Bob Wills, a Texan who had a band called “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.” They were big in the 1930’s and 1940’s playing Western Swing Music. They played at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa.
This is Cains Ballroom in Tulsa and they still have lots and lots of concerts, western, rock and roll, almost everything.
Wills died in Fort Worth in 1975. He is interred at Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa. His grave and others are part of a Adventure Lab Geocache that I attempted in late September.
Roy Clark is buried there as well. You may remember him from Hee Haw back in the day.
As is the Godfather of Tulsa music, Leon Russell. He grew up in Tulsa. I personally know several people that went to high school with him. All report that he was a great guy, very personable and generous, also uber talented. Played several instruments on the band, sang choir in both at school and at his church.
You may remember Sam Kinison. He was one wild performer back in the day. His grave marker was also part of the geocache.
Not part of the geocache but a great sculpture anyway.
A remembered child.
I always wondered what these buildings in a cemetery are called. I asked the interwebs and it says the technical term is “Private Family Mausoleum.” So now I know.
So I finished the adventure lab cache and got this certificate.
I love cemeteries. I always feel at peace in them.
Those who have been following me know that I am a geocacher. Geocaching is a hobby where people go hide containers out in the world, recording the GPS coordinates and then get on geocaching.com and post the coordinates and other people try and find the containers using the coordinates. Geocachers both hide and find containers. Here is a help page at geocaching.com that explains it a lot better than I can on what the hobby is about and how to participate. There are two kinds of people in the world I have found. Those who once they find out what it is about find it fun and fascinating and those who find it pointless and illegal. I have been doing it for almost twenty years and I love it. I appreciate the generosity of the American taxpayers who have spent billions of dollars launching GPS satellites into orbit so i can find tupperware containers in the woods.
So this is an account of me finding a geocache last week. I haven’t done much finding this summer mainly because I have found almost all of them in my area and it’s been hot
So I started looking for the geocache near this playpark. This cache was a mystery cache that required me to solve an online jigsaw puzzle. I had been working a table at an environmental festival earlier that day so I wanted to get home, hydrate, and solve the puzzle in the comfort of my home A/C and cold drink in hand.
The tree and shadow behind the playpark.
So the next day I showed up with the coordinates and proceeded to head to what is called “ground zero” (aka GZ) the immediate area of the cache. GPS coordinates for civilian use are only accurate to +/- 15 ft or so geocaching is not just going to GZ and picking up the cache. You can end up looking for hours for it. One problem is that there is an art to getting accurate coordinates. It is not uncommon for objects to be 40 or 50 feet away from GZ. Anyway, I digress. This park had a food forest and a community garden. That was cool.
A shadowy tree
Entering the woods.
And a video of my search. I lucked out, the search only took me less than a minute and I didn’t encounter any snakes, spiders, wasps or other fun crawly things. In the container is a log book that you sign and date. Later, you get back online and log the find there as well. I have been to urgent care for several things in my geocaching career. Wasp stings lead the list, in Texas I got into a bunch of fire ants, I have had numerous thorn cuts. I have tripped and fallen, all sorts of fun stuff. Plus I have had several conversations with the police, sheriff’s deputies, and security guards about what I was doing and have encountered several unhoused people. In general, park authorities support geocaching because it gets people into remote areas of the parks. If I see signs of unhoused people living nearby then I just forget about the cache. The homeless have to live somewhere and I don’t want to upset them. Most of them just want to be left alone.
Walking back to the car, I came across this tree with a swirly shadow. If you look to the right sidebar of this page you will see a running count of my finds. This was my 2394th find. Sounds like a lot but I know people who have found more than ten times as many as that. I will kick up my activity later in the fall when the snakes go into their brumation.
So that’s an introduction to the world of geocaching. In geocacher circles, people who don’t know about geocaching are called muggles. From the Harry Potter book series where people who were not magicians were called muggles.
Last week one day I started with a hike with a friend of mine on the Mooser Creek Greenway. A three mile double loop where we heard a ton of birds and saw no other people.
I went home, got cleaned up, and headed out to Tulsa County’s Chandler Park in far northwest Tulsa for a meeting with an environmental non-profit that I volunteer for. After the meeting I checked my phone for nearby geocaches and sure enough there was one about 60 feet away. It actually was not where the cache was but there is some information on the sculpture one needs to determine the coordinates. Which I did.
There was another cache nearby where there are a lot of cliffs. I’ve looked for it off and on over the years because I don’t want to be climbing rocks or trees. But I decided to take a different tack on finding it and so I went down to the Lost City Trail.
