One of the prettiest walks in the Tulsa metro area is Redbud Valley, an oasis along Bird Creek northeast of Tulsa, just east across the Rogers county line. Its surroundings are much more functional than scenic: to the south is the Lafarge Cement Plant and an industrial area, to the east is Waste Management’s Quarry Landfill, to the north is the quarry for Greenhill Materials, and a few miles to the east is the Port of Catoosa. Redbud Valley is a legacy of Dr. Harriett Barclay, a botanist at the University of Tulsa who valued the many flora abounding on this plot of land with a travertine spring issuing from a high bluff of Oologah limestone. She spearheaded an effort, assisted by the Nature Conservancy, the now-defunct Tulsa Tribune, and University of Tulsa, to preserve this land, which is now part of the City of Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center.
The trails were built by Boy Scouts and students at the University of Tulsa. My friend Carrie Fleharty first showed them to me several years ago and I’ve been back a number of times, including some visits with photos in October 2009 and January 2011. Fellow science teacher Betty Henderson and I decided to walk the trails on a warm day in late May, celebrating the first week of our summer break and compensating for a float trip with friends which was cancelled by an uncertain forecast.
The only trail segment we did not cover between the two of us was the Woodland Fork, which is a shortcut bypassing the prairie. It is always a pleasure to visit this oasis nestled in the northeast corner of the metropolis Tulsey Town has become.
Each month in 2012 I’m selecting a song, new to me, to highlight as my Song of the Month. In reviewing my downloads, I found that I added a whopping 328 songs to my collection in May because when the Google Play service was launched, they offered a bunch of free tunes. I’ve only listened to a fraction of them, but the standout was a song I’ve owned for years. So how can it qualify as new to me? Because in all the years I’ve owned and listened to the song, I never worked out all of the lyrics to assign their meaning…until now.
n 2001 Train was catapulted from cult band to stardom by the anthemic sounds of Drops of Jupiter, which won the Grammy for Best Rock Song. I liked the song, but only caught some of the verses. My general impression, which is not at all the songwriter’s meaning, was of a down-to-earth boyfriend talking to a pretentious girlfriend returning from a long journey to exotic locations. The other day a friend and I were on a road trip, working our way through my new Google Play hoard. A live version of Drops of Jupiter came up and she remarked that she liked the song even though she had never paid much attention to the lyrics, because it had a such a great chorus. I grinned, because that was precisely how I had dealt with the song as well.
The next day that prompted me to download the lyrics from my favorite service and listen. Wait a minute…this no longer read like a boyfriend talking to a girlfriend, at least not a live one. It was something else. It turns out Pat Monahan wrote the song in response to a dream about his mother after she died from cigarette smoking. He thought, “What if no ever really leaves? What if you’re just kind of here, but different? The idea was…she’s here, back in the atmosphere.” I love what he said in an interview:
It was an obvious connection between me and my mother, because Drops of Jupiter was as much about me being on a voyage, trying to find out who I am too, through all of this. The best thing we can do by loss of love is find ourselves through it.
Well said, well written, well composed, and well sung, sir.
Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s time to change, hey, hey
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey
Hey, hey
Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated
Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there
Now that she’s back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that there’s room to grow, hey, hey
Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
I’m afraid that she might think of me as plain ol’ Jane
Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land
Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there
Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you’re wrong
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me
Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back toward the Milky Way
Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated
Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself
Nah nah nah…
And did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
Nah nah nah…
And did you fall from a shooting star
Fall from a shooting star
Nah nah nah…
And now you’re only looking for yourself out there
My third and final day of my brief foray to Kansas City would feature day hikes at Knob Noster and Harry S Truman State Parks southeast of Kansas City, closing the second half of a big loop back to Bartlesville that night. The Hampton Inn breakfast area was again packed so I returned to Denny’s for another Grand Slam and then, as I’d done the day before, headed east on US 50. This time I continued on past Powell Gardens for another 30 miles, turning south at Knob Noster. Noster is Latin for “our” so the town’s name means “our hill” and refers to two knob features in the landscape just northeast of the town, which I did not view. Instead I turned south for the short drive to the state park.
