Last week it rained for a whole day or two then it got cold. Turkey Mountain was closed to bikers but open for hikers. So off I went.
As usual I traversed a combination of legacy trails and new trails.
The new trails, thanks to their water shedding design were not muddy at all. By now the trails are very hard packed almost like pavement. The old trails were okay but a bit muddy at times.
It is amazing. There are no guards at the trails or rangers or anything and yet the bikers stayed away. I think most of the users are invested in the trails now and comply with the requests to stay off after rains. Bikers especially turn out huge for the trail work days and really buy into keeping the sustainable trails in good shape.
So on my hike I only saw a few other people, all of them hikers. No bikers nor signs of bikers at all.
I love trees in the wintertime. We get to see their bones and the results of them stretching up to the sky to get some sun.
I also love seeing the dead wood in the woods. You couldn’t buy a sculpture like this at any price. Turkey Mountain is an old growth forest. They don’t cut down old snags and they don’t clear the woods of them either. Sure they have done a little bit of controlled burns and mulching and their clear trails of fallen limbs and trees but they just push the wood off to the side of the trail. Dead trees make great habitat for all sorts of little critters.
I love the rocks on Turkey Mountain. Above is from a large outcropping called Rock City.
My boots got a little muddy.
And I had a great time. All by myself.
Kind of reminds me of a line from Mary Oliver’s “How I Go to the Woods”
“…If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.”
This week I have a Tiger from the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls, ID some years ago. I had a minor procedure done on my ear early this week and I had to take it easy a few days so I didn’t get out and about. So I’m bringing this photo from a trip to see my father way back when. Idaho Falls’ Zoo is small but mighty!! I love how it is so chilled out and relaxed.
The family ventured out recently to see the movie, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” This movie is based on the best-selling book by David Grann, and it tells the story of the Osage Nation murders in 1920s Oklahoma. Martin Scorsese directed it and the two star actors are Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro,
The movie exposes a dark side of the America, as the Osage people in northeast Oklahoma, became the richest in the world after oil was discovered on their land, only to be targeted by a ruthless conspiracy that killed dozens of them. The movie follows Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio), a World War I veteran who marries Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman, and becomes involved in the plot orchestrated by his uncle William Hale (De Niro), a powerful rancher and businessman. The movie also features Jesse Plemons as Tom White, an FBI agent who leads the investigation into the murders, and tries to uncover the truth behind Hale’s scheme.
Lily Gladstone really brings a lot of presence to the movie. She doesn’t really say much but she sees and hears everything. De Niro plays the hapless Ernest who has no foundation nor rudder. He just does what his uncle tells him to do, even helping with the murders of his wife’s family members despite loving his wife. De Niro’s, William Hale, is the ultimate master manipulator who pulls levers behind the scenes to concentrate money into his family.
From what I have read Scorsese initial thoughts were to make the movie into an FBI story as this was the FBI’s first ever investigation but the Osage Tribe prevailed upon him to make the tribe and the members of the tribe the focus of the movie.
The movie is visually beautiful captures the beauty and horror of the Osage Nation. The movie also pays tribute to the Osage culture and history, and highlights their resilience and courage in the face of injustice. The movie has a story to tell and it plods along telling the story for about three and half hours. I love the movie but I think it is overlong for many people.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a movie that will make you think, feel, and learn about a tragic chapter of American history that deserves to be remembered.
I feel very invested in the story. I read the book and attended it’s release here in Tulsa. It was electric. David Grann spoke about the book and in the audience there were Osage Tribe members who were descendants of some of the people that Grann wrote about. I thought Grann’s attitude was interesting many people in the audience thanked him for writing the book and getting the story out. That didn’t phase him too much. He’s a reporter, he just told the story with the facts that he found out after years or interviewing people and doing research in the national archives.
The movie took a long time to come together, film, and edit. In June 2021 they were shooting on location in Pawhuska in Osage County so son Logan and I had to go check it out.
They had taken over several blocks of the downtown area and put new windows in the stores, old time electric poles on the sidewalks and covered the streets with dirt.
They weren’t filming so they opened the barriers and let people take photos from both ends of the street. It was pretty cool.
They also filmed in other areas like the Lost City Trails of Chandler Park in Tulsa. During a tour of the area I was on one of the County Parks people told me that there was a huge crew filming, lots of people and the first thing they did was power wash all the graffiti off the walls of the canyons. He was very complementary of them. When they left there was no trace of them they had cleaned up after themselves so well.
I recognized several scenes shot in Tulsa’s downtown art deco buildings with ornate interiors.
