Gecaching at Lake Bixhoma

At work I get every other Friday off. Usually Sweetie and I drop SuperPizzaBoy off at school and then go have breakfast and run and play. Yesterday Sweetie had a board retreat all morning. So I decided to go to Lake Bixhoma near Bixby, OK and do some geocaching.

Lake Bixhoma is one of the Tulsa area’s best kept secrets. I hardly ever see anybody else there. Friday morning I had it all to myself.

First though I took a little hike along this cliff. According to the geologists it is the remnant of a 300 million year old reef. In other words it is almost as old as I am. It has alternating layers of shale and sandstone. I like to look for fossils sometimes I find a brachiopod but not today. You don’t need a permit to look for them.

I took a few pictures of what may be fossils. I don’t know. I don’t hold myself out as knowing anything about them.

Poison Ivy anyone?

The first two caches were pretty easy. Both of them were by a road.

The third was a little less than a half mile from the end of the road close to the shore line. I thought, dumb me for thinking, surely that is a fisherman’s path alongside the lake. Surely.

Nope, it was bushwhacking all the way.

I found some funky trees.

And some funky stuff growing on the rocks.

And finally found the cache.

At this point I looked at the cache description and it said that there was a trail to the cache location. Hmm, I don’t see any trail. So being the real smart outdoorsman that I am I thought I would go straight up the hill from where I was and intercept the trail. So off I went.

Does this look like a trail to you? I didn’t find any &(^&&(*& trail. (Excuse the language.) At least up above the lake there were less rocks and thorns. (Actually I didn’t mind walking up there a bit, with or without a trail, I was like a pig in you know what.)

I got a nice view of the lake from up there.

And finally found my truck.

I found three caches total yesterday for a total of seven in the park that I’ve found over the years.

Anyways, I had some time before Sweetie and I were hooking up so I headed off to Washington Irving park to find a couple more.

I invited Mr. Irving along but he declined. You know he never goes anywhere anymore.

One of them I found reminded me a Christmas ornament.

And so that was that!

Skywatch Friday – Osage County

Worldless Wednesday – Philbrook Museum Festival of the Trees

http://www.philbrook.org/

Secret Santa 2010 – The Crusty Gas Guy Way

One of my favorite bloggers of all time, Georgie, of Decisionally Challenged. sponsors a Secret Santa gift exchange. This is my second year to participate. It intimidates me. I mean these women in the exchange are great. They pick out the perfect gifts for each other and ooah and ahh all over them. I lucked out last year, I drew Baloney over at That’s Baloney. Baloney is another one of my favorite bloggers and I know her personally. She is funny, smart, sassy and keeps it real and is a good sport. So I didn’t have to worry about somebody who wanted soaps and sachets and bathing powders and all that other stuff. Or you know she might have wanted all that but that isn’t what she got.

So this year I signed up again and got scared again. Oh what am I going to do? Then it hit me. Why should I be the one that is scared? Let the recipient be scared. So here is what I did. Before Georgie let me know who I was the Secret Santa for, I would go out and buy the stuff. Then all I would have to do is send the stuff. And then be sure to look around corners and behind my back for a time.

Now I know that I would risk getting kicked out of the exchange, because you know Georgie runs a tight ship on this affair. But I thought it would be worth the risk.

But you know I would have to keep the demographic in mind. I mean I didn’t want to alienate everybody while I was off being me. The main demographic is that all but two of the participants are women. In other words, there is me, and one other guy. Hmmm. Oh well, so off I went.

Are these not nice, a great tee shirt and a cap. I sized the t shirt such that it would fit most of the demographic. The hat should fit anybody also. I mean its not pink, yellow, or purple but they are pretty nice. I mean the way I figure it if they don’t like them they can give them to their husband, or their boyfriends, or the plumber. I mean, they have options. And if its a guy that receives this package. Well, he just wears it.

That wasn’t too bad is it?

And that is not all. I also got this.

Pretty good uh? Something is missing, oh yeah, I also got some popcorn to go along with the seasoning.

Isn’t that cool? Popcorn, but not just any popcorn but gasless popcorn. I mean keeping the demographic in mind I didn’t want anybody, especially a nice lady, because Georgie only attracts the higher class of ladies, getting embarrassed by eating the gift. Its not very ladylike to be tooting while watching White Christmas. I think it kind of ruins the mood. Don’t you agree?

I got some scientific data to back me up from the Good Book.

I can tell you that it is easier and much more convenient to take care of gas beforehand that afterward. Don’t believe me, take a look at this page from the Good Book.

Notice the heading at the top of the page. For those of you who don’t have your glasses on it says “Tail Gas Clean Up Processes.” Yup, modern science and engineering has the answer to almost anything under the sun. I mean we still haven’t figured out why people still take Rush Limbaugh seriously but we can clean up tail gas if you have enough money.

