May 16, 2015

Regular readers may wonder what is going on offline, since I haven’t posted at MEADOR.ORG for over a month, and my hiking spreadsheet reveals that Wendy and I haven’t been out of town for a hike in weeks. Frequent rains are part of the reason; Oklahoma has enjoyed drought relief as of late. Compare the state drought map of a year ago, three months ago, and how it appeared this week:

That’s a most welcome improvement even though it has dampened (pun intended) our enthusiasm for day hikes as of late.

The other reason is that both Wendy and I have had a lot of school work. In my case, I have spent a great deal of time working through the selection and quoting of furnishings and technology for the new Phillips 66 Innovations Labs at the high school, funded by part of a $1.7 million grant to provide improved facilities and equipment for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in our secondary schools.

But on a Saturday in mid-May we finally ventured out of town for a stroll. The draw was the Broken Arrow Rose Festival. Wendy loves growing roses; she currently is growing a Social Climber at her apartment, and tends for a Perfume Delight and a Dream Come True planted by my patio. Her Social Climber gets daily attention and has been putting on a show. To make it easier for her to tend the roses at my place, this weekend we put together a storage bench for the patio where she can stow her implements.

Dream Come True (click image for slideshow)

Several weeks ago I was perusing the Tulsa area events calendar and learned about the Rose Festival in Broken Arrow. I’ve never spent any time in the old downtown of Broken Arrow, a town which has evolved into a large bedroom community southeast of Tulsa. So I had no idea that they had planted roses all along Main Street as part of their Rose District initiative, along with improved sidewalks and a growing arts and entertainment scene.

Given her love of roses, there was no question that Wendy and I would be at the rose festival this year. We first went into the Historical Museum to view some rose paintings and photographs, but the somewhat creepy dolls with their long eyelashes were more memorable than those works. We strolled over to the adjacent Farmers Market to see the various prize winning blooms, arranged by color.

But the most fun was to be had strolling in a long loop along Main Street, stopping at each planter for Wendy to admire, identify, and often sniff the blooms.

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This coming week we wrap up the school year. Then we’ll spend a week recovering our wits before heading out to spend the first part of June in Arkansas at Mount Magazine and Mount Nebo, getting in some hiking before the heat and humidity make Arkansas hikes too miserable to contemplate.

Click here for a slideshow for this post