These parks were visited in the midst of a COTA strike, so getting to them via my roomate's bicycle was a bit tricky seen that they are way out in Dublin north of the 270 Outerbelt. None the less, although Dublin is your typical sprawl of a suburb at least it has some thoughtful planning going for it. Oh, and some sort of golf tournament each year. Dublin has been nice enough to place bike/walking paths pretty much the whole of the route I took along with tunnels under the busy cross-streets to boot. That made using the bike soooooo much easier because otherwise it would have involved riding along the narrow, twisting, two lane, 45 MPH zoned Dublin Road, which would have been all sorts of non-fun.
Besides the fact that the trek via bike was a hell of a haul from my neck of the woods in SE Columbus, and that the Amberleigh community was a run of the mill "McMansion" sort of place, I was highly impressed with the parks that I saw.
The first was Amberleigh Park, a pocket park but a hell of a good one. Its basically at the end of a road and consists of a twisty boardwalk leading down, down, down, and more down to the Scioto River (upstream btw of all the grossness that is in the Downtown part of the river). The rather small section of woods they preserved made it a bit of an oasis (the thing, not the band) in the middle of the subdivision. There was a short trail running left right along the river and I found myself spending more time there since in was so enjoyable..
Now I am an old-school expert on, um, unauthorized campfires having dedicated many of my teenage years fooling around illegally camping in Winton Woods County Park. I have to say, we would never ever leave a bonfire pit trashed, or so piss poorly used (they couldn't even seem to get the fire started). I could not help but notice that these upper middle class kids left about a dozen smoothie things, a couple bottled waters and but one mere beer. A word or two of advice, kids: Ditch the Dad and make it all beer :)
This was a very pleasant surprise. I heard him first then scrambled to take a pic. He stood still for the longest time and I was trying to get in close (which results in shaky blurry images). So I took about 15 pics and these 4 turned out usable. Thanks Deer.
Back up the maze of twisty passages.. I rode on to Amberleigh Community Park. According to
This the park was only opened in June. It does look fresh, but surprisingly finished for being such a new place. As is usual, I never look this stuff up before I go to these parks, so GO DUBLIN!!
 |
| This park retains a look of the farmland that it probably used to be. Very expansive. And when I came up to those little buildings on the left, I was like "what the hell is that??". |
 |
| This has GOT to be the most unique playground I've seen yet. It almost reminds me of "Safety Town" which back in the '70s/'80s was set up in the parking lot of Tri-County Mall in Springdale (Cincinnati), OH to teach little kids about traffic. Very neat. |
 |
| Big ass fireplace. |
 |
| Gotta love a kid-sized cornhole set. |
 |
| A very impressive shelterhouse. Winton Woods Park in Cincinnati never had such fancy ones, what with this one having a small kitchen and other amenities. |
 |
| Dude. Friggin XYLOPHONES!! |
 |
| Too cute. A peek inside of of the kid sized buildings. |
|
|
So it was back out of the Amberleigh scene along the Amberleigh Greenway with its cool tunnels to head out towards the next adventure. Dublin, I must say I am pretty impressed.
 |
| I'm a sucker for gazebos. |
 |
| Don't photograph and bike, kids. |