The lost city trail winds in and out of the cliffs and is just plain beautiful. A scene or two in the movie “Flowers of the Killer Moon” were shot in areas of the trail.
There are steep cliffs and overhangs and all sorts of interesting stuff.
I find doing the shots over my shoulder seem to show the height of the cliffs better than straight on shots. Maybe its the sense of scale works better.
The clue for the cache is that it is in a hole. You know how many holes are in that cliff face? A bunch!! None of which I want to stick my hand into without knowing that is there. I took photos of various holes, none of which yielded anything. So I continue in not finding this cache.
I also tried my hand a few caches along Route 66 as it goes through Tulsa. One of which was associated with this sculpture.
And another one associated with this sculpture right across the street from the Eagle sculpture. Route 66 for some reason has all sorts of various
And further east along US 66 there is another geocache associated with this plaque commemorating the first oil well drilled in Tulsa County. Tulsa used to be center of the oil industry in the United States and called themselves, “The Oil Capital of the World.”
So I had a pretty good time on a great day in some bright sunshine under clear skies.
Another wildlife art themed Adventure Lab Geocache popped up on the Tulsa RiverParks so I ventured out there on a cold day to figure it out.
Mountain Goat
It was done by the same guy that did another one a couple months ago. So you key on these wildlife sculptures, and you have to get some information from the accompanying plaque to prove you were there. Also, you get a clue to a real geocache in a container.
The Moose and Me – could be a book title.
Mountain Lion
So I hobbled up and down the RiverParks trails chasing down these clues.
Geese
A bald eagle. I have seen real ones cruising up and down the river and perched on logs in the river.
I did spot a hawk looking for his lunch.
And I saw white bird, maybe a seagull, I don’t know flying up ther river.
So I got my certificate that I completed the cache. I was also the “First to Find” for it. That is a big deal to us nerdy types. I found the real associated cache and was the FTF for it as well. It felt good to get out of the house after the stretch of nasty weather we had.
I still have my bird camera going. I get over 120 hits and day. I’m going to say literally 95% are house sparrow, 3% are juncos, 1% are dove, and 1% are squirrels. So here is a one minute video of selected birds for the past week.
That is it this week. I hope everyone is doing well.
The first day of the year is a big deal for hikers and geocachers. I went to a private park to find a first day geocache. And I got a “souvenir.”
I went looking for another geocache close by. The area it is in is a mess.
Lots of spray can graffiti. I hate it the colorful mess.
It is quite popular. I found the cache but I cannot count it.
It was way up in a tree. Do you see the black tube at the top of the photo. In year’s past I would go ahead and climb the tree. I could probably do it now but I am 69 years old and the penalty for falling could be bad. (Maybe I couldn’t climb the tree. My orthopedic doc says I need a complete new right knee. Soon, I am going to enlist my wife to come with me to go visit him and get it scheduled.) So I can’t count it as a find because to do that you have to open the container and sign the log. I’m kind of a stickler for that.
I went on a first day hike as well. I went on a one mile loop at Turkey Mountain. The trail was named by the Muskogee Creek Tribe. I am not sure what it means.
Winter is a time for either no shadows during long periods of heavily overcast days or long shadows. I love the long shadows of winter.
I went for a walk near the new Zink Dam and Williams Crossing Bridge on the Arkansas River. There was a long bridge shadow on the water. Don’t remember too many water shadows.
The playgrounds that are busy when it is warmer are empty in the winter. This looks like a fun place to play. The ground surface is ultra spongey to keep little ones from getting hurt.
I walked over the Gathering Place and checked the shadows out there as well.
I am wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year 2025!!
I hope that everyone had a great New Year’s. 2024 was a year of blessings and also trials and tribulation for us and we got through it. Back when I started blogging, there was a friend of mine who also started and quit because she said people only put the positive parts of their life online so it was dishonest. So I guess I am dishonest. Sorry about that and I don’t feel bad about it all. I’m a blessed man, what can I say. I have this irritating trait that no matter what the situation, I think things will be okay. I couple that with a sense of realism about what okay looks like.
I have always loved New Year’s. It’s like a fresh start every year. We didn’t do much, stayed home, had a nice dinner, watched some television.
In late December after weeks of monotonous gray skies I saw that things were shaping up for maybe a good sunset so I got my drone in the air and captured a bunch of images. I put them in a video and here it is. It is only twenty seconds long so do not panic!
