Our first image juxtaposes a fine park area with an industrial installation.
Things went much better today. With the fancy fabric rim tape, hard and thin thorn straps inside the new tires, I had no tire trouble at all. Today was the River-Grand Boulevard loop. I can tell you that the fatter, softer tires do offer a bit of roll resistance compared to the high-pressure road tires, but I had far more control on the frequently poor pavement, sand and gravel patches, grassy areas, etc. I feel that it was worth the trade-off.
The second image is another mismatch between lovely park area backed by an industrial feed mill. That mill has been active longer than I’ve been alive; this was once the southern edge of the city, and this whole area was the first expansion from Downtown OKC. It’s called Capitol Hill. More on that later. The River Trail runs past it, but so does the Grand Boulevard Trail. The feed mill really stinks up the area once in a while when they are turning out a batch of dog food, because it contains rendered trimmings from a nearby cattle slaughterhouse, meat that isn’t refrigerated during transportation.
At the far western end of the loop, near Portland Avenue, the grass will sprout these mixed trumpet flowers when it gets enough rain. This time, there were two distinct patches of different colors. To be honest, the pink was much brighter to the naked eye. This particular variety of wildflower can grow as a climbing vine, too. It’s visible this time of summer all over this part of the state, climbing hills, fences, posts, etc.
There had been a brief shower passing over the OKC Metro just before I headed out the door this morning. I was trying to beat the heat, so I rolled at about down. The distance is roughly 30 miles and I drank all four bottles of water I had with me.
I mentioned how Capitol Hill District was second in age only to the original downtown. This southern expansion was originally the bedroom community for service workers, the lower class “brown color” types. This fancy high school was built in 1928. As was common in those days, it resembles a castle somewhat. This particular facility is considered a historic landmark now, especially since so many other Metro high schools from that period were demolished and replaced. At this time in OKC’s life, this whole district is mostly Hispanic, and the student body is something like 80% Latino.
A couple of miles east of the high school on the Grand Boulevard Trail is this Cesar Chavez Elementary, built in 2011. Huge difference in architecture, and frankly an ugly building if you ask me. The interior is laid out well, but the exterior design is altogether uninspiring. I can recall riding by one summer and that sucker had been slapped together in just weeks.
It was a good workout.
That third photo fooled me. Before I clicked into it I thought it was a bunch of trash on the ground. Crazy.
Back in my parents’ old house in Massachusetts, there was a sewage treatment plant nearby somewhere. I never figured out where, but at night for some reason the smell from the plant would leak out very slightly.
Yeah, the outside of that building in the last photo is rather gross looking. The windows seemed to be random widths from what I can see. Straight boxy exteriors don’t seem trustworthy to me, maybe because it feels too unnatural. The former high school in the photograph before at least has some bumpiness and texture to it, so it feels less like an artificial sore on the landscape.