Tag Archives: Arkansas River

Arkansas River Critters

Last Monday I braved the heat for a bike ride on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails bordering the Arkansas River as it flows through town. I took my Canon SuperZoom camera along in a backpack hoping to take some photos.

I found what I think are great egrets. (I’m not a very good birder so if you have better ID I would appreciate it very much.) This one was looking for lunch in the shallow water.

This nearby group seemed more into grooming than eating.

Further down the river I spotted this great blue heron. They are very skittish and so by the time I stopped my bike, and retrieved the camera from the backpack and focused, this guy was ready to leave.

Nearby, this group of pelicans were hanging out together.

I saw something black with a white spot almost clear to the other riverbank. It turns out that it is a bald eagle. The first image of one I have captured in the wild. Sorry about the poor quality but it was at the far range of the camera.

I was pretty happy with my photos. Again, if I have misidentified any of them please let me know.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturdays’s Critters.

Skywatch Friday – Construction Stuff

I went on on another bike ride the other day on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails along the Arkansas River. I took my Canon Superzoom Camera with me. I stopped again at The Gathering Place to check on the new pedestrian bridge and new dam being constructed. Not much progress so I focused on the construction equipment being used.

In the bed of the river they had this huge concrete pump putting concrete around boulders on the riverbed. So it looks like in addition to the bridge and dam maybe they are shaping the river for other purposes. I’ll have to check into that.

There were lots of tracked backhoes at work (I call them track hoes.) This one was actually on the west side of the river doing something not related to the bridge or dam.

Here are several more on the riverbed. The contractors have constructed a huge cofferdam to divert the river flow to the west side of its banks to make room for construction.

And another trackhoe

And yet another. Not too many of them were being operated the day of my ride. I have no idea why. The weather was great.

And this one had a jackhammer type attachment.

As you can tell, I love construction equipment and checking out construction and trying to figure out what they are doing and how they are going about it.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come check it out.

Skywatch Friday – Courthouse Skies

It was beautiful weather this week and I got to spend much of the first part of it at the courthouse. Nope I wasn’t in jail, I got called to jury duty. So I got to wait a lot in the jury room in the basement and then I got to wait a lot outside the courtroom and then wait some more while they questioned us one by one. It was a first degree murder trial so it was all pretty serious.

I was impressed with the whole thing. Lots of waiting I know but the important thing is to get things right. Execution was off the table but life without parole was a possibility. I was impressed with the other 39 potential jurors. They all took it seriously, none tried to get off the jury, and they gave thoughtful answers to questions. I didn’t get picked and so I am “on call” the remainder of the week. So I’m free at last!! I went home, after being dismissed, and researched the case. I’ll say more after the trial is completed which should be Friday or Monday.

Meanwhile, here is my beloved Turkey Mountain from across the Arkansas River as it flows through Tulsa.

And another shot across the river with some funky looking clouds.

I’m thankful this week for our justice system. For all its faults I think the people in it try and do their best. I am thankful for my freedoms that I have in this country and the opportunity to be on a jury.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come join me!!

Weekend Reflections – Arkansas River Sunset

Heather and I went to eat at a restaurant on Tulsa’s Arkansas River front. We left right after sundown so we walked to the bank to check out the sights.

The above is just to the southwest. It is a turnpike bridge over the river. The water is very low right now.

Turning a little bit to the northwest we have a slightly different scene.

I’m linking with Weekend Reflections. Come check it out.

Skywatch Friday – Summertime on the River

Summer is here and I am retired and I am spending a lot of time outside including lots of time running and riding my bicycle on the RiverParks Trails here in Tulsa.

The trails are on both the east and west bank and stretch for miles. I love them especially for biking because there are no street or road crossings. I hate riding my bike on the road.

Anyway, a perk of being retired, I can pretty much go to the river whenever I feel like it.

I’ve been scanning old photos. Here is a scene from a cruise that Heather and I took in the 90’s. I think the ship on the left was ours. It had a bar up on the smoke stack at the back of the vessel. We spent a lot of time up there.

And this is me in La Jolla, California during a vacation to the area back in the 90’s. We loved it there. Too many people though and I think that has gotten worse.

And this is Heather way back when. We were doing social distancing from the critters in the background.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday this week.

Skywatch Friday – Happy New Year 2020

Up until a few years ago I went running every week, regardless of weather, after work on the Arkansas River trails. The only thing that stopped me was thunder and lightning. I have all sorts of cold weather gear to where I could run relatively comfortably down to the single digits if I had to do so. Since the tread on my knees has gotten a little thin as one doctor told me, I have cut my running way back. More cycling, more yoga and aquatics classes. But still I like to get out and run every now and then and participate in a race.

December 2019 — I got out of the car, and saw this and took the closest path to the waters edge. That’s way there are trees in the way. I love the glow on the water.

Last week, the temperature wasn’t so bad so I went to the river to run and the sunset was just waiting for me. Actually I hurried because we skywatchers know that the sunset waits for no one.

