Tag Archives: Roadside Attractions

Skywatch Friday – Pavement and Totem Poles Edition

Miles and miles to go!!

The past week I’ve been walking the paved trails in Tulsa and suburbs checking out the condition of the pavement. INCOG (“Indian Nations Council of Governments”) asked trail users to participate so they can determine the condition of the various trails. INCOG is an agency that works with the various city and country governments on infrastructure planning and coordination.

This section has it all, transverse, longitudinal and alligator cracking.

They gave us a cool GIS (“Geographical Information System”) app on our phones to report what we find. Plus we got some materials on what to look for. So I have found out about longitrudinal, transverse, and net cracking along with skreveling and other technical terms.

Easy to find, hard to open. Bring Deet and don’t come if you allergic to poison ivy. Pro tip, if you don’t know if allergic to poison ivy, just assume that you are.

I’ve taken the opportunity to chase after a few geocaches in the adjacent woods. This one is a “gadget cache”. Easy to find but hard to get into. I pondered this one for a several minutes before I figured out what to do then about 20 minutes to open it up, sign the log, and put it back together.

Here is another one that I found. Unfortunately it has been vandalized by somebody so it didn’t work right. Gadget caches are all the rage now in geocaching.

I also found this deer feeder deep in the woods on public land.

And I did a daily good deed in helping this little old turtle across the road like a good former boy scout.

So far I have only done about 4 miles. That takes 8 miles of walking because I have to walk back to my car. Not too many loops of reasonable distance. There were about fifty volunteers I am guestimating but it doesn’t look like very many of them are actually doing anything. There is about 200 miles of trails all told, I think.

On another note, last week after I went to the Will Rogers Fly-In I drove over to Ed Galway’s Totem Pole Park near the small town of Foyil. I had been there before but this time I took my drone so I could take a better look.

It is right off US 66 and is a must see stop if you are touring the highway.

It was built by a guy, Ed Galway. The main totem pole was built by him between 1937 and 1948. The park has other totems but on this trip I was just interested in the main pole. I think this is my third trip to the park. Here are some links of previous posts.

Ed Galways’s Park is one of my favorite Route 66 Stops. It is so over the top and unique. And it is free!! I like free. They have a gift shop. Go get a cap or something.

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Ginger, RIP

And finally, our beloved Ginger went to the big puppy park in the sky yesterday. She was fourteen years old and had multiple issues. She is in a much better place now. Our critters just don’t live long enough.

I am linking with Skywatch Friday, come join the fun.