It is Mayfest time again in Tulsa. The downtown festival featuring food, music, crafts, and people watching happens every year and kind of ebbs and flows with the economy.
Apple Ipod Touch and Waterlogue
This year found me kind of busy so I wasn’t able to spend as much time as usual but i still made the rounds with my trusty ipod touch and its Waterlogue and Snapseed Apps.
Apple Ipod Touch and Snapseed
The food stands are my favorite, for taking pictures. Goodness knows I’m not going to eat at one of them. Basically you have to buy coupons to pay for the food and drink. I just want to pay to pay for my food and drink in cash. Not do the deal where I have to see how many coupons I want and then go stand in the coupon line and then go get the food. Lets do something different next year folks. I always thought cash was king.
Apple Ipod Touch and Waterlogue
Plus, I didn’t see the Indian Tacos nor the Gyros. Sorry, if I am going to eat festival food it has to be something different. Also, many of the craft vendors had “No photography” signs up. What is up with that. I don’t think they can make it stick but I don’t really like to mess with people when it comes to a conflict between my hobby of blogging and their livelihood.
I found this dancing tree during one of my evening runs on Turkey Mountain. I love the way the leaves reflect the low sun on its way down. A few minutes after this, it starts getting dark up on the mountain and it would be time to head back to the parking lot but I’m always wanting to go a little bit further. I love the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere.
I love it when the weather warms up enough to go running in the morning outside rather than the gerbil activity on a treadmill in a gym. This time of year the sun is just barely rising when I pass the ponds on one of my routes. I love how quiet and peaceful it is very early. It is like every day is born with new hope. Of course, other days I just want to sit, read the paper, and browse the blogs I follow.
Heather and I went to the Zoo Friday thinking that it wouldn’t be too crowded. Wrong! Every school in Oklahoma it seems was having a field trip there. The kids were here there and everywhere. We came upon this Rhino ignoring it all. He does look sad though.
The suddenly camera shy wife and kid off to the left. Note that painted look is because I used Topaz Labs Impressions software on the image. I backed it off about 50% on the strength of the effect.
More from our family trip to Woolaroc last weekend. We left Tulsa and it was all warm and everything and by the time we got to Woolaroc about an hour later it was chilly and windy but we had an interesting sky so it was all worth it.
Sunday the family journeyed from Tulsa north to Woolaroc, a museum and wildlife preserve that used to be Frank Phillips‘ Ranch (like in Phillips Petroleum). We toured the museum and the barn and looked at the critters but the best part was hiking through the woods. Everything was very green and fresh and magical.
Saturday I dropped the kid off at his comedy improv class and I headed over to the Philbrook Museum of Art to wander the grounds. My MIL Nana bought the family a season pass and I love it because I feel that I can just pop in and spend an hour without thinking that I have to get my money’s worth.
This is the Tempietto at Philbrook. It and the Praying Hands at Oral Roberts University are the most photographed scenes in Tulsa. I’ve taken my share of them. It is just so beautiful I never get tired of it. The guy in the pic had an easel and was painting. There were several other people out and about drawing and sketching the gardens on Saturday.
And this is from the base of the Tempietto looking back to the house, Villa Philbrook it is called. I never tire of this scene either.
And this was on the east side of the grounds. There were purple tulips (I think they are tulips) and they were just beautiful.
The gardens at Philbrook Museum of Art are a great way to spend an hour or two when the weather is good. Do you have a go to place that you never get tired of going to?
Last Tuesday night I went over to Turkey Mountain and did a little (darned little) trail running and geocaching. I started out on the Red Trail to go find some caches. I passed a couple that was walking along really slowly looking at their GPSr and I asked if they were geocaching. The guy put the GPSr behind his back and said, “What’s that.” Newbies, why are they so embarrassed? Cuz they should be is the answer.
It took a while for my GPSr to lock on so I kind of wibble wobbled as you might see from the Garmin Connect map at the end of this post but it finally synched with the satellites (thank you my fellow American taxpayers for those satellites I’ll add here.) My first cache was difficult. It required a double backward flip off this fallen tree and a clean landing. Believe it or not I did it and so claimed the cache. Proof, you say? Well I told you that I did it didn’t I?
Then the next one not too far away. All I had to do was stick my hand somewhere I didn’t want to. Nothing bit me, this time.
And I climbed out of the Red Tail area via the Fro Flo trail. I love going the wrong way is all I can say. I went uphill on the Fro Flo guys. Gasps from the Turkey Mountain free riders.
There are several videos on Youtube of the Fro Flo by riders using their Go Pro cameras. This one had some good views of the jumps.
I’m trying to figure out what this is for.
This one looks fun. Would you ride your bike up this ramp and then down the length of the log. Yeah, well me neither.
So anyway I got back to the parking lot and started up the blue trail to the top of Lipbuster and looked for a cache (and didn’t find it) near the water tanks and then I noticed another cache on my GPSr about a quarter mile away. I thought, maybe I could bushwhack it over there.
Not a good idea. One thing led to another. Thorns, tall grass, thickets, scratches, blood, insects. No snakes though. That I could see anyway. Fortunately I had used deet before my run so no ticks or chiggers.
I finally found a clearing. Where I could make some headway.
And then out in the middle of nowhere I found Little Miss Blue Eyes. Kind of cute don’t you think. Kind of spooky is what I think. Eventually I found a trail and made it to the cache site and found it and then I kind of took a wrong turn.
You see there were some new trails up there and I didn’t know how they ran so I just went with it and took quite a tour of the southwestern side of the mountain before I made it back to the Snake Trail. By then it was pitch dark and I didn’t do a whole lot of running.
I passed a cop car with its lights on. I think they were looking for the old fat guy going up the wrong way on Fro Flo.
This is a horse pasture in the middle of south Tulsa. I drive by it when I drop the kid off at school. It’s like a breath of fresh air before plunging back into traffic to get downtown.