There is nothing like a great sunset. They are so hopeful and I am looking forward to 2020. 2019 was a mixed year (aren’t they all?). Our son started college, Heather and I got to be empty nesters for a little bit and took a couple of great trips to the Teton Mountains and southeast Oklahoma. It was nice. The year ended with my brother coming down with viral encephalitis. My wife, my sister, and her husband and I dealt with that the last couple of months and will continue to deal with that for some time.

So for 2020, our son heads back to college in a few days. My brother will be moving out of skilled nursing into long term care or assisted living as he continues his recovery, and life will go on as it always has.

So keep your friends and family close, be thankful for what you have, and help each other out. I wish all of you a Healthy and Happy 2020.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – on the River

I am loving the big blue skies and the white fluffy clouds we are temporarily having. I say temporary because it clouds up and rains quite a bit these days.

The Arkansas River is still high but within its banks and it is muddy as a soaked cow pasture.

I love the big cottonwoods on the river. Even if some of them are suffering from storm damage.

Almost all the River Parks trails are open now. They had a big sinkhole to fill in and repave here. There is still considerable work to be done getting the lights going again and fixing the plumbing at the restrooms. There was considerable damage to the river banks and they are trying to figure out how to rebuild and stabilize them.

So that’s the latest with the sky situation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. How they looking where you live?

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

The Flooding Winds Down in Tulsa

_DSC0944 — Keystone dam on Friday, flowing 195,000 cu ft per sec through the gates.

The waters of the Arkansas River in the Tulsa area are rapidly falling. The waters flowing into Keystone Dam above the city declined rapidly which gave room for the Army Corps of Engineers to start closing the big Tainter gates and reduce the water drastically.

_DSC0945 — Close up of the Tainter Gates controlling the flow out of the dam.

The peak flow was 275,000 cubic feet per second, now is down to 120,000 which is high but low enough that the river is back in its banks.

Downstream of Tulsa things are still bad, Muskogee still has a lot of flooding, and it is even worse in Arkansas where a major levee has been breached.

The images above and below are screen shots from a Corps web site. People had them open on their screens all day, refreshing and posting what the latest inflow and outflow numbers were.

I think that this has been a wake up call for the whole community. Personally, I thought with a big dam upstream that a major flood was pretty much impossible. Well, it is possible and we were lucky that the levees held and that the rains held off. With the climate change we are experiencing I am wondering if we are going to see these occurrences more often.

The local paper, the Tulsa World, produced the video above and the links I reference below.

An oil and gas producer who had tanks flooded mishandled the situation and ended up in hot water. Read about it here.

The waters are lower and residents are starting to return to their homes.

The Tulsa World also has a listing of handy phone numbers and internet links that might be helpful.

Skywatch Friday – Valentines Day Edition

Skywatch 1 — Arkansas River at I-44 in Tulsa

It’s Valentines Day, so I don’t mean to pry but are you ready? Card, Flowers, Perfume, Wine, Candy? Don’t get caught short.

And if you are not seeing anybody then Valentines Day marks the end of the Dating Dead Zone. You know what that is right? If you are not dating anybody then you don’t start from Thanksgiving until Valentines Day. So awkward to date somebody right before Christmas or Valentines Day, right?

skywatch 3 — Downtown Tulsa from the Arkanas River.

I am glad that we have these little events scattered through the year. Valentines Day, then Mother’s and Father’s Days. I like the little min-celebrations. I do hate going out to eat on Valentines Day though or Mother’s Day.. The restaurants, at least the good ones, are overstressed and so are their customers.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Life on the River

20180917-192401-3 — From the end of my bike ride earlier this week. I love a little color in the sky.

The Arkansas River runs through the middle of Tulsa from North to South. We are lucky because a huge part of the River is a public park of one sort or another for miles and miles. So we have lots of bike trails, many on both sides of the river. I have either run or rode my bike or walked every inch of them. I have never got tired of them.

The 21st street bridge from far away.

And up close.

20180913-114951-13 — The ONEOK Boathouse in the background with Peggy’s Pond.

Tulsa’s brand new park A Gathering Place for Tulsa is right on the river. Check the link. The home page is basically a flyover of everything and you can see how intimately the park is integrated with the River.

20180913-115248-1 — I love the ripples in the pond. See the tall grass across the way. Most of the park is planted in native prairie grasses so no mowing, a lot less water, and fertilizer, so less money spent on maintenance, less chemicals on the land and the river, better habitat for bugs and birds. Win-win-win. Sustainability to most Okies is how to maintain high flows from older fracked wells.

It has been open about 10 days and I have been there five days. That’s ratio that I would like to keep up. Looking at the video I mentioned above I saw about four or five things that I hadn’t seen yet.

20180913-114451-11 — One of these days, maybe when it gets cold, and it isn’t so crowded I am going to come over here and climb the towers and do some exploring. I may forego the slide though. I think my outside diameter is greater than its inside diameter. That would be a problem.

It’s a great place to take photographs. There are all sorts of things, and angles, and reflections, and interesting structures to make photographs. So I hope you don’t get tired of it. You see I’m still pretty excited about the Gathering Place.

I am linking to Skywatch Friday this week.