Through my geocaching hobby I found out about a herd of wild mustangs that formally roamed the American west that are now pastured in a field northeast of Tulsa. So I grabbed my camera and headed out to find the geocache and take photos of the horses.
There is a viewing area right off the road where one can see some of the 2000 horses in the herd on private land. The area is next to a busy turnpike but that doesn’t seem to bother the animals.
They are originally from the western states and the BLM manages the population via adoption and relocation. You can read about the program here.
And here is an interesting blog post about the herd. The horses are feral and will live out their lives on this land. There is plenty of grass for them in the spring and summer and they get hay in the winter. The cost is subsidized by the federal government.
And hey look, there looks to be another herd on the other side of the turnpike!
So I got to see the horses and I found the geocache. I had to wait about 30 minutes because there was a Highway Patrol trooper parked there waiting to catch speeders coming off the turnpike I guess. So when he left I walked up to where he was parked and found the cache quickly. So win/win for that day.
The other day I grabbed up my hiking gear and headed out to Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness. I took my “grabbers” and a small grocery bag to gather trash. People are pretty good about picking up after themselves so I used to take a small garbage bag but I usually only find an item or two during my hikes.
I took a little side trail pretty soon after the trailhead to find a geocache.
And yep I found it. Another use of grabbers is to grab into places you can’t see so that mr snake doesn’t clamp down on my hand. That would ruin my whole day.
I didn’t see too many critters. A few squirrels maybe, no big critters. I took along my Merlin Bird ID app on the phone. It’s amazing. Turn it on audio mode and it identified: Red-eyed vireo Tufted Titmouse Carolina Wren Northern Cardinal I didn’t see a one of them!! I glimpsed small birds flitting around in the thick woods but I couldn’t vouch for any of them. One I did get a good look at looked like a small woodpecker with a redhead but it wasn’t making any sounds. I don’t know what it is though. It’s kind of frustrating but kind of fun as well. I think being able to spot and ID them will come with practice and patience.
I came upon a fallen tree on one of the small legacy trails. I took a photo of it with my Solocator app which puts the coordinates on the photos and posted it on Turkey Mountain’s facebook page and they had it cleared before I ended my hike. You gotta have the apps folks.
I got to Pepsi Lake and looked around.
I found a mess that somebody left, including a styrofoam cup and some fishing spinner bait packaging. Why can people not haul out what they haul in?
And a Pepsi can, at Pepsi Lake! All the trash fit into my shopping bag that I brought.
I kept heading north and heard some construction type noise. Excited that more trails might be under construction made me hurry to find the source.
It was pipeline construction going on. Ironically my former employer is having to relocate a line because of some highway construction and they cut a deal with my employer before that to lay in their right of way.
That’s not the way the energy industry typically was back in the old days. You had to have sharp elbows to survive. We didn’t spend too much time holding hands and singing Kumbaya with competitors let alone helping each other out. So maybe it is a kinder and gentler industry now?
So I followed the construction from a distance just to make sure that they are doing it right. I guess they are and I was getting tired so I headed back to the parking lot.
The other day I went on a bike ride on the RiverParks Trails around the Arkansas River in Tulsa.
I always check my weather app to check the prevailing winds. I like to go against the wind on the outbound leg and with the wind on the inbound leg. So today I started on the south end because the wind was from the northwest. I crossed the 71st bridge. It is always nice when the river has water in it.
Got across the bridge and hung a right onto Elwood to pass through Turkey Mountain.
I love riding the west side trails. I haven’t done it too much since the last several years since some of the trails have been closed for construction of the new Zink Lake Dam.
This fully enclosed bridge over Mooser Creek always tickles me. Why is it enclosed?
I got up to the soccer fields and checked out the detour map. The trails are opening back up on Labor Day Weekend. They are having a Big Dam Party to celebrate the completion of the Zink Lake Dam, construction of the new Pedestrian Bridge, and reopening of the closed west side trails. I’ll be celebrating, at home, and I’ll check out everything when the hubbub dies down. That’s how I roll.
Oh, yeah, I found a geocache near the sign.
And a guy passed by on this recumbent three wheeler complete with flags. Thankfully, they were right side up.
I deadheaded up the trail past the old PSO Power Plant. I love old infrastructure, even when it doesn’t run.