Whiteman AFB
Adjacent to the park on the east is Whiteman Air Force Base. It opened in World War II as Sedalia Army Air Field for glider and paratrooper training, later became Sedalia Air Force Base for the B-47 Stratojet bomber, and was renamed after 2nd Lt. George A. Whiteman of Sedalia, a fighter pilot who perished in the Pearl Harbor attack. The base became home to the fourth Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile wing, with large underground bunkers and launch control centers, for thirty years. It is now the only permanent base for the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber, which can strike high-value targets anywhere in the world from this base in central Missouri. The large base also hosts various other air force, army, and navy units. I didn’t see any of the B-2s flying while I was at Knob Noster, but evidently aviation enthusiasts do like to camp at the state park and watch the big flying wings take off and land over at the air base.
Knob Noster Park (click image for slideshow)
Knob Noster State Park
Using a park map as a guide, I parked on the east edge of the park at the south end of the developed area, at the trailhead for the Clearfork Woodland Trail, which is actually a small loop off the larger Hawk Nest Trail. I’d spend this first visit in the park’s northeast quadrant, where the campgrounds and most of the hiking trails are located. The southeast quadrant is a golf course, while the northwest quadrant has a group camp and a newer trail shared with mountain bikes and with denser growth which has not been managed as long as the Clearfork Woodland area. The southwest quadrant has another group camp and an equestrian trail, which was damaged and under repair.
Clearfork Woodland Trail
I immediately saw some prairie roses, which would be the most colorful feature of the landscape in this area. I was on the Hawk Nest Trail, arcing through the woods toward the Clearfork side loop. I shot a full panorama of the area and followed the trail as it bobbed around one of the hollows. A butterfly posed on the trail, showing its wings, and the view across the loop was quite beautiful. Prescribed burns have helped clear out some of the undergrowth, making this a charming area with good circulation on a hot and humid day.
I walked through a picnic area and over to the campground, missing the trailhead for the North Loop at the playground but finding the one for the Discovery Trail on one side of the camp area road. The Discovery Trail is a loop trail off the larger North Loop Trail to the west. The main feature of the smaller Discovery loop is No Name Creek, which runs nears the park’s Visitor Center. The trail runs along the high bank above the creek, climbing to afford a view of the meandering creek below. I found a spot where I could climb down into the creek bed to a fallen tree and strike a pose. I walked up the creek bed a ways, and then returned to the trail and made my way around past the Visitor Center and back around the loop until I intersected the North Loop Trail.
North Loop Trail
North Loop Trail
This trail led through some creek bottomland and then up through some more pretty trees to a clearing and fire line. The park is managed to control some of the second and third growth timber of what was prairie land in presettlement days. I see plenty of prairies in Kansas and Oklahoma, so I don’t at all mind the pretty woodland of tall trees which has developed here. While I liked portions of the North Loop Trail, I preferred the Hawk Nest area.
Lake Buteo
I crossed the park road and walked down past the WPA area and a modern shelter to Lake Buteo. This pretty little eight acre lake was built in 1927 and is quite shallow. It has beaver, muskrat, frogs, snakes, a variety of fish, and even freshwater jellyfish. I suppose there should be hawks about too, since Buteo means hawk in Latin. There is a trail encircling the lake, which crosses the small spillway on stones scavenged from the crumbling walls, made superfluous on this day with no outflow. The old curving stone walls of the spillway had a significant erosion gap.
I’d walked a total of 6.8 miles on the five trails in the eastern section of the park, and someday shall return to explore Opossum Hollow to the west. And I’ll no doubt revisit the two best trails in the east: Hawk Nest and Lake Buteo.
