Tag Archives: Tulsa

Our World – An Afternoon at Philbrook Museum of Art

Sunday morning the family got up and Logan had breakfast and we dropped him off at his job at the Neighborhood Walmart and Heather and I went to have breakfast. Afterward we headed out to Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art to check out their newest exhibit “Innovative Expressions” which turned out to be very academic but interesting. It showcased the printmaking  art of Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro.  I learned some things that I didn’t know before. I didn’t take any photos though. Check it out if you are in town. It is open until September 9.

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After the exhibit we toured the three levels of galleries. It doesn’t take us long as we have been there many times before so seeing the art is like meeting old friends. Philbrook does a good job of swapping things out and so we always see things we hadn’t seen before. I love Thomas Moran’s “Grand Canyon” (above).

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And this one is a favorite of mine. I am from New Mexico and too me nothing beats snow on adobe like this, “Tesuque (Dark Houses)” by Theordore Van Soelen. It is also special because when I was born my family was living the Tesuque Ranger Station.

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This is one that I don’t remember seeing but Heather told me that it has been on display before. So meet my new friend, “Bridge over the Stour” by Childe Hassam. I love it.

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Next we went to the gardens of the museum. It had been raining earlier but then settled into a very light sprinkle. The tempietto in the background may be the most photographed item in Tulsa. I think it is beautiful. I’m always trying to think of something new so here I focused on the flowers which caused the tempietto to soften. You can tell there is a person on the other side of the pond who is way out of focus.

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It is my lovely wife, Heather. The gardens at Philbrook are especially lush this time of year. Their gardening staff really works hard keeping things tidy and green.

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I spotted a purple coneflower.

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Another area of the gardens that I liked.

We had a great leisurely couple of hours at Philbrook. It is a great place to get away from it all for a short time. If you plan on visiting check their web site for all sorts of information for days and hours of operation, special exhibits, events and all sorts of other information.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday – Tulsa Tough Bicycle Races 2018

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Tulsa has a big street party every year on a hill near the River Parks called “Crybaby Hill.”

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In amongst (amongst is a word in Oklahoma by the way) the party a bike race breaks out. It is Tulsa Tough. A three days series of bike rides and races for everybody from Sunday cruisers like me to top professionals around the world.

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They have it in early June every year and it is generally sweltering. Tulsa Tough is sponsored by Saint Francis Hospital, a local Catholic Hospital Medical System.

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The last day of the race is the most popular. The races all criterium style which means that they go round and around the same short course multiple times. The last day’s though is brutal. You start by the river and climb up a very steep hill then you come down off the hill and at the bottom you have to make a very sharp 120 degree turn and most of these guys/gals don’t appear to use their brakes at all so there are some spectacular bike crashes.

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So down on the river is where the races start, and the top is where the party is. It appears to get a little bigger and a little wilder every year. Couple that with no parking, very few sidewalks and the crowd and the races get very close to each other. They have painted the race lanes in bright colors and there is an army of volunteers who are constantly yelling, “mind the gap.” The race lane area.

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So I went out and made a lap of the course with my camera, walking and with the heat it about killed me. I cannot imagine riding the course up to nine times or so.

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I love the contrast, the party with people getting drunk, and laughing and having a good time, and a high stakes race in the brutal heat and humidity.

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I’m linking with “Our World Tuesday“

Previous Year’s Tulsa Tough Posts

2017

2016

2015

Skywatch Friday – A Moon and some Oklahoma Country Skies

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Kind of a mishmash this week for Skywatch Friday. This is the last full moon that we have. I love all the names Full Corn Growing Moon for example, I like Milk Moon the best.

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Last Sunday I was in my first bicycle race ride. It was a grueling 24 miles over roads in hot weather and I loved every minute of it. I learned that hills are what makes rides interesting for me.  They are never as bad when you are climbing them as it looks when you get close.  I think that I am addicted. Help me to figure out how to sell the idea of a new bicycle to Heather.

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I went on a flat as a pancake run on an old railroad bed that cut through ranchlands and oil fields and we had a great sky.

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And a visit back to the magical Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch.

Hey everybody, what are you doing about the European General Data Protection Regulation? I am considering getting out of blogging because of it. You can see I have no ads. I don’t sell email addresses or any other information you guys/gals share with me. I just want to publish photos and look at your photos and exchange emails about my thoughts. I am a big believer in privacy but not a believer in regulations. Anyway let me know your thoughts.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday

My First Bicycling Event – Tulsa Tour de Cure 2018

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Saturday morning I participated in my first ever bicycling event, The Tulsa Tour de Cure , a fund raiser for the the American Diabetes Association. It is a ride, not a race and so the vibe was friendly and loose. I’m okay with friendly and loose.