So overall I give the movie five stars out of five. Yes, it does plod along at times and yes there is probably a good two and half hour movie in the footage they shot but I loved the movie as is.
I’m a geocacher and have been at it for years. Geocaching is a combination real life/online hobby where one goes and finds caches out in the world hidden by others. Check out my Geocaching 101 post and Geocaching.com for more information.
I got a notification from geocaching.com about a new cache nearby so I went to check it out. It was in a patch of dense woods with no trails or anything. I had anticipated that so I did not wear my “good” clothes to go find it. Too many thorns and sticks that can rip clothes otherwise.
So I got pretty far in and thinking, “this is ridiculous” so I did a 360 video to show how dense the woods are with the multitude of skinny closely packed trees.
I went in a little further and found this old rotten wreath. This could be considered a “geobeacon” or just a decoy. The cache is supposedly located within a few feet of it but it shows to be very tiny. So I couldn’t find it even though I spent about twenty minutes looking for it. And it was getting dark and a little cold as the sun went down so I “plugged and abandoned” as we say in the energy industry and left the premises.
However, as I emerged from the woods I was treated to a great sunset. Sometimes it’s all about the hunt is what I think. Some you find, some you don’t but it’s all fun.
Here’s Lizzie, our Christmas kitten. She has always loved Christmas. She likes to lay under the tree when the lights are on. When she is younger she used to climb up into the tree and so we had to perform a “Catectomy” pulling out of the tree.
And Kodi the Pomeranian. He loves to play.
He loves my wife. This is what he does when she leaves the house for any reason.
I went on a late afternoon hike recently at Turkey Mountain. They are putting a new sign up. Kind of cool in that it is also a topographic map of the park. I think maybe they are going to make it into a planter of some sort.
I took the Lo Chi trail which goes downhill to the Arkansas River. It passes this beaver pond on the way down.
And the trail goes under this flyover for one of the downhill bicycle runs. I guess this is technically a table top because you don’t have to catch air. But you can if you want. A real flyover would be a gap. Talking to the bikers they have their own language. Many older people like me would “roll over” this rather than try and jump.
And I found this baby backhoe that the contractors use to build trails. I’ve lost track on the new trails. This looks like they are building a new trail already.
Lo Chi doesn’t get as much use as some of the other new trails. I only saw one other person on my two miles outing.
And the sun started setting. I was on the east side of the ridge so it immediately got a little cooler.
We still have some pretty good fall color on the mountain.
And some more color. I walked a short segment of the RiverParks bicycle trail as part of my route.
Only two miles but hey I had a good time.
Back at the parking lot, these two women had set up their apparatus on one of the pavilions and were having a lot of fun twirling around. I don’t know what you call this but it looks challenging.
Pretty darn athletic is what I thought. They would climb up to the top of the pole and invert with the their legs holding them up. I couldn’t do that in a million years. Got to have a strong core for just start plus not get dizzy twirling round and round upside down.
Changing course, one morning in our back yard.
Found this giant Santa Claus inflatable in a nearby neighborhood.
And we are slowly getting our house decorated for Christmas.
And after a long hiatus I started doing jigsaw puzzles again on my ipad. I love doing them even though they take a lot of time. A great advantage is that you can’t lose any pieces and I use the option to orient the pieces in the right direction. Plus the texture of cardboard gives me the heebie jeebies and so I avoid that as well. And! there is no table with the puzzle on it when you are not working on it.
And today (December 7) is Pearl Harbor Day. Let’s not forget the heroes that day.
Tuesday night Heather, Logan, our Pom Kodi, and I loaded up and drove to the Tulsa suburb of Sapulpa to check out the Route 66 Christmas Chute in their downtown. We went last year and loved it!!
The city blocks off several blocks of Route 66 downtown and install these big frameworks and then people decorate them. You walk underneath the decorations. It is wonderful and you have great light for taking photographs. Also the merchants really go all out decorating their storefronts for the occasion.
https://flic.kr/p/2pjXMtD
Most of the restaurants are open if you are hungry or thirsty plus there are pop up shops selling food, drinks, and gift items.
https://flic.kr/p/2pjRLkS
Logan really loves gingerbread cookies.
https://flic.kr/p/2pjWoii
Heather loves snowmen.
I love the reindeer and the sled.
Kodi loves Heather!
He also found two other poms to have a faceoff with. They were barking at him and he was just looking. He didn’t like being pulled away. I swear Pomeranians are the most spoiled dogs ever but we still love ours.
The Grinch was in a storefront!!
I figured out what Santa is going to leave me.
If you like Christmas trees, they have dozens of them, from little dinette sized trees.
