We had the full Beaver Moon recently on a very cold clear night. I always love the full moon.
We still have some fall color to go with our blue skies.
I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. Did you go shopping on Black Friday. I went on a hike in a secludeed area of Turkey Mountain here in Tulsa.
Saw some great sights, took a lot of photographs.
Got on some rugged legacy trails and then on some of the newer twisty turny trails.
I encountered four other people on my hike with is four more than what I usually see in this part of the park. I only went about two miles. but it was great.
The three of us took a late vacation this year. I’m ashamed to say that all the traveling I did by myself was part of that (but I’m not sorry that I did it.) Son is taking college classes but they are online so yep, he can attend school anywhere we have wifi.
So this was the SuperMoon on August 31. Also a blue moon since it was the second full moon of August. I took this the night before we left on vacation. Technically though I am retired I am on a permanent vacation.
We had some decent skies on our drive from Tulsa to the Alabama Gulf Coast. My wife was driving when I took this photo. I used to take photos of her driving but she has gotten pretty good with her backhand so I don’t do those so much any longer.
I love this two story dock at a rest stop in Arkansas. Too bad the dock is closed.
So we spent the night in Jackson, Mississippi on the way down there. No photos there. So we had a short drive to Orange Beach. We stopped at Buc ees on the way to the beach. Oops never again!! It is like a giant gas station paired with a giant Bass Pro with the worst of both. Lines to get in, lines to get out. It looked like a good place to get covid to me. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. But our condo was nice when got there.
The Gulf of Mexico right at our feet. Going so late in the season meant a lot less people and the temps were very mild and the humidity low. Sign me up!!
Evening sunset was nice.
Here’s Heather out in the water. I love the feel of the ocean, sand, and wind in my face.
And a hand holding romantic shadow selfie. Look how skinny we are.
We had a Full Corn Moon last week paired up with a crystal clear sky.
And some more clear skies on a day when I sneaked onto the new Bales Park trails here in Tulsa. They are putting up a fancy rustic wicket over the trail.
They have a nice boardwalk over a marshy area.
And Bales Park has an overlook to downtown Tulsa not very far away. That land across the freeway to the right is the very northwest end of Turkey Mountain. Nice to have two great public areas so close together. The highway department is redoing a freeway interchange at the center left of the photo. As part of the work the highway guys are putting in a bench to be used as a trail connector between Bales Park and Turkey Mountain. It was a big enough deal that US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came to town and made a press conference at the interchange to talk about the project as part of a project to reconnect parts of Tulsa that have been semi-isolated since the 1950’s. Here is the link to an article about it. Hilarious because Oklahoma’s Representatives and Senators all voted against the project and now they are all taking credit for it.
And switching gears, here is photo that is not mine.
Jigsaw puzzle – not my photo
Another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. I think of Monument Valley. I am not sure.
Today at noon I went for a little stroll in downtown Tulsa over to the Arvest Winterfest area. I guess that might be the city Christmas tree except you know we can’t have city owned Christmas trees.
They put up a temporary ice rink and have food trucks and hot chocolate. At night. Nobody was around at noon.
The Cold Moon from earlier this month amped up a little bit with a Flickr filter. I love seeing and taking shots of the moon. Some filters are more than a distraction, this one actually makes the moon look a little three dimensional.
This is a file photo from a few years ago taken off my front yard at the sunset. I love a little color in the sky. This kind of color is short lived. I have found out that one has to act in a a minute or so or it all turns to gray.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday. Take a sky photo, post it on your blog and link it to Skywatch Friday. We never close.
A shot from our trip to Orange Beach, Alabama earlier this summer for vacation. I love hanging out at the beach. What you see changes every second.
A full moon from earlier this week. I’m told it was the Thunder Moon or the Buck Moon. I captured not too long after moonrise so it had some color to it.
Earli
From our trip to Bentonville, Arkansas recently. They have a charming town square. I noticed this confederate monument in the middle of the park. As far as I know there is nobody clamoring to have it removed. It is interesting to me that Oklahoma and Arkansas are right next to each other and you won’t see sights like this in Oklahoma. Arkansas was a state long before Oklahoma is the reason I am guessing. Just as an aside, Stand Waite was a Cherokee from what was then “Indian Territory” who rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and was quite successful fighting Union troops and was responsible for keeping them out of Oklahoma and east Texas during the Civil War. He was the last confederate general to surrender which he did in Doaksville, in what is now Oklahoma on June 29, 1865. I stumbled across the ghost town of Doaksville years ago and wrote this blog post about it.
I got away from work for a little while Tuesday at noon and drove to nearby Gilcrease Museum. I didn’t go into the museum but I went for a walk on the adjacent city park, Stuart Park. There was a sign there to be on the lookout for a bobcat and to report sightings. So that kind of perked my interest. I didn’t see any bobcats but I did take a few photos. It was very warm, almost 70. This is after being 4F on Saturday morning. Now we are supposed to have an ice storm on Saturday. Oh well, this winter if you don’t like the weather just wait a little bit and it will change.
And then last night when I got home I noticed the moon was almost full so I got my trusty camera out and took a shot. It is the Full Wolf Moon, or almost full I guess. I love taking shots of the moon. I have dozens of them. I don’t know why, it doesn’t really change does it. I imagine I’ll be taking lots more as time passes.
I’m linking this post with Skywatch Friday. Come join us. A new link starts Saturday at 2:30PM Central Time (US).
My favorite go to 3 mile walking/running loop is Lafortune Park just a few miles from the house. The trail goes around a golf course, tennis courts, and a playground, and by a several ponds so there almost always moments to rest a little bit and snap a pic or two. I’m always wanting to yell “You the Man!” or “In the Hole!!” at the golfers but never have, probably never will. I used to work with a guy who when we played golf with the CEO of our employer would say, when the CEO hit the ball, “Oh my gosh, look at the ball go!!” He even said it when I hit it, or whiffed it as mostly the case. I always thought it was funny.
We were celebrating my wife’s birthday yesterday and when we got home I noticed that we had a full moon. So I dug out my trust Canon SX40 Superzoom and took a few pics of the moon. I an one of them through Topaz Textures and then uploaded onto my Ipod Touch and used DistressedFX to further process the image to bring out the features of the moon. This moon doesn’t have a cool name like some of the other moons. It is called the Long Night Moon.
