Photolog: VA and Katy Trail

Back in the saddle again!

Our environment has changed radically. I like lots of open space and I love the complete absence of carpet. This whole apartment is wood and ceramic tile floor. Bicycles are one of the first things stolen in this part of town when locked outside, so I don’t bother. There are four apartments on each floor, and ours is the bottom right facing out.

It’s just a few miles west on Reno Avenue to get to Bricktown, which is just east of Downtown OKC. This is actually not the best route for cycling safety, but I just had to get this shot (left). The official route is to jump north to NE 4th Street and head west into the city; it’s labeled with signs warning drivers that cyclists can legally occupy the full traffic lane. In this case, I simply rode north on ML King Boulevard over the tracks and past NE 4th until I got to NE 8th, and followed that to Lottie, turned north and up to the western edge of the hospital district, centered on NE 13th. While 13th wanders around in front of the VA and amongst several other hospitals, this view west along NE 13th shows the massive brick tower straight ahead.

I went inside and had the IT guy fix my online access account. Then I used their new automated kiosk to change my address. All fixed and up to date.

From there I rode north through the housing area now largely occupied by hospital staff. Many of these ancient homes were at one time quite run down, but it’s all be renovated and prettied up. Just a few blocks north is the state capitol buildings. Here’s a shot of the old dome (image to the right; the dome is crumbling in a few places) over the original capitol building. The statue on top is a stylized Native American. Back when the US government was driving the Indian tribes from eastern states, the dumping ground was part of our state.

I decided to follow the bike route signs north along Lincoln Boulevard and went all the way up to NE 50th. Lacking a clear memory of where to find the northern end of the Katy Trail, I rode over several razorback hills along NE 50th until I got to Remington Park. What a fine monument to greed.

Actually I found out later that the Katy Trail crossed MLK south of there and follows Grand Boulevard northward and currently stops at the banks of the Deep Fork River. But I rode across the parking lots of Remington and up to NE 50th where I found the path. Almost immediately I was offered a chance to ride the loop that runs alongside Northeast Lake. While I could see the zoo buildings across the lake, it made for very poor photography. Still, it was a nice quiet lap just around a half-mile with one good hill. Then it runs south along Grand Boulevard. The first landmark of note was the Firefighters Museum. Gotta love this crazy monument. Even better was the dog-potty in front of the ancient hook and ladder rig.

The Katy Trail runs close to the original rail line, but uses Grand Boulevard a lot. South of the Firefighter Museum the route runs right past the gated entrance to some really fancy homes next to the golf course. Here we are in mid-November and the heady fragrance of roses beckoned at the entrance to “Rose Rock.” The main route runs down the middle of the golf course and it’s rather ambiguous whether I was supposed to use that extra-wide sidewalk or the street, so I chose the latter because the traffic was sparse. Before I reached NE 36th, I got a decent line of sight to the old 45th Infantry Division Museum to the west (image to the left). It remains the designation for the state’s National Guard, but hardly a full division these days.

Across NE 36th heading south the next landmark of note is the Railroad Museum. The whole thing is on a spur track from the main, right next to the bike trail. Farther down were a collection of cars in various states of restoration and just a bit farther is the actual depot on the west side. However, I spotted these two ancient wooden boxcars dismounted from any chassis (image lower left). Inside the depot fence were some rare caboose cars undergoing restoration, and mostly hidden from view. The currently active tracks diverge at this point, running back southwest across OKC.

However, the bike trail itself stays on the old Katy route. The original rail structure was notoriously low. Some thirty years ago I was loading freight on trucks at a company near SE 15th and Grand Boulevard. One of our drivers forgot and managed to catch the old rail bridge with the last remaining short trailer the company owned, ripping off a section of the top and destroying the refrigeration unit.

The remaining Katy Trail runs alongside yet another golf course, which itself wraps around Douglas High School. At this point I am right alongside NE 4th again. While the people who mapped the Katy Trail were pressured into including a stretch of NE 4th running back to Bricktown, there is no bike trail there. Part of it is sidewalk and not amenable to cycling at all. But it runs alongside the edge of the old historic Deep Deuce neighborhood and you can imagine the politics involved in that.

At any rate, I rode back east along NE 4th. If you look on the maps of OKC where the North Canadian runs northeast from the Oklahoma River regatta area up toward the landfill at Sooner Road and NE 50th, you’ll see a lot of open or undeveloped land right in the middle of a densely populated urban and semi-urban part of the city. There is the usual collection of sand and gravel mining stuff, plus lots of railroad and petroleum-related industry, but there is plenty of dense natural woods, too. Poke around out there and you’ll find numerous “bum camps” all over the place. Recently, NE 4th was relaid and resurfaced to run around the footing laid for a future passenger rail station. Nobody can guarantee it will actually be built, but the state and city governments are negotiating with the railroads to reopen the old OKC-Tulsa passenger route. I can’t wait to see how that affects the hobo traffic in this area.

I’ll save the photography of that for another day.