Most beautiful landscape in Tulsa

[TheArtist]

I wanted to share a part of Tulsa I have just recently discovered.  For the last week I have been working at a home on lake Skiatook.  The scenery on the higway up to Skiatook is nothing special.  But... on each of my return trips from the lake back to downtown, I have taken the back roads.  My what a suprise.  Some of the hills and valley areas between Skiatook Lake and downtown Tulsa have got to be some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.  Some of the valleys are bucolic, idyll little landscapes straight from a postcard.  They could easily pass as areas from the Scottish highlands or New England.

 The other day after we had gotten our much needed rain I was returning home and started down into one of these valleys.  The clouds were drifting low, and the sun was just breaking through here and there.  Mist was drifting off the grasses, softening the view.  The colors were incredible;the soft, grey blue clouds contrasted perfectly with the rusty leaves left on the black oaks. Patches of green grasses were peaking through on golden fields trimmed short by cattle and bisected by a winding little stream.  As I turned around one bend I looked out on a hillside and saw a little barn and commented to my assistant, This is almost like one of those Thomas Kinkade paintings all they need is a little white church with a steeple or a cottage.  Just then, and I am not making this up, we both noticed a rainbow that ended right down in that valley and we both started laughing lol.  

   I had also never entered Tulsa from the North coming down Cincinatti.  There are some very large hills from 86th st N that as you start nearing Tulsa give you some great vistas of Downtown from a perspective I have never seen before.  Coming in from that part of town and seeing that part of town was like seeing a completely different city.  Now I must sound naive but I do spend most of my days jaunting back and forth around south Tulsa around 101st and Yale and Sheridan only going so far north as downtown and sometimes just north of downtown but never that far directly north of it.  Its a shame that some of those areas like the ones I described earlier have so many run down homes and such.  On the one hand it would be nice to develop them if done right but if done wrong all that natural beauty and peaceful settings would be totally lost.  For some reason the hills and valleys in this small area are much nicer than than anything in south Tulsa, Jenks,and the ones around Keystone and Gilcrease.  

So if ya want a nice drive head up towards W 88th st N and go exploring there are some sweet areas around there.  Just ignore some of the run down homes and such.  And gosh isnt that casino N of downtown an eyesore[B)] yuuuuck.  If those areas were developed properly they could easily be the most beautiful in Tulsa if not this region of the country.

[SXSW]

I found this thread looking for another and had a similar experience recently.  I visited Lake Skiatook for the first time in years and took the backroads up there and back from Tulsa.  I was amazed at the beautiful scenery so close to downtown, and still very rural like you were hours from a large city.  While I hope the Gilcrease Expressway is finally built so this area can be developed I'm glad I can experience it as it is now.  I've read on this forum that in the 1970's 71st & Memorial was just a gas station and 2 lane roads.  I wonder if NW Tulsa is the next big boom area of the future with its natural beauty and proximity to downtown and Lake Skiatook?  People have said for years that 71st west of the river to US 75 would be the next booming area and it's finally happening, I wonder how long it will take for the NW side?

[Conan71]

Try that area in NW Tulsa on the seat of a motorcycle or bicycle some time.  Seems even more beautiful from that perspective.

A friend of mine I went to school with in first grade lived out there on a small farm and had really bohemian parents who were into loom weaving.  We did a field trip to his house one time to see how a loom worked.  That was before they started on the mall.  It was really weird to see that rising up out of a horse pasture when they started building it.  I think it was still two lane from about 73rd to 81st & Memorial (and beyond) until the mid-'80's.

[PonderInc]

This is a different take on the topic of beautiful landscapes, but I've been thinking about this for a while.  Basically, it's the flip side of the same coin.

Recently, I returned from a trip to St. Louis, and ended up driving all the way through Tulsa on I-44 (from I-244 to the I-44 and Lewis exit).

Because I'd been out of town for a week, I looked at my hometown with fresh eyes.  What struck me?  I realized that Tulsa looks incredibly ugly from the interstate.  If I were a tourist, I would never get off the interstate.  There's no incentive to do so.  (Unless you like casinos, I guess.)  I would think "there's nothing here for me." 

Driving through St. Louis on the interstate, I'm struck by the beauty.  Many St. Louis suburbs have obviously enacted billboard restrictions (you don't see many billboards until you cross into St. Louis proper).  You notice the rolling hills and greenery.  Lots of trees.  It's inviting.

In Tulsa, all you see are the tackiest of light industrial sites as you traverse the city.  Billboards, pole signs, concrete.  It's not until you are crossing the river that you see anything remotely pretty (if there's water in the river on that day).  And then you are immediately faced with the ugly areas over by the bottling plant, the fireworks warehouses, cheap motels, more industrial areas, etc. 

I-44 is a major national throughfare.  If Tulsa cares about its image, it's time we began remembering that "beauty counts."  From the highway, we seem to be a city without a trace of civic pride.

I fear it might be true.