So anyways, when I got the email from Georgie about who the ~~victim~~ recipient was, and their likes and preferences and such. I didn’t even look. I just pulled the address and packed my stuff up and went off to the Post Office. It went out Monday so I guess that maybe today or maybe even tomorrow some lucky recipient will be receiving their Secret Santa gift, and the rest of you will just have to be jealous.

My World – Nature Conservancy Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

Last week I took my father and brother out to the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Oklahoma. We saw lots of bison and big sky.

This has got to be the closest place to bison heaven on earth. Lots of grass, water, and room to roam.

There were bison close and far, lots of them. I think the herd is about 2000 head or so.

The place is for the bison. There is a ranch headquarters but it is mainly a bunkhouse, offices, and a visitor center with irregular hours. Notice my dad checking to see if anybody was home.

Lots of grass to eat. The preserve staff uses controlled burns extensively to keep the grass healthy.

The bison coexist with oil and gas production operations with apparently no ill effects on the animals.

There are no gates or toll boxes on the Preserve. The allowed roads are all county roads and its all open range, no hours, no fees, no nothing. Just use your common sense is all they ask. Bison can be dangerous so keep your distance, stay on the roads, and don’t pester the critters. Oh, bring your camera.

Check out My World for other views of the world we share.

Chicken Fried Steak – the Pioneer Woman Way

We Okies are very proud of Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. Go check out her fabulous blog. She also has a cookbook. It is not very low fat but it is good. Just ask Bobby Flay who got his butt kicked in his good natured Thanksgiving dinner throwdown with Ms. Drummond (see link at bottom of post.)

My dad, Gramps, visited us over Thanksgiving. His favorite dish is chicken fried steak. So Sweetie decided that she was going to make Gramps an Okie style CFS dinner with all the trimmings.

So we got the cookbook out.

Sweetie got her game face on. Notice the glass of wine she didn’t quite hide. I really don’t think that PW would disapprove. Hey coking has to be fun.

Sweetie started with her own dishes. Mashed potatoes and purple hull peas.

I even got recruited.

I’m usually in charge of anything involving cast iron.

Sweetie took over though on the gravy. Lots of whisking involved there.

Ya gotta get the gravy right. Sweetie did a great job.

The end result. Its like, cmon Yogi, lets eat!! Gramps looks pretty happy with the result.

“Pioneer Woman Takes Down Bobby Flay + Her Recipe” and related posts (manicmommies.com)

Skywatch Friday – Happy Thanksgiving

My brother Bob and dad, Gramps, are visiting so I took them to the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Praire Preserve which is only about 75 miles or so from Tulsa. We saw lots of big sky and bison that day.

I wish everybody a great Thanksgiving today.

Miller Time!!

Bison getting a drink at the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Praire Preserve near Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

Check out Watery Wednesday.

Black Friday – My Plans

The ladies over at the Real Housewives of Oklahoma want to know what our plans are for Black Friday.

I don’t know for sure where I am going to be but I can assure you that it is not going to be shopping.

I’m going to be here:

or here even!

Or maybe with my Sweetie, sharing one of these,

So when you are out there fighting your fellow humans for parking and bargains, be sure and remember me, because I’m planning on a great Black Friday.

Where in the World is Brother Bob?

Here in Tulsa we had the Route 66 Marathon and Half Marathon on Sunday. I didn’t run it. I hadn’t trained for it so like W’s dad H says “it wouldn’t be prudent” to run it. My brother Bob did. I wanted to see him off but we didn’t drive over together, I told him, “I’ll find ya.”

Ya right.

I got to Veteran’s Park, the starting point, and it was wall to wall people.

(I don’t see Brother Bob, do you?)

He was meeting some of his friends from California and I wanted to meet them. Oh well.

Next time I’m going to see if he’ll carry the Canadian flag, at least until the start. That’ll make it easy to find him. Right? So I thought that I would just watch the start.

When the motorcycle cops turn on the lights it means that the race is starting.

and here they came

Brother Bob is not in this picture either. I don’t think.

I did catch a glimpse of him actually but it was too late to get a photo.

I decided to walk over to Woodward Park. Get in front of him and get an action photo.

I found this guy.

Nope he isn’t Bob either. But look there are runners in this park.

Now there is a guy carrying the American flag. But its not Bob. You know something the guy is wearing an Arkansas t shirt. Some people are all worried about Obama not being an American citizen and all. You know something though, I worry about people who call hogs during a football game. Can they be real Americans? I don’t know, you tell me.

Here is my friend Darrell. He is a very cool guy. He hadn’t seen Bob either.

No that’s not Bob either. She is definitely better looking though. No offense Bob.

The Great Spirit hadn’t seen Bob either. Of course, I don’t think he really knew what Bob looked like.

So I walked back to Veterans Park. You know I thought about entering the race and walking. I’ve walked 14 to 15 miles geocaching before. I walked several miles looking for Bob.