Photolog: Hefner Road

(Click on any image for a larger view.)

This started out as just the reverse of the previous ride: east on SE 29th from home to Post Road, north to the high school, west across Rhapsody Heights to Douglas Boulevard, north a bit and then west on SE 15th and through the park. The main area is Joe B. Barnes Park featuring this extravagant playground. Inside that wooden corral is a selection of things I’ve used for a workout before I had gym access.

So it’s a couple of miles through the various parks along Soldier Creek using the fitness trail system and greeting all the seniors out for a morning stroll. The trails generally run out at NE 10th and Midwest Boulevard. From here it’s straight north, passing again that heavy construction site on the North Canadian River and that inexplicable new stone wall out in the middle of nowhere. Behind that wall is just a plowed field with late summer crops.

I kept going straight north on Midwest Boulevard until I hit Hefner Road. Along the way I found a couple of interesting items to shoot. On the right is an old barn out behind a rather odd property with more than one house, lots of cars, some decent outdoor entertainment facilities, a few really odd structures like this one, and apparently occupied by more than one family. Next is this antique tractor (22HP!) just about a half-mile north from the barn. Hefner Road itself is a marked bicycle route and I encountered four different cyclists heading the other way, at different times after I turned east on Hefner.

This is very rural farmland, and my first few miles saw precious little human habitation. What was there was mostly commercial in nature. Eventually I crossed the river but stopped on the bridge for a snack. At this point the river looks like most of the other pictures I’ve already taken. On the other bank, the river receives far less vigorous human attention. In other words, it’s mostly wild and weedy. That’s not a problem in itself, just natural. However, that means there’s almost nothing to see and it’s the result of folks having little interest in changing it. It’s kind of hilly until I start to approach the river again, which means I’m also approaching Jones and Hiwasee Road. The river itself has never been more than about a mile north of me as I pedaled along Hefner Road, but it starts to curve south so the straight road drops back down into that valley. This ancient house was on the same spread as the ancient brick silos.

This is where I passed through on the Memorial Road loop and I decided to follow Hefner into the back side of Jones for a change. Surprise! In my previous explorations north of Harrah, I captured the image of a Ukranian Orthodox graveyard and told how the church had burned down twice on that site, so they moved the church off down into Jones and made it essentially fireproof. I could see stucco but knew from the website it was over brick and concrete, with some steel siding on the steeple. It wasn’t a bad way to see the backside of Jones, and the southerly route passed their newish high school before ending at Wilshire.

From there it was just a short run to Henney, and southward eight miles home. Down near NE 36th in Choctaw I spotted his ancient Farmall tractor sitting back from the road a ways. This giant rectangular route is ten by six for a total of 32 miles.