Tightwad Bank
Tightwad
I wanted to be back home by 10 p.m., which explains why I forsook the long Opossum Hollow Trail to the east and instead drove 50 miles south to Harry S Truman State Park. I leave out the period after the S since Harry’s middle name really was S; that is not an abbreviation. Along the way I had to chuckle at the town of Tightwad, population 69. I was even more delighted when I found there was a Tightwad Bank.
It was in the 90s and with full sun and I was quite heated, but I decided to brave the short nearby Western Wallflower Trail. It led across an open prairie top to another overlook, this time viewing westward across another arm of the lake. I could see the Highway 7 bridge I had passed over to reach the peninsula upon which the park is situated. Powerboats roared by, with a large marina visible across the lake. On the return trek I saw a Zebra Swallowtail butterfly.
It took a long time to edit all of the photos from my first day of summer vacation and even longer to get them and the video posted via the Overland Park Hampton Inn’s very slow WiFi. So that post did not go up until the next evening, and my post about my Sunday adventures would not go public until noon on Tuesday.
On Sunday I awoke to find the hotel breakfast room packed, so I drove down the road for a Denny’s Grand Slam and then headed east down US 50 to Powell Gardens.
Powell Gardens
Powell Gardens (click image for slideshow)
Back in 1948 Kansas City businessman George E. Powell acquired a 640 acre farm 30 miles southeast of downtown in Johnson County. Soon he was a co-owner of Yellow Transit Freight Lines and after years of enjoying the farm on weekends he donated it to the Boy Scouts in 1969 and they used it as a camp until 1984. Then the Powell Family Foundation teamed up with the University of Missouri’s School of Agriculture to develop the farm into a horticultural facility called the Powell Center. They parted ways in 1988 and Powell Gardens was established as a not-for-profit. It now employs 35 to 70 people through the year, with a new garden area opening every few years.
I arrived at 10:30 a.m., paid the $10 entry fee, and picked up maps at the Visitors Center. It wasn’t long before I was seeing colorful orchids and more as I headed southeast toward the Island Garden. The nearby lake was surrounded by seven small fairy houses and forts for youngsters and the young at heart to enjoy. Various girls dashed into the Light Wings fairy house, a rounded wooden structure reminding me of a hive.
From the shore I could see the wide lowest waterfall of the Island Garden and, up high on the hill to the side, the Meadow Pavilion which, like the visitor center and the later garden chapel, was designed by renowned Arkansas architect Fay Jones. He is well regarded for Thorncrown Chapel near Eureka Springs.
A fellow photographer was down by the shore as well, shooting the nearby Island Garden falls. I’d see many folks with lenses dwarfing mine this day, but I did not see any of them on the long nature trail later that afternoon. It pays to travel light!
Island Garden
The Island Garden
Soon I was crossing the bridge to the Island Garden, with its multilevel waterfalls and pools. The wind was buffeting spray back across the wide arc of the lowest waterfall, and across the lake was what looked like a pink tent: another fairy house.
Then I was out of the woodland and climbing the big hill of the meadow. I ascended to the pavilion, where I used my 20x zoom to spy on what for this boy was the best fort, the Skeleton Island one across the lake. I caught an elderly couple up who were up on the lookout sneaking a kiss.
The Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel
I walked over to the chapel. Like Thorncrown, it has a winding approach through the woods, but this one is situated out into the open with a view of the lake, whereas Thorncrown is thoroughly ensconced in the woods. Fay Jones learned the trick of an more confined entry which then explodes outward from his mentor, Frank Lloyd Wright, although here Fay does this in the outdoors, in contrast to Frank’s use of confined interior home entryways.
I entered through the big doors to an impressive interior quite reminescent of Thorncrown, but with a big view of the lake and sky behind the altar area. The design has a nice diamond motif at the top of its doors and each ceiling support, which struck me as similar to the tetrahedron atop the Star Tetrahedron Fairy House.
Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel
I exited the chapel and walked around to its low pavilion, finding a lower level there with restrooms and a plaque about Marjorie Powell Allen. Back out front was the matching fountain, echoing some of the chapel forms in metal rather than wood.