And go to the sign, “No Public Access” one sign says, the other says “No Bicycles or Scooter.” If you look to the right of the gate, it is propped open and there is a well worn trail there.
I had been wondering how these folks were getting to the river to go fishing. Now I know!! I don’t have a problem with it. These people have had to walk about a mile to get there and by gum. They deserve to fish!! (I am not being sarcastic. I love it when rules are bent to the will of the people, unless it is an insurrection of course.)
So I turned my bike around and headed back down to the soccer field and headed out on the trail detour.
This part used to be scary on southwest boulevard. The road was all torn up and with gravel and such. Plus they had four lanes which made for a tight bike lane especially with tanker trucks going to and from the refinery, dump trucks and other big vehicles that are part of Tulsa’s industrial west side. Then they had a long construction project to redo the road. That was a disaster. No bike lanes, no nothing. The one time I rode it I had to ride on the west side business parking lots cuz I didn’t dare get on the road. I drove the section last week and noticed construction was over and that is why I was riding the bike lane today. I felt pretty comfortable in the bike lane.
So I got up to Route 66 and went across the bridge.
And headed back down south to the car. Didn’t take too many photos. I took some photos of some critters and you can check those out on my post Saturday.
Anyway, almost 18 miles, going slow, stopping and taking photos plus found one geocache. My longest ride in a while.
Sunday morning I went geocaching in midtown Tulsa roughly along Route 66. I found this cute Little Free Library during my search. A couple of other searches took me to church parking lots. I avoid church parking lots on Sunday mornings. I avoid church also. (Just joking, I haven’t been since covid and have turned into a total heathen since.)
Parks are always a good place for geocaches.
And parking lots, if nobody is around.
A fellow geocacher maybe trying to get a hint on where to look.
Stopped by Route 66. A local business put up another muffler man, only this is a muffler girl. Stella Atom, the Space Cowgirl.
I love the kitschy Route 66 attractions. I don’t like driving Route 66 that much. It sure makes for slow going. Why do that when you are paralleling a nice freeway?
And I finished up at Oaklawn Cemetery. It is the oldest cemetery in Tulsa. The city has spent some considerable time and money excavating some old graves that were suspected to be those of Tulsa Race Massacre victims based on eyewitness accounts. I don’t think they have found anything conclusive yet. They have recovered genetic material and have encouraged local residents who think they may have relatives who were massacre survivors to report any DNA information they have. This past May the city reported that they have determined numerous people who have genetic ties to the bodies that were exhumed. Interestingly, none of the people contacted had any idea that they had relatives buried at Oaklawn or could have possible ties to the Tulsa Race Massacre.
There are other old graves there including several veterans of World War I, like the one above. The 804 Pioneer Infantry was a unit that did construction and maintenance work during the war. The enlisted men were almost all black serving under white officers.
Nowdays I do my geocaching on Sunday mornings. Nobody else is up for hours so I am not missed when I leave. I was chasing one at a children’s playground. I love the tree I found on the way.
The playground was a no go. I think I know where it is but I am not going to look for it when there is even one kid anywhere close to the playground. Time was, when my son was little I would turn him loose in the park and look for the cache. He’s 26 y/o, hates geocaching, loves sleeping in, and doesn’t like playgrounds any longer.
I went to the County Fairgrounds and found a cache associated with this train engine. It was my third try.
I found another one at a church where they had multiple “Little Free Libraries.” They were not just about book but things like petfood, snacks, toys, etc. I thought the concept was pretty cool. Pro hint, the cache was close to these but not in any of them.
And I found a cache associated with this Little Free Library. I have never seen a Midcentury Modern Little Library before. Have you. It was in a section of Tulsa dominated by MCM houses.
And hey, we had Flag Day recently so I got up early and flew my flag. There was only one other person in the ‘hood who flew his flag and it was upside down, on purpose and he flies it every day. I am not sure what that honors.
And for Father’s Day Heather and Logan took me to a baseball game. I am down with that any time.
Nothing better than live baseball. Nothing worse than televised baseball. Do you see a baseball and Civil Rights legend out in left field?
I’ll make it easier on you! That’s Jackie Robinson. One of the benefits of the Tulsa AA Minor League team being associated with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
And hey, I promised you a mystery!! Here it is. A herd of blue and grey plywood bison out grazing in the Osage Hills north of Tulsa. More on this to come.