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So no race, means no timing. The announcer said lets go and everybody kind of moseyed out. I waited and moseyed out pretty close to last.

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There they go! We had a police escort the first six or seven miles which was handy. We were on two lane city and county roads with lots of stop lights and the police waved us through the lights.

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About eight miles in we came to the first rest stop. And did I need it. The weather was hot and sticky so I downed a bottle of water and several cups of gatorade and a half of a banana and off I went again.

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The ride was hilly and windy. It took me a while to get used to riding on the road and having cars and trucks passing me. The drivers were cautious and there was only one that I thought got a little close for my comfort.  I pretty much do all my riding on trails which is great but after a while you want different routes. If I decide to ride roads I’m going to get me some front and rear led safety lights. Many of the riders had them and it really made them stand out a long ways away in broad daylight.

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I finished and had another bottle of water and a snack and then a couple of cold beers. Lunch was catered by Naples Flatbread and it was great. I had a turkey guac wrap and it was good. The finish came just in time. I have never cramped during a foot race but I felt it coming on during this event along with a general just feeling zapped. And my butt hurt big time. I’ve had biking shorts before and they don’t seem to help.

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And here is the shirt. I used a cartoon app that opens up in selfie mode. For some reason it does a mirror image. Oh well.

So this place hit all the buttons for a great event.

Great cause – check
Multiple events – check – they had various bike rides and a run and a walk. Something for everybody.
Support – check – the Broken Arrow police were plentiful and very helpful. Their were several trucks patrolling the course and I noticed that they hauled several riders in who were having problems with the heat.
Facilities – check – lots of tents for shade and portapotties
Rest stops – two of them with water, gatorade, snacks.
Friendliness – lots of gabbing going on.
Beer – check!
Food – check
Extras – check – they had a guy who could really sing perform the National Anthem and the Muskogee Creek Tribe provided a color guard. That was very cool.

So a great event. Thanks to the American Diabetes Association, the volunteers, the fellow riders, sponsors, and everybody else associated with the event.

Here is a relive trace of the run. Relive is very flattering because their videos are designed to meet the one minute Instagram video limit so it makes one look like he was hauling butt the whole way and doesn’t reflect the struggle into the winds up the hills. I love relive.

Relive ‘Tulsa Tour de Cure Bike Race’

And here is the Garmin version showing the struggle up the hills, into the wind, the dawdling at the rest stops, the extreme gearing down.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday – Flower and Wildflowers

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This is one of Heather’s day lilies in front of our house on Sunday morning after a night’s rainfall. I just love rain drops on flowers.

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Saturday I went hiking on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain and found some color. Or some color besides green. The mountain is covered in bright green and I love it but I also love other colors also

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And here is some yellow flowers. I have no idea about flowers so I call these yellow flowers.

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And here is one of the trails I ran. You see what I mean about bright green?

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And here is a purple wildflower.

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After years using a Toshiba I finally got a new computer. The Toshiba was still working but the pentium chip just wasn’t up to the demands of Lightroom and Photoshop and other photo software I use. so I got a brand spanking new Dell with a fast processor. I also have a solid state hard drive that is about half the size of the one I had but I don’t keep much data on machine. I got it at Staples and had them move the data and programs from the old machine to the new and you know something they did a great job and the cost was very reasonable.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday – Evening Ride to Sand Springs

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I am really enjoying riding my bike. I couldn’t do it Monday or Tuesday because I had to pick the kid up from work and Wednesday Heather and I went to the Alison Krauss – Willie Nelson concert. (Heck of a show those two put on I tell you.) So Thursday was it. I have a go pro type cheap clone that I mount on the handlebars of my bike. I had it set to take a photo every 20 seconds so above is an action shot of my filling my water bottle. You can tell from the long shadow of the tree that it was already getting late in the day.

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The winds were supposed to pick up from the north so I opted for an east west route to Sand Springs and back on the MK&T trail. A converted railroad line. Straight as an arrow and easy grades. It doesn’t get much use and has several road crossings but they are easily crossed.

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Here is a sign shadow, with a lens flare.

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And here is an action shadow selfie of me pressing the crosswalk button like a nerd. A bicyclist who knows what he is doing just goes out there in traffic. I plan on living a few more years and I am hoping that being a nerd furthers that cause.

