Tag Archives: Arkansas River

Skywatch Friday – Evening Run

DSCN4932

No filter, no software, no nothing, right out of the camera.

The weather was perfect for my Wednesday night run on the river: temperature in the mid 40’s and no wind. It felt almost warm. I got to the Arkansas River just as the sun was going down. My Nikon AW110 point and shoot has a night landscape mode so I tried it out and it wasn’t too bad. This was from the east side of the river. 

DSCN4935

When I went across to the west side of the river, the sun was long gone but I took a shot east across the river to downtown Tulsa. I cropped the photo and it has a little fuzzy wuzzy about it but not too bad. Mainly I like the reflection of the buildings in the river.

I am still in recovery from my injury in September and I have my good days and my not so good days. Wednesday night was one of the not so good runs. Both legs were aching and I decided to cut things short at three miles instead of my planned five  but at about the 1.5 mile point things started coming together and feeling better and I finished my shortened run strong.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

 

Hot Weather Run on the River

DSCN3959

Hot weather means less people running and cycling on the Trails.

While we were in Hawaii the weather here in Tulsa got hot. We are now approaching full blown summer weather. Last Wednesday I went for a run after work in the 96F heat. I know how to run in the heat. Run slow, which comes naturally to me, carry water, take lots of breaks and listen to your body is what I do.

DSCN3965

With the construction of a gathering place going on, running is limited on the east side so I cross over to the west side of the river. With all the rain we have had the river is up and there are lots more fishermen that what I normally see. I don’t know what they are fishing for but they are hard at it.

DSCN3969

I found a little cross stuck in the ground. A memorial to somebody obviously. I don’t know who and there were no names. I say a little prayer for peace to whoever put it there and move on.

DSCN3972

The main function of Tulsa Power Station is to bolster the rate base. I think it is the last unit on and the first one off during the summertime heat loads. It sure seems to fire up during smog alerts in the summer.

I only went about a mile and a half down the river to the PSO Tulsa Power Station and went down to the long forgotten kayak run (now visited only by geocachers I think) to where you can right down on the river.

DSCN3974

180 degree panorma

The river is up several feet and was pretty wild. It would be easy to drown in this water if you were not careful.

A 12 second video of the water. Loud and fast. Thank goodness and the Corps of Engineers for Keystone Dam upstream of Tulsa or things could really be interesting. Tulsa used to have bad flooding way back when before the dam was put in.

DSCN3976

Running back I got this subtle reflection of the river of a condo across the way. You can tell why we call northeast Oklahoma “Green Country.” Everything is greening up this year with all the rain we have had.

DSCN3977

The shadows are longer. Time to go home, shower, eat dinner and down a cold one ( or two.)

Have you gone any adventures yet?

Proposed Dams on the Arkansas River

PowerPlant Skywatch Edit

One of Tulsa’s best attractions is the Arkansas River that runs through it. It is beautiful and Tulsa and suburbs have enhanced it by putting in miles of trails and parks on both sides of the river.

20100826_25

The River also separates the urban east side and the industrial west side of town. The east side has downtown, museums, nice subdivisions and such. The west side has two refineries, a power plant, concrete plants and a bunch of other industries. I like both sides actually.

DSCN1920

The only thing is that the river is most attractive where it has water in it dependably and that is only upstream of Zink Dam which was built in the last century and is showing its age plus the dam is beginning to build up silt behind it.  The city has an engineering report now and it describes a project to renovate the Zink Lake Dam and add three other dams to the river. The total cost is just over $300 million bucks. It is a lot of money but I think it may be a bargain.

The new dams will feature “Obermeyer Gates” which is a kind of hinged dam that raises and lowers by means of an air bladder. So when the gate is lowered, silt and sand can move downstream and fish can move upstream. I am not sure how often they would cycle the gates but it does sound like an interesting technology.

Check here to see a video of how the Obermeyer Gate works. I had the video embedded but it autostarted and drives everybody crazey.

All I know is that communities are either growing or dying, their isn’t too much room in between and if cities want to grow they have to invest in themselves. I’ll be watching this and seeing if we can pass a bond issue to address the river.