I launched my drone the other day and went up 50 meters over the back yard. We had a little color for the sunset, not much, but some great clouds.
Sunday morning I went geocaching up in the Tulsa suburb of Catoosa. Came across this ammonia plant. I’m a chemical engineer so I like this kind of thing plus they use lots of natural gas both as a feedstock and for fuel for their processes.
Also in Catoosa, there are lots of pecan orchards up there. People hide geocaches near them and deer like to graze in the grass underneath. That is all coming to a screeching halt soon. They are subdividing this huge orchard. Makes me want to cry.
Went on a walk around Tulsa’s Lafortune Park. A big sprawling park that incorporates a high school and their various ball fields, a regular and par three golf course, several little league baseball fields, an American Legion baseball field, this high school baseball field as well as a softball diamond for the women, a public library, some gardens, an indoor and outdoor tennis complex, a public swimming pool, some great picnic areas and wonderful playparks for kids, and a three mile long walking/running path winding around all these facilities. I love it. Great photo ops.
Still at Lafortune, I love construction equipment.
A pond,
And lastly at Lafortune. My favorite moose.
My wife and I took a 2.7 mile hike at Turkey Mountain. Went by the hub, the highest point on Turkey Mountain. It’s about 300 feet above the lowest point on Turkey Mountain but hey it has a great view.
Looking Happy at the Start!
I ran a 5K trail race on Turkey Mountain last Saturday. When I say I ran it, I meant I walked it although I did trot some of the flat slightly downhill segments. I started out in last place but I passed a lot of people during the course of the race. Funny thing is that when I finished the race there were people already there who I had passed. I didn’t care but that happens in these races sometimes. Nobody cares especially since it wasn’t anybody who was in contention to place. I’ll have a separate post about the race later. Maybe.
On Earth Day, I manned a table at Tulsa’s Chandler Park giving out information about Earth Day, and Leave No Trace Principles and what our organization, the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition is about and what we are doing.
A couple of days later I was downtown at Tulsa’s Guthrie Green during a recycling event basically doing something similar.
Your regular car people hate this thing and hold in disdain. I thought it was beautiful. Zero to 60 mph is 2.6 seconds gets my attention. Also 11,000 pounds of towing capacity. Range of 340 miles.
I could never get a feel for the truck just looking at photos. In real life it is a very tough looking vehicle.
And a huge bed. Big enough for 4’x8′ building materials. The bed is a composite material so you don’t need a bed liner.
The interior is very simple, clean and spacious.
You have a very small simple steering wheel with no stalks for turn signals and all that. Those controls are on the wheel. You got this huge screen with everything else you need. I was impressed with the vehicle. The electric vehicle haters especially hate this thing. If somebody gave me one, I’d take it.
I have already converted my lawnmower to electric battery type. My very reliable, heavy duty gas powered mower finally seized up this year after 20 years so I bought electric. I’m happy with it!! Less than half the weight, no oil, no gas, no spark plug, no changing filters. My new mower is very lightweight and makes mowing a breeze and I can mow the whole yard using less than half the charging capacity. I didn’t try to get the best, I intentionally looked for the lowest cost, with the least problems that could mow my 1/5th of an acre lot.
It’s not going to last near as long as my old gas mower. Plastic mower deck is not going to last very long I am afraid. Oh well.
I found this beautiful blue Toyota Landcruiser at my brother’s apartment parking lot. Back in the I really coveted these things. Tough looking, cool. You grow up though and look for something else. When I was a kid we lived in the White Mountains of Arizona. My dad was transferred there as part of his job with the Forest Service. One of his coworkers joined the Forest Service kind of late in life (Probably he was fifteen to twenty years younger than I am now!) He and his wife were very nice, generous, cool people. Earlier in his life he was an actor in Hollywood. He specialized in being one of a group of bad guys. He worked some on the Lone Ranger television shows. How cool is that to a kid!! Anyway he and his wife on weekends would load up their Toyota Landcruiser and drive all over the National Forest, adjacent BLM land, and other places. No instagram back in the day so they did it all for their own enjoyment. Whenever I see a Landcruiser, I think of them.
I found a truck at the gym that the Cybertruck haters would love. A massive Ford F-150 with a two tone paint job and a cool Black Widow logo. Sorry, I should have got a photo of the logo. This thing is beautiful.
