As always, click on any image to see it full-sized. CTRL-click will open the image in a separate browser tab.
The image locations are numbered in teal this time. Long ride today simply because Crutcho Creek is really long and starts way out around SE 89th and Bryant Avenue. That’s the lower left corner of the map, 9 miles (14.5 km) one way to get out there. The area is full of trucking and other heavy equipment businesses, not to mention a few manufacturers whose product requires big trucks to move.
In this case, the source of Crutcho Creek is the runoff from that massive parking lot of the FedEx heavy freight terminal (above left) just off Interstate 240 on S. Bryant. As you can see on the map, the creek wanders off across several other inaccessible industrial properties, looping around behind some houses. This peculiar concrete/stucco house (right) was on the south side of SE 89th.
So we don’t actually see the creek until a mile-and-a-half downstream at Sunnylane Road. It’s already a pretty deep gouge and it’s dry this time of year. It continues off across the countryside, but now we are in some long-held agricultural land. For quite some distance the houses are sparse with deep lots running back beyond the creek. You could catch glimpses of how the fields slope down toward it, but they didn’t show up on the camera.
About a half-mile down from Sunnylane on SE 89th is a housing addition called “Wellington Lakes,” but up at the end is only one very nice lake. It captures a tributary to the creek just above where they converge. It’s all private property with no access for me. 
The creek continues to wander eastward until it turns north behind Windwood Estates. On the map you can see a stark pale line where the creek is forced to follow a concrete culvert to the edge of that fancy neighborhood. There was a street spillway that allowed me to drop down and get a picture of the end of the concrete. 
The creek follows a more natural path behind an adjacent addition called “Falcon Pointe.”
The developers for this subdivision invested in some nice ponding for yet another tributary to Crutcho Creek. Farther downstream of this is a well-developed spillway to control backflow from flooding. The main creek bed is just beyond that water gate.
Then I had to wind my way back out of this trendy twisty warren of McMansions because the OKC Heart Hospital just north of it put up a heavy concrete wall on the property line. I had to come back out onto Sooner Road (always heavy traffic) and then back around the hospital and down to where the creek passes under the south service road and Interstate 240 (image right). 
Then I went back out to Sooner Road again, crossed over I-240 and back down the service road to pick up the creek again.
Fortunately, I managed to grab two shots of the creek on my way out. The first (image left) is the short stretch between I-240 and the service road, and the second (image right) shows the creek flowing north away from the I-240 corridor.
For another half-mile or so it runs behind a pair of lumber yards and a fastener warehouse. A little farther up it curves back toward Sooner Road right in front of that monster Baptist church. It promptly picks up another tributary where it comes out under the road. The church has developed the banks considerably.
The creek disappears under the heavy concrete deck of a quadruple drive entrance, and then continues into a very nice and well-used private park on church property (image right). Hidden in those trees back along the creek banks are some footbridges and a boxcar that was turned into a stage for live performances.
I need to take a moment to note that I attended this place — First Southern Baptist Church — several different times in my life. The last time around was when I got close enough to the staff to witness first hand the secret back-room dealings that corrupted the entire process of church management. The leadership flat out lied to the membership before presenting major changes for a vote.
I’m still friends with a few folks there, but I’ll never go back except to engage my computer tech support ministry.
The last two images here capture Crutcho Creek running out from some undeveloped private land and under SE 59th. The last image is the creek running north across yet another stretch of undeveloped private land. That’s all for this stage of our survey of Crutcho Creek.
