It’s the last few warm days of the years and I rode the River Trails to Portland Avenue and back. The route took me past Eagle Lake. There are no eagles around here; it’s a reference to the high school mascot for Del City. This is one of many sand dredging lakes along the North Canadian River in the OKC Metro area.
The various parks services never both to paint these bike trail bridges, so they take on a rusty patina. The only paint on them is graffiti. This is the view toward the mouth of Crooked Oak Creek from the bridge on the bike trail. This was where I stopped to pray before I got hurt the day I collided with a maintenance rig on the trail. Today I came behind another such crawler, but now they have rearview mirrors, so the operator spotted me and pulled off the trail, shutting down the rotating sweeper, then turned to face me and wait. The City has learned.
There was a big tour group in OKC today. Devon Energy had their boats out on the lower level of the Oklahoma River area loaded with passengers. It’s quite rare to see them in operation right now; I recall reading that they were waiting until tourist traffic in Bricktown picked up before trying to make it a regular service. If you look closely at the bridge, a green sign marks it as SE 15th Street.
This was a large area of bare dirt last year. It wasn’t until this summer that nature began a serious effort to reclaim the open sandy soil. This is the native recovery foliage that grows the first year. If it gets mowed, a mixture of heavy grasses will take over. Otherwise, what you see now will simply get thicker and trees will sprout in this stuff.
On my return trip across the river, I spotted some geese nesting on a sandbar. There was an even bigger flock in the water farther downstream. Think about it: Canada Geese on the North Canadian River. A good number of these never leave, staying year round in the Metro area. This shot is roughly a mile below the lower dam; with all the rowing and motorboat activity between the dams in the Oklahoma River recreation area, it’s common to see the geese move out this way for an extended stay.
Cooler weather coming soon.
That’s a cute photo with the tree. “Cute” is not the right word, too demeaning and patronizing, but that’s the first word that came to mind.
I wanted to look at some stars the other night at the soccer fields since the forecast was supposed to be clear. It was anything but clear…
That’s the framing thing again; it’s almost an instinct now for me to look for some kind of foreground object to give the whole thing perspective.