I’ll stick with my humble Subaru though. For as long as it will last. It does everything I want it to do. Want to know something funny, half the vehicles at the enviro events I attend are Subarus. Here it is parked in a place I am not supposed to be in to look for a geocache. Sunday morning I went to Sapulpa, OK to look around.
This was the first cache I found. It was kind of a clever installation. What nearly got me though was the cache container was full of ants. Little buggers, just waiting for me! You can see one crawling out of the container in the video. His friends followed.
In addition to the geocaches I found I checked out old and new Route 66 landmarks. The Tee-Pee Drive in was an old drive-in that was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Somebody bought it, fixed it up really nice and put this new sign up. It is not a neon sign, it is an LED sign, Bigger, better, and uses less electricity.
This is the old Rock Creek Bridge. It is a major route 66 stop but it can no longer carry traffic. At least they haven’t torn it down yet. You can still walk across it. It is not blocking Route 66. The new Route 66 is just a hundred feet or so to the right going across a modern bridge. What you have to understand about Route 66 is that it is not just one road. It is a living road and has been modernized and rerouted continuously since it started. The different routes are called alignments. Exploring some of the old alignments can be fn
Those are some of the original pavers from the when bridge was put up in the early part of the last century.
So I puttered around a few hours and went on home!!
Earlier this week I headed out to the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow to find a specialized geocache. It was a space based Adventure Lab Cache. No container to find, just information you need to look up. It was at the Voyage Solar System Walkway. A collection of displays set up along a street showing the relative sizes and distances of the planets to the sun.
Here is the sun, looks like an overgrown basketball.
Just a few feet away is Earth. Barely bigger than a pin prick and its even smaller moon.
And 2000 feet down the street, all by itself, is Pluto. Stripped of planet status recently but still proud.
And I got a virtual postcard proving that I found it. If only virtual anything proves anything. The installation starts at an elementary school which I think is great.
And I went hiking recently on Turkey Mountain. This flyover are still scary to me. They are not for hikers, they are for bicyclists. They really do fly over them. I think all that steel would hurt if you fell off your bike.
My sister and her husband came to town. We had a fun time. One day we went Woolaroc, wildlife preserve and art museum started by Oklahoma oilman Frank Phillips who started Phillips 66 Petroleum way back when. We saw some bison and other critters. My sister is a former Park Ranger at Yellowstone so it is kind of hard to impress her.
The liked the art a lot. Lots of western artists works are hanging at Woolaroc.
I love this stained glass window.
We went to the nearby town of Bartlesville to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower. Built for a pipeline construction company, H.C. Price who did a lot of work for Phillips 66.
BIL Irv got his photo with a big 66.
Sister Ellen did as well.
I did several years ago when I turned 66 years old.
And a few years before that I got my brother Bob’s photo on his 66th birthday.
Speaking of birthdays, I had one early this month. You can tell I am getting kind of old. I just started my 70th year.
As a treat Heather and Logan took me to see the the Van Gogh Immersion exhibit here in Tulsa. It was very cool.
And I got a cornhole game. Stop by if you are in town we’ll have some beverages and play a few games.
And I end with yet another Lego animal from the Tulsa Botanic Garden.
I love geocaching. If you don’t know what that is, it’s an online game that you play in the physical world. People hide containers (geocaches) out in the world and then input the gps coordinates online (at geoaching.com) and then others go and look for them and record their success or failure online at the same web site. Most people use an app on their smart phone to play these days. (A better explanation is by geocaching.com at this link.) Over the years I have found almost 2200 caches and hidden about 30 or so. Only three are still active.
Loading the caches
There are ethics to geocaching that you take care of the caches you hide. If they go missing or get damaged or something changes in any way then the expectation is that the owner of the cache needs to replace or repair, or disable it so other people don’t waste their time looking for it. I had two caches that had gone missing so I set about replacing them. The caches are in remote areas and I like to make them easy to find. Also, the expectation is on longer caches is that there be trade items. Mainly they are there for people who bring their kids with them. The idea is that you can take a toy or item from a cache if you have something equal or better to trade.
The first cache I replaced is in a patch of urban woods at the junction of three freeways in Tulsa. It is in a floodplain and hardly anybody would just go there for recreation. So you can get close on a bike trail.
And then you have to duck under one of the freeways and head to the woods.