Skeleton Island Flag
Over to Skeleton Island
I crossed the bridge back over the Island Garden, past the largest living wall in North America, where they leave out the mortar between the sandstone blocks and culture plants which spring through the cracks. Some Prickly Pear Cacti were in bloom, with even more color by the island shore.
Then I crossed back onto the mainland to see the Ice Haus fort and deliberately broke the rule of keeping the cameraman out of the shot when I shot the final fort, Mirror-Mirror, although I was disguised a tad by the distortion, which turned me into a daddy long-legs.
The 12 acre edible landscape of the harvest garden is the largest in the nation and so new only bare ground appears in my Google Earth satellite shot of that area. I posed in the Apple Court and liked the Vineyard with its Hyssop planted beneath the vines. I trooped onward toward a big barn and silo in the distance. The silo had a spiral staircase leading up to an observation deck. There’s also an elevator, but I eschewed that, of course.
Fun Foods Farm
I took in the panorama of four food gardens laid out in quilt patterns and the farm area. Then I climbed back down the spiral and made my way over to the large working windmill, busy pumping water for two fiberglass animals awaiting climbers.
There was a mint garden with a selection of leaves to sample. I disliked most of them except for the Candy Mint. A giant metal mantis was begging to be climbed, so I obliged it. Thank goodness no one was about, since my first attempt at the self-portrait just looked wrong in so many ways.
A bird looked much better on his branch than I did mounting my metal mantis. Another bird hopped on the ground ahead of me, calling out to warn others of this weird farm prowler. I took that as my cue to quit the farm and hit the trail.
Turtle on the Trail
Byron Shutz Nature Trail – A Day Hike!
It was 90 degrees with full sun, so I was the only one of the dozens of patrons at the gardens who braved the 3.25 mile Byron Shutz Nature Trail. It leads around the rim of the farm acreage, making its way past wetlands, across an old Osage Orange fencerow, over creeks, across remnants of the former prairie, and past a pond built to cool the rock saws at a former quarry. The pond featured lotuses and cattails, and the trail had some coneflowers, but for the most part it lacked the varied color of the manicured gardens. There are bird boxes all along the trail.
A low ridge provided an eastern view across Johnson County and then the trail dived down into some abandoned orchards and pines with cones dating back to the Powell Center days. I was impressed that almost all of the 24 marker signs along the trail were present and intact: few marked nature trails endure so well.
I tried to get a turtle to walk with me along the trail, but he was just too slow to keep up. I popped out at the other end of the trail, between the meadow and the woodlands. I traipsed back across the island to the visitor’s center. There I visited the last garden, the tiny Courtyard Garden at one end. In a rare lapse, this one was a bit neglected even though it has the plaque remembering the Powells.
I’d walked 6.75 miles and was hot and hungry. So I drove back to Overland Park, showered, and headed out for an early dinner at a nearby restaurant, fortifying myself for another late night of editing. The final day of this three-day sojourn would take me southeast of Kansas City to Knob Noster and Harry S Truman State Parks.
Friday was my 23rd commencement at Bartlesville High and I decided to launch my summer break by skipping town for Memorial Day weekend. But the forecast everywhere was in the 90s, too hot for a comfortable hike. So I decided a stroll in air conditioned environments was in order. My favorite nearby metropolis is Kansas City, so by noon on Saturday I was ensconced in McCormick and Schmick’s at Country Club Plaza, enjoying the decor as well as some fish and chips.
Country Club Plaza
Country Club Plaza (click image for slideshow)
I’m not much of a shopper anymore, but I love strolling the Plaza to view its many fountains and architectural elements. In the 1920s J.C. Nichols transformed this dumping ground with a hog farm and brickyard into a Spanish-themed suburban center.
