Hey Look, a concert about to get going on the beautiful Jenks Riverwalk. We’re all there and minutes after I took this photo everyone was dashing for our cars. You can kind of see in the right margin that something was coming.
https://flic.kr/p/2spoCng
This is just a few minutes after we left, the storm had passed, the sun was shining, and a rainbow appeared. I love rainbows.
And another pic, from a bike ride. The Tulsa Skyline under some clouds.
At home, you can see the front passing through from left to right.
And a neighborhood shot of clouds.
Reverse sunset in the neighborhood looking south.
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Reverse sunset looking east.
And a sunset looking west. I get asked if I used a filter on this shot. The answer is yes, I brought to bear every filter I had on this. Just so you know, I am not a purist.
We got home from vacation in early July. We had a great time and saw a lot but it was nice to be home.
That was before the big heat dome. We had big fluffy clouds in the sky and rain! I’m into rain.
Cockeyed neighborhood skywatch shot looking east.
And another one looking west. I miss the rain. We haven’t had any for weeks now.
This is a jigsaw puzzle I did on my ipad a few months ago. It’s the Goosenecks in the Colorado River in northern Arizona. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. Accounts I’ve read say that some days its a zoo there with everyone elbowing and jostling trying to get the perfect shot. Anybody been there and can give us the straight scoop. Leave a comment and tell us about it.
The family just got back from a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We had a good time but it was one of those active trips where we were on the go every day as opposed to sitting on the beach a bunch. We had a great time, saw a lot of stuff, and ate lots of good New Mexican style Mexican Food. I’ll have photos from the trip in the coming weeks. Right now, I am still working my way through photos from June.
Here’s a drone photos from 50 meters over my back yard in Tulsa, Oklahoma looking north.
And a shot from my across the street neighbor’s driveway looking east.
I love infrastructure of all kinds. This is Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. It’s an ancient facility on the Arkansas River right in the middle of town. I used to work for the sister natural gas pipeline company, Transok Inc., that supplied the natural gas to the plant.
This is the Arkansas RiverParks trails right across the river from the power plant looking north. You can see that bicycles are to the right and pedestrians to the left.
And at the north end of the Trails, and across the river is where Route 66 crosses the Arkansas River. The city has installed a collection of replicas of vintage motel signs in a little park. Pretty interesting to me. This year is the 100 year anniversary of Route 66. I’ve lived a bunch of my life on Route 66. I love all the attractions on Route 66 but don’t care much for the road itself. Luckily in Oklahoma to the west coast most of the route is paralled (by the powers vested in me, I am declaring “paralled” to be word) by Interstate 40. I’m good with traveling on I40 and getting off to see the attractions as I feel led. Route 66 is too slow!!
I fired up the drone a few days ago and launched it over my backyard up to about 40 meters and pointed west and got this. Not much color but lots of drama. I’ll take it.
The neighborhood adjoining us has a “swan pond” complete with a black swan that chases off all the other waterfowl.
This is from my front yard looking to the west at sunset one day.
A volunteer group that I am a member of had a meeting a local brewery just out of downtown. Leaving I took this photo looking west toward downtown Tulsa and the setting sun.
This is a painting I found at our recent trip to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. It is “Home by the Lake” by Frederic Church. It’s a great skywatch painting.
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.
Last Sunday morning, I attended Church of the Trees at Oxley Nature Center.
I saw the light right after I started. I loved the sun in the forest and I love the poem that a former “Artist in Residence” at Oxley wrote.
I love short poems. I really like the title of this one, “Sunfall.” There is a reason we need to have poets. They know what to call things, and how to describe them.
Found me a new favorite tree.
And instead of stained glass we had the light filtering through these leaves.
I loved the light on the trees bordering a water pipeline right of way in the park.
Last week I attended the funeral of former coworker. I was sad for him and his family but I also got to see a bunch of other coworkers who came to the services as well. Afterwards I felt like checking out some of the new attractions on Tulsa’s portion of the Route 66, aka, The Mother Road, or the America’s Main Street. Turns out America’s Main Street is on Eleventh Street in Tulsa.
For some reason a half mile stretch of Eleventh Street has been taken over by “Muffler Men.” Supersize fiberglass sculptures. I love them, they are so oversized and colorful, how can you not like them.
As you can read on the mural behind him, this is “Meadow Gold Mack.”
I don’t know what this gal’s name is but I like her. Quite fetching don’t you think.
I love all sorts of Route 66 attractions. You know what my favorite is? A very little known sign where Paul McCartney stopped in the 2000’s while driving Route 66. He stopped and knocked on the door of a farmhouse and asked for directions. Can you imagine Paul McCartney knocking on your door? He was driving a 1989 Ford Bronco so he had no GPS in his car. I found this sign as I was looking for a geocache.
It’s the hundredth anniversary of the Mother Road next year and Tulsa is at its epicenter. National Geographic has some great information.
Our Pomeranian, Kodi. A tiny little dog with big feelings!
Lizzy the cat, the matriarch of our pets. We have another dog, Sadie who never sits still. Lizzy is Sadie’s favorite squeaky toy.
A pig chef on Route 66 in Tulsa. I love the silliness of route 66 attractions.
And a retired carousel horse getting new life on Route 66. It’s ready to ride. I also love the metal cactus to the left. The 100th anniversary of Route 66 is next year I think. It’s going to be epic in Tulsa.
I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters. Check it out. All sorts of talented photobloggers participate.
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