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And an extra long shadow selfie on the trail. Below is a brief video of my ride.

Relive ‘After work ride to Sand Springs’

So what have you been up to lately?

I am linking with Shadow Shot Sunday

Last Skywatch Post of April 2018 – Osage Prairie Trail

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Last week I took my bicycle up north of Tulsa to the “Osage Prairie Trail” a rails to trail project  that starts in north Tulsa and goes to Skiatook, way out in the country. I started in Sperry and went about five miles north to Sperry. The trail is deluxe, asphalt paved and well maintained.

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I got some geocaching in on the way. How do you like my stylish outfit? I found that garish yellow top at Walmart for about seven bucks. Don’t feel bad if you don’t like it cuz I like it just great! Along with my mismatched socks. Where’s the law that says your socks have to match? There isn’t one, I already checked!

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I love this bridge across Bird Creek.

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I got to Skiatook and everybody in town was taking an exercise class.  I felt like jumping in myself but they were just finishing up. I love community stuff like that. Except community sounds like communism. We don’t like communism here in Oklahoma, so I am glad I didn’t join this communistic exercise program. People need to be in there own homes watching Fox News and checking you know who’s twitter feed. Not out in the sun getting skin cancer and getting to know your possibly leftist, immigrant, non gun owning  neighbors.

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Enough about politcs. How about some cows? These are my wife’s cousin’s herd out in western Oklahoma. I love the calves especially. I always name one of them “Little Brisket.”

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I went riding along the Arkansas River after work earlier this week during a pretty day. I am loving riding my bike this Spring!!

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And it is Azalea season here in Tulsa. Here is a house in midtown that I just love. Look at the blooms, and the windows.

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And I have a volunteer gig with the city of Tulsa picking up “litter on a stick” signs. I’ve picked up 17 so far. Within days of getting trained, me and my fellow 61 volunteers picked up over 500 trash signs off city rights of way. I’m all official now. I have a city ID Badge with my photo on it and some “cop gloves” to help protect from sabotaged signs. (Not yet in Tulsa but apparently in other cities the people who have put out litter on a stick signs have superglued razor blades to the wire frames.” The gloves will come in handy for geocaching also. On my bike ride on the Osage Prairie Trail I went looking for a cache called something like “In the hole” and I found the hole in the tree and as I went to inspect it, a snake slithered out! So as we say in the energy biz, I plugged and abandoned that cache, figuratively. I am just glad that I didn’t stick my hand in there, even though the slithery critter did not appear to be poisonous.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday this week.

Sunday Morning at the Tulsa Zoo

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We had a rainy cold weekend here in Tulsa. Heather was out of town and Logan was at his job and I wanted to get outside but the trails at Turkey Mountain are always a muddy mess after rain. I had recently been to a lot of my favorite haunts, Woodward Park, the Botannic Gardens, Oxley Nature Center, so I went to the Tulsa Zoo hoping that it wouldn’t be too rainy. And I lucked out, after a night of rain, it pretty much quit for the day by the time I got there.

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This grizzly bear was kind of sad. It is beautiful. Look at that fur. It looks like it has been groomed. (I don’t know whether it is a he or a she.)

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Breakfast though appears to be a sack of salad. I’d be nosing around in it myself thinking, “Are you kidding me!!”

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Now, I’ve been to the classes and did the reading. Zoo staff take the diets of the critters very seriously  and make sure to give them what they need. Grizzly sure looks depressed about it.

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I found this critter. I had never seen it before. It is not a cute little kitty, it is a wild animal. Too bad my pic of its plaque is indecipherable!!

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They have several bald eagles there. They always look so noble.

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And the children’s zoo. Goats, goats at a children’s zoo are pains in the butt.  They are cute but will steal the zoo map out of your back pocket in a heartbeat, and eat it.

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A good zoo, and Tulsa has an excellent zoo, has great grounds to match, or complement the critters they harbor.

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I found me a lizard, an iguana maybe, with a sardonic smile.

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And some sort of ape with a sour outlook, but beautiful fur.

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And I believe that this is a “Golden headed lion tamarin” and I think it is beautiful.

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A lion looking very regal.

I loved my couple hours at the zoo. It was overcast and cold and that kept everybody away, which suited me. Just me, the staff, and the critters.

If you want to visit the Tulsa Zoo check out their website for all the info. They even have Zoo Yoga Thursdays at 6 pm. I’m interested, what about you?

