Watery Wednesday II – Oklahoma City Bricktown Canal

I was in downtown Oklahoma City for a conference. I was staying downtown so it was easy during breaks to walk east across the railroad tracks to a funky old commercial industrial area called Bricktown, former home of warehouses, machine shops, and factories and now thoroughly gentrified into restaurants, stores, hotels, and condos.

The City has also built a canal that winds through the area. It is a really nice and peaceful place to walk.

It is not near the scale of San Antonio’s Riverwalk but last time I was in San Antonio it was funny how the locals there felt defensive about the Oklahoma City’s canal. “Well, its not near as nice as ours.” Of course not, Oklahoma City’s version is still great though, and a lot less crowded.

Its a great place to take a camera. Better take some duck food also. They don’t care about cameras.

Especially in the magic hour of the evening in between quitting time and happy hour.

At the far east end near the Bass Pro there is a Centennial Display celebrating the Oklahoma Land Run.

I’m not sure if the horses can jump that canal.

The light is dimming, time to head back,

The Christmas Lights made for a nice walk.

Watery Wednesday II

ABC Wednesday “U”

U is a real stumper for me. I can’t believer that I didn’t have a decent U pic such as an umbrella or I don’t know I can’t think of too many nouns that begin with a U. Universe maybe.

So I got on Flickr and looked for “Untagged” and I came up with both Untagged and Unidentified.

I have no idea what this is. I have a vague sense that it is just east of downtown Tulsa but that is about it.

Are you prepared to present a U photo if you had to?

ABC Wednesday

Where East Meets West Sculpture by Robert Summers on Route 66 in Tulsa

Where East Meets West is a newly installed sculpture by Robert Summers at Tulsa’s Cyrus Avery Plaza. Cyrus Avery is considered the father of Route 66 and interstate roads in general. Cyrus Avery Plaza is right on Route 66 right on the Arkansas River just outside of downtown Tulsa.

The sculpture done at 135% life size depicts a horsedrawn wagon from the oilfields of west Tulsa encountering an autombile driven by Cyrus Avery. It depicts the transition from the old to the new.

Avery is shown getting out of his car to deal with the situation.

While his daughter tries to hold onto the terrified family cat without getting clawed to shreds. Of course being the good blogger that I am I neglected to get a picture of Avery’s wife.

There are numerous details on the piece that show the care that Summers took. This is Avery’s shoe.

My favorite detail is the dead grasshopper on the grill.

He did a lot of research also. The oilfield tubing in the back of the wagon has special joints called upset tubing. I don’t think your typical artist would know what that is.

More detailing on the wagon. Notice the wood grain and the screw and fitting. Very impressive.

I had never heard of Robert Summers before but it turns out that he has several well known works to his credit. The Dallas Cowboys commissioned him to create the likeness of Tom Landry, pictured above, that is placed just outside Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

So if you driving on Route 66 stop and spend some time at Cyrus Avery Plaza and admire the sculpture installation.

Our World

Scavenger Hunt Sunday – Missing!

This week’s prompts were challenging for me, which makes it fun!

1. Missing

One of my obsessions is geocaching that is a sport where people hide caches out in various locations and post the GPS coordinates on geocaching.com. Others go find the caches and log both a paper log in the cache and the online cache page. Sometimes I end up in creepy places like this long abandoned roadway near Tulsa. I walked down this road about a mile to the cache. This looked like a great place to go missing. Of course, not a soul knew that I was out there. If something happened to me it might a while before somebody found me.

2. Numbers

Good old number 103!

3. Purple

Christmas lights on Oklahoma City’s canal in the Bricktown area.

4. Music

A guitar tower at Seattle’s Experience Music Project. Talk about overwhelming. That was EMP.

5. Bracelet

26,000+ photos on Flickr that I’ve posted and not one bracelet tag so I’m cheating. This was my mother’s turquoise and silver handcrafted necklaces. Mom is gone and Dad gave me her necklace. I remember the day way back when Dad gave it to her. It was a great day for both of them.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Philbrook Museum Festival of the Trees 2012

Last Sunday we loaded up the whole family including visitors Uncle Bob and Gramps and headed out to Philbrook Museum of Art’s Festival of the Trees.

It is a fund raiser held every year. Various artists put together trees for sale. Lots of creativity in play here.

Here is a tree for skiers.

And an owl tree

Little trees, big trees, trees everywhere.

I try and never miss the Festival of the Trees.

SuperPizzaBoy, Gramps, and Uncle Bob – we all had a good time.

Sweetie and SPB.

The Girl Scouts and other organizations make gingerbread houses. I always look forward to them.

Again, very creative and original

SPB did not care for the Barbie Doll Gingerbread house.

I loved the bubblegum roof on this.

This has a little bit of a Scandinavian air about it.

We looked at the rest of the museum and saw some old favorites like “The Blue Kimono” by William Merritt Chase painted nearly 100 years ago.

