Turkey N’ Taturs Trail Race

I ran a trail race Sunday morning. The Turkey N’Taturs Trail Race on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Park. I’ve come to love Turkey Mountain and trail running. They had races of 10K, 25K, and 50K lengths. I opted for the 10K (about 6.2 miles). On trail runs I start at the back and pretty much stay there the whole race. I like to take photographs, and pics and fast times are mutually exclusive. Of course, those who know me think that I’d be at the back with or without a camera but I digress.

The weather was great, cool and sunny. A few pics:

20100912_1

About 0.1 miles from the start. Sorry, I had to stop and get an image.

20100912_12

A muddy pond near the end.

20100912_10

I just loved that for a little while we ran on the “Fairy Dust Trail.”

20100912_11

I just love a sense of humor.

20100912_7

Luckily we just had to run besides these rocks, not through them. I refer to these as “snake condo’s.” Great place to hide a geocache huh? The clue would be “Look in the rocks.”

20100912_6

Isn’t this nice? A flagstone running path. Here in Tulsa we don’t have enough money to pay our police and fire departments but nothing but first class for our runners.

20100912_5

Going up hill behind the “Three Graces.” Three ladies that stayed ahead of me until just before halfway then they let me pass. They were very nice and great runners.

20100912_4

Wow, just as I was in the groove running in the woods with the birds and the squirrels and fixing to go totally Ralph Waldo Emerson mode I pop onto a power line right of way, whoa, urban chaos and a strangely empty Arkansas River.

20100912_13

I finished the race and rested a bit. I went looking for a malted beverage. Some lady told me, “Don’t you think that it is way to early to have beer especially on a Sunday morning?” Boy, she gave me a look when she saw what I grabbed out of the cooler. So I had two, hey, she didn’t want hers, beer doesn’t drink itself you know.

The race was great. Everybody was very chilled out. I won a technical shirt as a door prize, and ate some great barbecue. Some amazing times were run.

Kudos to the Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners (“TATUR“). Kudos also to my blog friend Trail Zombie (aka Ken) who spent hours and hours marking the trails and who knows what else and was also a sponsor of the race.

Of course you know the most important part of a race,

20100912_28

It’s the shirt and the participant medal. I’m the king of participant medals.

When is the next race Ken? I’m ready!

Shadow Shot Swan

20100906_11

Our neighborhood has a pond with a few resident black swans. I tried to get a photo of one of them but he wasn’t being very cooperative and the light was all wrong. I really couldn’t even see what was on the viewfinder.You ever try and take a picture of something black in a shadow while standing in bright light?

20100906_9

I think he was looking for food, not immortality on the internet.

20100906_8

Finally I got a flash of color.

Check out Shadow Shot Sunday

Geocaching through “a Few Weeds”

Shannon

A friend of mine, Shannon, sent me a message saying that her house backs up to a park here in Tulsa and that she ran into a couple guys who were in her backyard. She asked them what they were doing and they told her that they were geocaching. I told her that I needed to go find it. She mentioned that their back yard was a little messy with a few weeds.

Well I went to find the cache today, and boy was she right. There are a few weeds!!

First we left the park boundary and entered her back yard,

Shannon's Cache Route

Then the trail got narrower and darker

Shannon's Cache Route 2

Then there was no trail

Shannon Route 3

Uh, you know I the feeling that her house was right up against the park. Anyway we came to this. We were glad we brought our machetes. We hacked through the jungle for several hours.

Shannon Cache Route 4

And finally the cache appeared

Shannon Cache Final

Yahoo! number 1016, but you know something Shannon, I agree with you, you have a few weeds.

Knocking About with SuperPizzaBoy

SuperPizzaBoy and I went geocaching in the suburbs. We went to a park in Owasso to look for four caches.

20100829_18

The first one was in a brushy area. Previous finders and the owner of the cache had talked about a huge black snake that had been found laying right on top of the container. I’m not just terrified of snakes but I like to find them before they find me. So I was trying to check all the nooks and crannies for both snakes and containers. I finally found the container. Do you see it? Never did see the snake.

20100829_19

The next cache was tough. I finally cheated and stuck and my camera with the flash activated into a small hole in dead tree took a picture. There it was, big as life. Hard to retrieve, even harder to put back. Some of these cachers are evil! I don’t know what I’d a done if there was a snake or other critter looking back.

20100829_20

Here is an action shot of SPB, and what I thought was the container adjacent to a disk golf coure. Cache wasn’t there, I looked high and low and all over the place. Finally logged a shameful DNF (“Did Not Find”). I felt better though when a subsequent cacher also reported a DNF and the cache owner had to replace the cache. It’ll be there when we go back.

Speaking of Disk Golf, SPB tried that out the next day. Tulsa has lots and lots of disk golf courses. I see them while running on the river and while geocaching. So we bought a couple of disks and off we went to Haikey Creek Park.

20100829_25

Look at that form! He and I both threw them back handed like you would playing frisbee in the back yard. Almost all disk golfers I see throw them like a baseball and can really make those disks fly incredible distances. I’m going to have to learn that. But hey we are newbies. You know being a newbie is incredibly liberating. I tell our new college hires at work that if they don’t understand something just say so. That is how you learn!!

20100829_26

Its like “OK son, I’m going to get a shot of you putting her in the basket,” and he throws a bean ball. He thought it was hilarious.

20100829_22

Here, lets try it again, I’ll get off to the side.

We quit after 7 holes. It was fun, but it was hot. Time to go get refreshed. I’m going to learn some more about this disk golf thing. I like regular golf but I just cannot see telling the family sayonara for five hours or so on the weekend. I’d do it if I thought son was interested and we could do it together. He may be eventually but not now. Disk golf is free, the equipment is reasonably priced and hey and its an outside activity. We’ll be doing it some more I think.

On our way to get some sodas I just had to find a geocache right close to the park. It is a P&G (“Park and Grab”, no hike necessary)

20100829_28

Nope, not it, I thought it was. Here it is. See it?

20100829_27

Have you been knocking about lately? Tell me about it.

Anniversary

Sweetie and I are celebrating 21 years together today.

The Beautiful Bride

The black cloud is our Pom, Rascal. I know, I know, you aren’t supposed to carry dogs in your lap while driving. Hey, you tell her, she doesn’t listen to me!

But

That is how she rolls.

Just as pretty and so full of life as ever.

She and I make a very glamorous couple, don’t you think?

Dedicated and loving mother to our son.

A very hard worker.

Very down to earth.

And ready for fun any time.

She’ll even go geocaching with me, every once in a while. Believe me, she does it because she loves me.

Happy Anniversary Sweetie!