Trail Pics

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A trio I encountered at a park in Sand Springs taking a walk.

I have a Go Pro Clone action camera that I can mount on the handlebars of my bicycle. It has various modes. It has a video loop mode where it takes three minutes of video, stores it does three more minutes until it runs out of battery. Or I can still pics at any interval you set. I have been experimenting with both modes. Video is a pain in the butt because of the huge files you end up with long upload and download times and a definite problem of separating the wheat from the chaff. Stills are a lot easier. You end up with a huge amount of them but you can just delete the ones you don’t like which for me is literally about 95% of them on the first pass and then about 80% of the remainder get deleted on a second pass review.  I now use about a 20 second delay between pics now. In an hour ride that is about 180 photos. Typically I keep about five to ten. The rest get deleted. Thank goodness for digital photos!!

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I love the sense of distance in this. I love feeling a long ways from where I need to be. Except when things go wrong. Two years ago on this trail one of my tires blew out and I had to go pick up the kid in an hour. I hid the bike. Called a cab (cuz there was no Uber out in the boonies), took the cab to where my car was, drove the car back to the trail and retrieved the bike and then went to pick up the kid. Thank goodness for cell phones is what I say!!

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I like the photos of people out on the trail, like this couple. You can tell by their body language that they like each other.

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This poor lady was all over the trail and I don’t think she heard my “on your left” so I went very slowly around her way to the right. My heart really went out to her. She looks like she might be housing insecure. I think she has a long ways to go but I don’t think she is enjoying it. I am no so called “bleeding heart liberal” but our decreasing compassion for people who are down on their luck is a real problem. I hope she found a safe place to stay that night.

Our World Tuesday – 2018 Tulsa Auto Show

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Friday afternoon, I hooked up with one of my friends and we made our way to the Tulsa Auto Show at Expo Square.  The show features lots of new cars and has quite a few older cars. This year the hit of the show was the 1939 GM Futurliner that I posted about a couple days ago. Hit the link to go to that post if you wish. I am of two minds about cars. I love the technology, safety features, and durability of new cars but I love the styling of the old cars. Having said that, old cars of any type are a pain in the rear to own without major upgrades.  Changing spark plugs, condenser, and coil the time, checking the timing was a major pain. Flooding out whenever you splashed through water was terrible. I hate older cars. I love the newer cars. Except they all look alike.

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So we looked at all the cars but I took photos mainly of the older cars. Especially the Ford Thunderbirds. I don’t think there are that many more beautiful cars than the mid 1950’s Thunderbirds. They styling, the colors!!

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But like I said before. I don’t want to own one. Hey, you have one and want to loan it to me for a day on a nice sunny day. Sure, I will take you up on it. But I will return it and drive back home in my old Kia Soul. (All is Well, With My Soul, as the hymn goes.)

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Not just the tbirds, most of the cars had nice streamline, swoopy styling and many unique paint jobs.

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And some had chrome everywhere. I love a lot of chrome.

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So I admit, I took photos of almost all the old cars and hardly any of the new cars. The new cars all look like Toyotas anyway.

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I love this two tone paint.

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Here is an oldster.

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Here is an ugly older car. it looks like an upside down bathtub.

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Here is something unique. It looks like a gangster car. You can tell I am not a real car guy. My friend was and knew what all the cars were and he told me but I am an old guy and it was in one ear and out the other. If the cars have window tags I generally take photos of those for later reference. No window tags though. So you are on your own identifying these.

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Now this, this is a Pierce Arrow. Love, love, love this car. I highly recommend that you buy one, and let me borrow it from time to time.

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It has got one of the prettiest hood ornaments ever. The Tulsa Route 66 Marathon passes out replicas for their race models. I am a proud owner of one of them.

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How about one of these. What child of the late 50’s and 60’s didn’t get hauled around in a station wagon.  Nine or ten kids would fit in these, some laying down in the back. It is a wonder we didn’t all die.

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Here is a new car I found. The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. It has a 707 horsepower engine and brakes to match. Its kind of sad. When it first come out a few years ago and was on display it was mobbed by guys looking at it. Of course, their were young women in short skirts and high heels answering questions. Now, you got guys with clipboards wanting to answer your questions, at least when they look up from their cell phones and happen to notice you. I felt like asking them where the women with high heels were but didn’t want to get all swarmed up in the me too movement.

So that’s a wrap on this years Tulsa Auto Show!!

I am linking with Our World Tuesday

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