The have quite a collection of Native American Pottery.

And their latest addition, reclining teenager, hey wait a minute!!

If you live in Tulsa, go check the Festival of Trees out. Hurry though, it ends December 9.

Bricktown Sunset

I caught the sun going down while walking along the canals of Oklahoma City’s Bricktown area.

Skywatch Friday

Christmas on Automobile Alley

I am in Oklahoma City on business for a day or two. Usually I just buzz down the turnpike and back but not this time. My hotel is in the downtown area so I was looking forward to checking in and doing either some night time geocaching or photography. I got off the freeway exit and turned down Broadway to make my to my hotel when I saw buildings ablaze with light.

It was flat amazing. Each building was decorated with a single color of lights. So xnay on the old geocaching plan, (although I think they do have geocaches). I walked up and down and over across the streets taking pictures.

This section of Broadway north of downtown is called “Automobile Alley” because way back when in the early 20th century that is where most of Oklahoma City’s Automobile Dealers were here. It is not redone and gentrified with cool restaurants and shops.

I remember reading about these lights on my favorite Oklahoma Blog JenX67. She wrote about the lights here and here. I go to Oklahoma City quite often but usually during the day and with somebody. My coworkers are very patient with me but I don’t take them on too many wild photography and geocaching adventures.

This store is just off Automobile Alley but they have upped the ante.

But nothing like the building right next to it. I’d hate to pay their electric bill. But I love the wild zaniness of the lights.

It was getting kind of late. I spotted this nice wine merchant. I went inside and spotted a nice Oyster Bay Pinot Noir and then I went back across the street to Hideaway Pizza and had their BBQ Chicken. Superb!!

Have you seen any good Christmas lights lately?

Automobile Alley Signs

Strike a Pose!

Sometimes the spirit moves me to gather up a notebook, trinkets, and a recyclable camera and put them into a container you might use for leftover peas and then go hide the container in the woods for others to find.

The woods I’m thinking about are about a half mile from the house. I’ve been mystified lately because a photographer has been taking clients here in among the knee high weeds and garbage strewn from the McDonald’s across the street.

This is where they have been setting up their cameras and hauling out wing chairs and fancy sofas, tripods, reflectors, and other such things. I am a mere picture taker and not a photographer so what do I know, but I still don’t get it why this is such a great place for wedding photos.

For my cache location I pushed on well past where the photographers click and their subjects pose.

By the time I found a place, hid the cache, checked and double checked the coordinates, the sun was going down and the moon was going up.

Not bad for hand held moon shot, for a picture taker like me that is. A photographer would hide their head in shame.

This is your only clue. Go check out Strike a Pose! if you want to find it.

I would like to thank my fellow Americans, both Democrats and Republicans as well as the few independents out there for being so supportive of spending unrestricted billions of dollars for high tech satellites in space so that I can go hide tupperware in the woods. I salute you all!

If you were trying to find this cache first (FTF – first to find) you are too late. RobPillageBurn (What a name!) found it within hours of the cache going live. In the dark. He ran into some thorns that I forgot to mention.

Geocaching.com

Our World – Crystal Bridges Museum

Saturday I loaded up my brother, who was in from Corpus Christi, my father who flew down from Idaho Falls, and son SuperPizzaBoy and we took a guy trip to Bentonville, Arkansas a couple hours away to visit the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

(Mark Rothko – Greek Tragedy)

It was the second trip for SPB and I. The first for my father and brother. I think they liked it. I know that I loved it better this time than the first time. The first time I see a museum I want to see every single thing. From then on I go for more of what attracts my eye.

(Maxxfield Parrish – The Lantern Bearers)

The museum specializes in American art. They have both great quantity and great quality.

(Alexander Stirling Calder – Stretching Girl)

The museum building itself is a work of art.

The museum was founded by a Walmart heir. Walmart itself is now paying for everyone’s admission. Priceless art for free, show me a black Friday deal like that.

Our World

Post Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I’ve skipped a couple of Scavenger hunts but am jumping in on this. I hope that those who celebrate Thanksgiving had a good one. My brother and father came in from Corpus Christi and Idaho Falls respectively and we’ve enjoyed having them. They will be leaving Monday.

Home or Thankful

We have a nice house but I love our patio. Note SuperPizzaBoy on his trampoline.

In the Kitchen

I’m cheating here by having two photos. My mother-in-law’s kitchen is a warm inviting place.

Above is Sweetie with her mother Nana cooking Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago.

Couple

Yours truly with Sweetie.

Bubbles

I went to the brand spanking new $760 million dollar Devon building in Oklahoma City. Such a glamorous building requires twice man sized ornaments. Those are my bubbles, see.

Trees

This is the Creek Hanging Tree here in Tulsa. It was actually used back in territorial days. It is said to be haunted at night with the sound of a creaking rope and it is said that there is a spring at the base that never goes dry.