The theme today is testing the camera on my new cellphone. This is not a review of the cellphone or anything like that, but my wife decided to upgrade my Pixel 4a to the Pixel 7. The only thing lacking for use as a regular camera is telephoto. Thus, this view of Point 19 at Draper Lake, shot from a distance, is what it is. But I thought it was pretty good, at that.
This is one of the older farm houses standing along Midwest Boulevard at Wilshire Boulevard. The turf companies and sand companies have been competing, buying a lot of land here in the river valley of the North Canadian. The previous owners disappeared some time ago; I noticed the place looked vacant a while back. I’m guessing one of the turf companies has bought it and plans to demolish it with the barns. I doubt anyone has bothered to register this as a historic place, but the architecture is quite old.
Along the River Trail not too far from the downtown area of OKC sits one of those sand mining ponds in a park. I tried to get down in the tall grass along the shore to change the framing of the skyscrapers. It was only partly successful, as you can still see some mowed grass in the middle ground under the trees. I wouldn’t have tried it during warm weather; that grass is inhabited by a dense population of blood-sucking insects. During cold weather, they hide underground. Only when the ground freezes for about two weeks straight does their population decline any.
Yesterday I took the 50-mile loop, which includes the West River Trail. This takes me a good ways upstream on the North Canadian River. Right close to the confluence with Mustang Creek is this spot where the river isn’t really too wide. Recent work along the bikeway has made it possible to stand on the bank very close to the water and get this shot. I would classify the flow as moderate in terms of what is normal in these parts.
This is another attempt to get some nice framing. The body of water is Crystal Lake, yet another sand/gravel extraction lake. This one has been a well developed park for several decades. Indeed, there’s a picnic table along the bikeway with an actual bike rack. It’s hard to convey just how few bike racks there are in this county. Most businesses can’t be bothered, and protesting with management accomplishes nothing. Anyway, the pampas grass has its own appeal in the winter season.
Farther upstream on the North Canadian River it’s even narrower. In the distance sits the Mustang power plant (one of many owned by Oklahoma Gas and Electric) sits high above because the river cuts deep at this point. There is an awful lot of unofficial camping all along the West River Trail, and I was trying to avoid capturing any of them. Some of our homeless aren’t too friendly.
This 50-mile loop crosses the Northwest Expressway, the central thoroughfare in a mostly high-class area. While it’s not yet open to cyclists, this new bikeway overpass is looking pretty good. The city built a new path to get to this feature, and that part has been open for a couple of months. I’m standing on the eastern side of this structure. I can offer no explanation for the wing-like decoration mounted across the bridge.
On one of faster-moving, heavily-trafficked roads here, there’s a really old wooden hopper structure of some sort, maybe used for grain. It looks like it’s about to collapse if a stiff wind rushed by, but my wife said it’s looked like that for years. I want to take a photo of it soon, before it bites the dust, just because I’ve never seen one like that before. The photo of the old farmhouse reminded me of the hopper, even though they look nothing alike.
I wonder if those “wings” you mention in the last photograph were leftover from construction and they forgot to take them down? I have no idea what purpose they would serve in construction, though. They look kinda low to the ground and dangerous, like they would clothesline you if you cycled past them, but that might just be the perspective of the photo.
That kind of decoration has become commonplace in projects around OKC. There are odd things placed here and there, making little sense at all. I note the tips of the wings are taller than the overhead framing on the bridge itself. But I agree they are still a bad idea. Then again, future generations may decide they were just dandy.
I’m all for taking pictures of ephemeral things, but preservation of electronic media will become a joke all too soon. The real value is simply in sharing them now so that people can form a better image of what this world looked like before it gets changed.