The Neptune Fountain was running, including its horses’ noses – thank goodness the artist didn’t treat Neptune himself that way. Bacchus was still surrounded by nymphs and satyrs outside the Cheesecake Factory, which seems a suitable spot given the great vice of our age: gluttony.
On my way back to the parking garage I passed a mother having a very quiet talk with her boy. Perhaps she was telling him how he would need to behave at our next stop, my favorite art museum.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Some of my most popular photos on Flickr are from my July 2010 visit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, when I shot several of my favorite paintings and sculptures. So I took my camera along for this latest visit, although I could not use it in the temporary exhibit of exquisite furniture and art pieces from various world fairs. The most memorable piece was Morning Sea, a gorgeous Japanese screen by Hashio Kiyoshi, with waves created from 250 different shades of silk thread which shimmered as I paced back and forth in front of it, entranced.
Planets in My Head
Planets in My Head
In the Bloch Building’s regular exhibit I found a new piece, Planets in My Head, Physics, by Yinka Shonibare. I liked the girl figure gazing through a telescope, her head a celestial globe acknowledging our debt to the astronomers of the past.
In front of the entrance to the beautiful Nelson-Atkins building was a golf cart, used to transport handicapped guests down the long Bloch building to the temporary exhibit, transformed into a gilded cage. I decided to seek out some more favorite pieces in the permanent collection which I had not shot on my previous visit.
Back in the Bloch gallery I had noticed that a real guard had replaced Duane Hanson’s fun Museum Guard. Well, I found him standing in another room, pondering the outside world. Meanwhile, a Pueblo clown by Roxanne Swentzell was pondering his hand. I won’t try to guess what either one was thinking.
I decided to include a close-up of Bingham’s portrait of Dr. Troost, a founder of Kansas City whose eponymous street seemed inescapable to my friend Carrie and to me on previous visits to the Paris of the Plains.
Asian Art
Funerary Urn Dragons
Then I went in search of Asian art, but a Chinese Portal Guardiangave me a queer look. I enjoyed looking at the album of 74 Chinese portrait heads, a mysterious 19th century collection using Western shading techniques which could have been a catalog book for a studio creating pictures of clients’ ancestors. One portrait in particular was quite handsome, especially after I used Photoshop to enhance the contrast of the faded image.
That concluded my interior shots for the day. I headed to the Rozzelle Court in the museum for a rich dessert and then braved the hot and muggy afternoon to view a totem pole. As usual, my visit to the Nelson-Atkins had been darn near perfect.
Union Station
Union Station
It was not yet evening, so I drove over to Crown Center and walked its shops, then took The Link, a series of skybridges, to Union Station. I had nice views of the Western Auto building along the way, although the air conditioning was out in part of the The Link, making it sweltering. The 850,000 square foot building, designed by Jarvis Hunt, was the second largest in the nation when it was built in 1914, but by the 1980s it was abandoned and neglected. Fully renovated from 1997-1999, it now houses a science museum and exhibit space, restaurants, and more.
This is a place where it pays to look up. The 95-foot-high ceiling in the Grand Hall has three 3,500 pound chandeliers, there is beautiful high stonework, and a 6-foot diameter clock. A colorful train mural livens up the steps leading down to the exhibit area, where I saw an exhibit of artifacts recovered from RMS Titanic. The respected Bob Ballard, who discovered the wreck, considers it a grave and is outraged over this sort of salvage, while those who profit by the salvage work argue they are preserving its legacy. Personally I’d rather see a recreation of parts of the ship and models of the wreck than exhumed bits and pieces, but I didn’t put my money where my mouth is, did I?
The station’s immense north waiting room was built out over the tracks with 16 gates and could hold thousands of people. Gate 16 unfortunately still has Bartlesville misspelled as Bartleville. The afternoon was waning as light filtered through the high flag. The days of train travelled have waned as well: AmTrak does operate out of the station, but uses only a tiny fraction of its space. So it seems symbolic to close with a lone woman in the great north hall…waiting.
Meador Manor 
