Overcast and a little dreary for photos, but I wanted to explore an empty spot in my experiential map out near Choctaw. The ride took me past Barnes Park where I decided to catch Soldier Creek passing under the Reno Avenue bridge. This is facing downstream and the Parks crew dredged the bottom to accommodate waterfowl.
It forms a deep pool year-round, stretching back few hundred meters.
It was a straight shot out Reno for nine miles. From there it was north on Indian Meridian. Back in the last 1970s I went with a college buddy to a tiny little Indian Baptist church to sing a duet.
I wanted to see if I could find it or any evidence it was there. On the way, I spotted this stone house on Reno, then a decent pasture with trees just a little ways north on Indian Meridian. It was a tad nostalgic since I used to ride this way at least twice weekly when I lived out in the trailer park. So at NE 36th the exploration began.
While there may have been pavement at some time in the past, it’s gone now. So is any evidence of the little Indian Baptist church. Near the end of this road there was a natural sandy hill and the church sat atop that. There isn’t even a hill now.
Where it ended at a private drive on NE 50th, I jogged a half-mile west to McDonald and headed up to NE 63rd.
Where that ends eastward against the North Canadian riverbank, I spotted this view of some pasture land down in the bottom and a nice stock pond. From here it was straight west on NE 63rd all the way back to Midwest Boulevard.
It runs past lots of really old farms, most older than I. I spotted several dilapidated or abandoned structures, but most of them came out way too dark as the clouds thickened up for a while. This one pasture featured cows, a donkey, and lots of sheep in the background.
Some of these pastures were in use before there were anywhere near this many trees.
Eventually I came back to Midwest Boulevard and rolled down to the bridge to see how the work was going.
I could see they were continued to fill the space behind the rock wall. I wonder if they will actually put up a solid dam to block that flow from the lake that almost drained last week from Dolese’s sand extraction operation, or coordinate to restore what once was. For now, they have a ramp across the outflow and today the trucks were very busy dumping red clay soil.
Roughly 28 miles and we just started having warm mornings, so I’ll be getting out early for a while.
