By sheer coincidence, the first time I traveled to Tulsa to photograph two customer’s final projects, both projects were pergolas—just pergolas; and my most recent trip to Tulsa (my third trip up to photograph PMH final projects) both projects were outdoor fireplace OKC—just outdoor fireplace OKC!
I got lucky with this trip, just like with my first trip to Tulsa, where I was able to schedule both photo sessions on the same day to make the trip to Tulsa worthwhile, and they both gave me video reviews! I love it when things work out that way!
I scheduled this trip to Tulsa on a Monday when I did not have anything else on my calendar. The reason being, I was supposed to be on PTO celebrating my nineteenth wedding anniversary at a concert in Houston, Texas.
My husband went ahead and took off work, so he went with me so that we could spend some time together on the road, in the car, and having lunch since we did not get to take our weekend getaway.
I received a text message from the contractor who was meeting me at the first session at eleven the morning to see if we could move the appointment to four o’clock that afternoon because an emergency came up. That worked out well because our other appointment was three o’clock, and only fifteen minutes away.
We stopped in the tiny town of Bristow on our way to grab some coffee and to take a bathroom break. We found the cutest little local coffee shop/dry cleaners called The Clean Bean. As we were leaving, we heard a meow coming from the parking lot where we had parked our car. It was a body shop that was closed and did not have any other cars parked in it. We looked around and saw a baby kitten hiding behind a concrete block up against the garage door. We walked over to it and it started hissing at us, but it was not feral, just scared. We reached in closer and he let us pet him. The kitten was an orange tabby, and ninety-nine percent of orange cats are male, so we just assumed he was a boy.
We did a quick search online to see if the town of Bristow had any rescue groups or animal shelters. We did not have any luck, so I went back to the coffee shop and asked the two young girls if they knew of any place in town that could help with this kitten we had just found. One of the girls started making phone calls, while the other girl followed me outside so that she could see it. Her dad was the owner of The Clean Bean, so she was going to see if he would let her keep it. She went back to prepare some water and food for it, and to call her dad.
Meanwhile, while my husband stayed with the kitten, I walked next door to the gas station to see if they had any cat food. They did not.
I went back over to the body shop parking lot and the girl had a bowl of freshwater and some shredded chicken in a bowl for the kitten.
The girl’s dad showed up and would not let her keep the kitten but told her to post pictures on social media to try to find it a home, or some help. We had mentioned to her that we were on our way to Tulsa for work, so she told us we could leave, and that she would take care of the kitten and make sure it was taken care of.
We left and drove on to Tulsa, and we had lunch and toured the area until our first appointment. It was in very nice housing development, but we noticed that all the trash was out by the curbs that day, but the trash bags were not inside poly carts. They were just piled up at the curb. It was like that at every home, and they were very nice large homes. It looked terrible, and I cannot imagine where they must store all their bags of garbage until trash day? My husband brought up the fact that it probably attracts rodents and stray dogs as well.
When we arrived at the house, the husband let us into the house and took us through to the backyard to see their outdoor fireplace OKC, and we gave them their fireplace insert grate for their new outdoor fireplace OKC.
I started taking photos of the outdoor fireplace OKC and the guy commented that he owns the same camera as me. He even offered to let me use his flash attachment, but I was able to manually set my settings to correct for the light and shadows.
The wife arrived and talked about how much she loves her outdoor fireplace OKC, and she offered to do the thirty-second video review. She said some nice and positive things about PMH, even though there were a few issues with the project that still needed to be fixed.
We left and headed over to the next house. The contractor had hired us to build an outdoor fireplace for a home he was remodeling for a couple, so it was an unusual circumstance. Usually, I meet with the homeowners, and when the work is contracted out like that, I do not always meet with the contractors, I just show up and take the photos. This contractor was very nice and generous to take the time to meet me at the home so that I could take photos and he even did the video review.
The fireplace was magnificent! It was big and beautiful and made quite an impression as you walked into the backyard.
It was a very successful trip to Tulsa getting two finished projects completed with all the photos and reviews.
As we headed home, I sent a private message to The Clean Bean through their social media page to check on the kitten. They said that it found a great home with two girls from the local softball team. That made my day!!!