and fundraisers during the year. My wife during her Master Gardener phase worked in the library and then later taught children during weekend programs. I have been all through the mansion while helping her carry stuff here and there including the attic servants quarters where the children’s supplies were kept. Supposedly there is a ghost present and if I were ghost I would haunt this place as it is absolutely beautiful.
Mr. Travis was Jewish and the first Jewish services in Tulsa were held in the basement. Also in the basement is the mikvah in the basement right next the ballroom. If you catch a staff member or volunteer with a key in the right mood they might show you the mikvah and the attic where the female servants slept.
This is the back side of the Conservatory of the Garden Center. The front of the building gets all the attention but I find it rather bland. I much prefer the rear. Mainly because of the red tile roof of the building attached to it.
Four years ago in that same corner, Heather and I built a Children’s Garden for the Garden Center. It doesn’t look like much but it was a lot of work. They didn’t have a place for the kids to work with soil and Heather didn’t think that it didn’t make too much sense teaching kids about gardening if they didn’t have a place of their own to plant and tend plants.
It took off and grew though!! Heather left the program and moved on to other things and so did the Garden Center and all that she put in got taken out. Which, if you know anything about gardening, is the way things go.
The Tulsa Garden Center is a great organization and a great place check it out.
The Golden Driller is a statue at the State Fairgrounds and is a throwback to when Tulsa was the “Oil Capital of the World.” It has been at is present location since 1966. The oil derrick that he has hand on is a former working derrick from Seminole, Oklahoma.
I love it because it is a reminder of the heritage of Tulsa and it is one of the quirky things in Tulsa like Oral Roberts University’s praying hands.
Do you have any quirky attractions near where you live?
During my lunch hour it is my habit to take a walk for a little bit regardless of the weather. If I have the time sometimes I’ll make the several block walk to the temporary library downtown that has been set up in an old Safeway store.
I like walking by Holy Family Cathedral. A huge Catholic facility that has an ancient feel to it. It has all sorts of side entrances and mysterious stairs. I’m into stuff like that.
I make my way over to Denver Avenue, home of the widest sidewalk in Tulsa.
Denver is home to some newish apartments. I say newish because they are new to me but have actually been there for over a decade I think. Long enough to need updating apparently. At work, a lot of our younger employees live downtown. The pattern is that they do it for a little while and then realize that they can get bigger apartments for less money away from downtown.
I wonder about this entrance. Why does the small structure take twelve columns to support it? It looks a bit unbalanced to me.
I pass by Plaza of the Americas. Today there were no spice addicts passed out here. This used to be a gathering place for them late in the day where they would wait for their connection to show up. Enough people have complained I guess that they have been dispersed. I know they found another spot.
And here I am!
The old Safeway store. I stop in and use the wifi for my Ipod and check Words With Friends and Instagram.
I really miss the big open grocery stores that Safeway used to have.
I’m a big fan of libraries. The new thing seems to be not oriented around books but focused on computers and internet access. Since most people have that at home now what you end up with for clients is pretty rough sometimes. Rough enough to have two security guards on duty who sometimes intercept people who appear to have been banned from the facility. The main library is undergoing a leisurely mostly unfunded renovation that will cost about fifty million dollars that will not be done until next year, if ever, and appears to continue the trend away from books toward computer terminals. I know that libraries are moving away from stacks of books toward other services but I’m wondering about the wisdom of making huge internet cafe’s where people do not feel totally safe.
Of course, not everybody is as cynical as me. Here is an interesting, if a little dated (2013) Infographic from Open-Site.Org on the future of libraries.
On the corner of Tulsa’s fairgrounds sits an old Baldwin steam locomotive. The Dierks Forest #207. It was built in 1917 and was used by a lumber company, Dierks Forest, for hauling lumber in southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas and was moved to Tulsa’s fairgrounds in 1963.
One source I found claimed some sort of supernatural presence. I don’t know about that but when I see industrial machines like this I just imagine all the work that went into it, from the engineers who designed it to the men who built it and then followed by the people who operated and maintained the engine through its life.
Early Friday morning I was driving son to school when I saw a flash of red berries as I turned on Riverside drive here in Tulsa. I took Logan to school and then drove back to the river, parked and walked down to where I saw the berries. The early morning sun was shining full on and I took the pic with my cell phone and posted it to Instagram.
Every once in a while you have to take a little time off to check things out.
I take pictures all the time. I carry my cell phone, an ipod, and my Nikon point and shoot with me everywhere.
I take walks at lunch. Generally about one or two miles and I go all over downtown. I always pay attention to my surroundings and nearby people and I’ve had to pay extra attention. We have a new crop of homeless people downtown. It has changed the complexion of downtown and how people perceive the homeless. The new, younger, more thuggish group is a lot more aggressive than the older people who were the most polite homeless people I’ve ever seen. There is a lot more drug dealing downtown and it is done right out in the open and the participants don’t seem at all concerned about who sees them. This is a disturbing trend.
On another noon day I went out to west Tulsa to find a geocache. It was the first time I had been noon geocaching in a long time. The cache was on an abandoned road. How exactly does one decide to abandon a road? Anyway, it was fun.
About two weeks ago I moved offices in our building from the 17th floor to the 5th. So my views to the west for sunsets is different. No more views of the refinery or the Arkansas River. Instead I get the above. I’m not complaining.
But hey I got a different view toward the city center also. Everything always seems to work out.
Got my teeth cleaned and xrays. No cavities!!! I hardly ever have cavities. The secret is regular flossing. I always floss the night before I go see the dentist.
This morning I took the kid to school on my day off. After I dropped him off I parked on the Arkansas River and walked a little and took some pictures. I loved this bench and the bare branches of the tree, along with the River and the swell of Turkey Mountain in the background.
Friday night Logan had a comedy improv show. Laughing Matter Teen Improv at Clark Theater is a lot of fun. Logan is second from the left. We have been going for years and it has been fun watching these young people grow up.
