Ride Photos 07

On a ride around Draper Lake a couple of days ago I was enjoying the fact the clouds were hiding the sun, keeping the temperatures down. These were rain clouds about 50 miles away, over the next county east of us. Unfortunately, the rain never got near us. I’d have been glad to ride through a decent cooling rain shower. Still, just the clouds kept the heat away for most of my ride.

The drought hit just as the blackberries were forming, so they never got to grow much. What few there were hidden in these brown vines were tiny clumps of no more than six globes each. They were so small that you would have to stand very close to see any. How sad; no blackberries this year out around Draper Lake.

However, a couple of days later I was riding up near Jones and spotted this bush along Westerminster near Hefner Road. They weren’t fully ripe, but close enough to offer a very fine taste. The water table in this are is rather high, since it’s right along the North Canadian River. This is quite a ways downriver after a couple of creeks had been able to add some water. Not much is getting past the dams upriver in OKC.

To emphasize that point, here we have the North Canadian River far upstream from the previous photo. This is right before it merges with Crutcho Creek. Crutcho catches water from Soldier Creek, and both have some run-off from lawns, one golf course and agricultural use. Plus, Crutcho is a very long creek running 20 miles or so from its source. I’ve seen several droughts, but Crutcho Creek has never stopped flowing since I can remember.

Here’s a study in contrasts: a grain silo from the previous century still standing alongside new horse barns. It’s common for folks to keep these things standing, as they were generally built before WW2. It’s composed of clay tiles and concrete, typical of Depression Era building when steel siding was nearly impossible to get. The wooden doors have long since rotted away.

I just missed getting hit by this. I was crossing NE 23rd behind a garbage truck. I remember thinking it wasn’t too smart for him to have his rear dump hatch open, since it reaches up about 10 feet (3m). He caught the lines running across the street here (Midwest Boulevard) and down came the pole with much zapping and sparks. The driver stopped and almost immediately closed the hatch. I called 911, and then proceeded to drag across the street some traffic cones standing along the curb for some forgotten purpose. This kept drivers from heedlessly turning onto the street where the live power lines were down.

It knocked out the stop lights here and a couple of other intersections, along with power to various businesses and probably some homes. Not shown is that two other poles were snapped. They are all quite old and too low in the first place.