New Year’s Day morning I went with Heather to a class she is starting at a nearby YMCA. It is cardio drumming and twenty people showed up to take it. Not bad for a brand new class. She is already teaching it weekly at another YMCA here in town and monthly at our “home gym.” It is lots of fun, you have drumsticks and you drum on an exercise ball in time to music. She leads the different moves. It is lots of fun, she loves upbeat music and so do her students. She also teaches Zumba at two different gyms, and a couple water classes, aquazumba and aquastrength. I take both of those classes. She stays pretty busy. She has been teaching for years and is very good at “reading the room” providing alternative moves for those who need them.
Afterwards, I took off and found a geocache and hiked a short distance. If you are a geocacher, New Year’s Day is an important day to find one and if you are a hiker you should go on a First Day’s Hike. So I did both. Yeah me, hah!
And then we went home and had our New Year’s Day meal featuring chicken quarters and baby back ribs that I smoked on the day before New Year’s Eve. That red stuff on the meat is a very spicy rub use. It brings the heat.
Meanwhile, I did another jigsaw puzzle on my ipad. Great way to stay busy while we watch our streaming shows. The one I am working on now is a Canyonlands scene with lots of tan colored desert and skies. Very challenging.
Again, I wish everyone a Happy, Heathy, and Prosperous 2025!
In early December I was on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails working on an art themed Geocaching Adventure Lab. I posted about it earlier and saved the critter themed art for this post.
Wolves are always a good subject.
I’m thinking this is a great blue heron. These murals were not part of the cache project but they are also beautiful and animal themed.
I believe this also is a great blue heron.
And this sculpture. I see lots of great blue herons while out on the trail. They are beautiful animals but they make the most awful squawk as a vocalization.
And right near the sculpture is a real life great blue heron.
And an American White Pelican. I see them sporadically. They are kind of touchy about people. I’ve learned I’ve had to sneak up on them.
Geese are everywhere, all year long on the RiverParks, and the whole town for that matter.
So yep, I completed the cache and got the coordinates for a nearby physical cache, and found it, so yep a good time.
If you want more information about geocaching check geocaching.com.
Earlier this month a nice cold, sunny, windy day, I went to Tulsa’s RiverParks trails to look for an Adventure Lab Geocache. Adventure Labs are a specialty cache where you have to visit a site and find information there. No physical cache is involved so it is appropriate for areas where they don’t really want you hiding stuff. Check out geocaching.com for more information. So this Adventure Lab involved going to several sculptures and getting information from the sculpture or accompanying plaque.
I ended up walking about two or three miles and had the parks trails to myself. At the end of the Adventure Lab you get coordinates to a “real” geocache and I found it as well.
And I took photos of all sorts of other stuff. We still had lots of fall color and the skies were really blue.
These are some sort of infrastructure and artists had painted murals on them and I really liked them.
And RiverParks installed this little musical drum for little kids and immature 69 year olds geocachers.
And I got this certificate!! I am not sure what you do with certificates. I am now up to 2287 geocache finds. But who is counting, right?
We try and walk our dog every day. It kind of smooths him out and reduces his anxiety. I captured this sky on such a walk. A photoblogger always has at least his phone him at all times in all places is my motto.
My other motto is try your front and back porches first for sky shot.
This one I actually walked from my front porch about a100 feet to the street. No need to drive all over the place if you do not want to do so.
In November I ventured up to the suburb of Collinsville for geocaching meet up. The host had a bunch of caches for us to find. I got stuck on this sculpture. Nothing to do with geocaching I tried all sorts of different angles.
So we found nine different geocaches of several different types at the park. It only took about an hour.
A group pic that I stole of facebook. That’s me with the black hat off to the right. Note the lady holding her “geodog” off to the right. Everything is geo with geocachers, geodogs, geocars, geowifes, geotents. Also nobody calls anybody else by their real name, it’s always their geocaching handle. So I’m yogiabb. The two other guys and the other lady have each found over 20,000 geocaches. I’ve been at it for twenty years and only have about 2300 or so. Amazing. The lady to the left of me said she only slowed down finding them once after getting bit on the hand by a copperhead. I’ve never been snakebit but I have been bitten by wasps, bees, hornets, chiggers, fire ants and ticks.
And this is another online jigsaw puzzle I finished on my ipad. A rustic western scene with a little bit of sky.
And that is a wrap for this week. I am linking with Skywatch Friday