I put it several feet above the ground. The area floods a lot so there is no use hiding it on the ground plus I like to people to find my caches so I made it kind of obvious.
So I took a different route back to my car. That was interesting. It wasn’t the terrain I though it was going to be. I went close to several homeless encampments and the back property of several businesses and it wasn’t much fun in terms of a hike but it was interesting. The thing is I hate going out and back on the same route. I like loops so I made a loop.
The prettiest part of the hike!
The next cache was on Turkey Mountain. I use the Turkey Mountain parking lots it is 2.5 miles to the cache site. I was in a hurry so I parked at the YMCA adjoining the Turkey Mountain. I’m a member so I just checked in at the office and used the Y’s trails, which interconnect with Turkey Mountain’s trails and saved my a lot of time.
I love trail bridges!!
Here is a view of the Y from across their lake (on Turkey Mountain, ponds are called lakes for some reason. Probably because they named a hill, Turkey Mountain.)
And here is the sign, 2.5 miles to the other parking lot. So I got kind of an express pass.
So is the general location of the cache site. This is the Rock City area of Turkey Mountain. I hid the cache a lot better than I did the other one because there all sorts of bikers and hikers on trails on both sides of the cache. Years ago I hid the cache in amongst those rocks. Bad idea. Nobody could find it and nobody wanted to because they were afraid of snakes. I am afraid of snakes too!! Plus when I did look for it I never could find it. So I would hide another one. That is great except somebody say, “Hey I found two caches close together. Which one is the right one?” That’s embarrassing. So I started hiding it close to the same location but not in the rocks.
This cache is a lot more fun and interesting place to go hiking than the other place.
So I got them both replaced the same day. Lot of fun!! And you can tell that on this second hike, I made a double loop out of it.
Lake Bixhoma is a water supply lake for the Tulsa suburb of Bixby. It is known for its clean water and protection from wind since it is surrounded on three sides by hills. It has a few hiking trails that are known for being kind of tough plus they have all sorts of venomous snakes there. I’ve been lucky and never seen one except for a water snake last year. The place also has a geocache that has not been found in four years. So I wanted to do two things. Find the cache and hike completely around the lake which I have never done before. I also wanted to lessen the chances of serpent encounter by doing the hike while the snakes were still in brumation (the snake form of hibernation.)
So I started off at the beginning. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of this map at the time. All I wanted to do was avoid the “snake farm” indicated on the upper part of the map. Off I went. You don’t really need a map. Just keep the lake in sight and you’ll be okay. That turned out not to be totally true.
The trail is a mix of old road, nice single track and some pretty technical rocky sections.
They used to have a road that went deeper into the park and had picnic pavilions, restrooms and such. These are now abandoned.
There is evidence of old farms and houses here. I’m told that this is a model T axle. How it got there, I don’t know.
There is a little creek flowing into the lake.
Last year I came looking for the cache and turned back at this creek crossing. I had my good camera with me and no walking stick. So I didn’t want to take a tumble into the water. This year I came upon a young woman who had two dogs on leash who was considering the crossing and went ahead and did it even though the dogs were pulling here pretty hard. I said, okay if she can do it I can so I got across with dry feet.
Soon after crossing I started deadheading to the cache. No trail so I was going around thorns and such. Found me this old turtle shell.
And a skull of some unlucky critter.
I got to ground zero which was almost on the lake. It looks like one could take a kayak almost all the way there. In fact almost all the previous finders used a kayak but had to beach it in marshy areas and get all muddy coming in.
I looked for the cache for an hour. I was envisioning something big like an ammo box. I was convinced that the cache had gone missing. “Muggled” they say in the geocaching world. I looked for it for an hour or so and couldn’t find it. I had marked ground zero with my blue water bottle and when I gave up looking for the cache well then I couldn’t find my bottle. So I had to hunt for the water bottle and when I found it, I saw the cache. Which is why I marked the zero point with my bottle. I could have saved an hour, oh well.
The thing is that the cache container’s top had been chewed by some critter and the container was level full of water. So I obviously could not sign the log. I’m still claiming it! I logged the find online and cache owner got back with me and said that they would replace the container.
So then I hiked out. Since I wanted to circumnavigate the lake I had to take the long way out. It was a mile and a half to the cache site and I hike almost two and a half miles to get back out. A good time was had by all is my motto.
