Park #13: Ambassador Commons Park - Gahanna

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Park #12: Alum Crest Park - Columbus

A small little pocket park for the good folks along Alum Creek Road. This community has to have been built for the folks that work in the major industries around that area. The few folks that were out and about were nice although it seemed that most of them were out of town for the weekend. These were taken Memorial Day Weekend, so I got some catching up to do.

I was booking to this place before the sun got too low.

It should be noticed that the 2 Jewish Cemeteries are located in roughly this area as when they arrived on Columbus they settled mostly in the Olde Towne East area. Now they mostly live in Bexley.

Park #11: Alum Creek Park South - Westerville

   Ahhh, this is more like it. There are several parks all along the Alum Creek. This one was not too far from Otterbein College in picturesque Westerville. One of the neat things, or limitations, about my strategy for doing this blog is that I don't read up on anything about the parks before I get there. No Google Earth, no Columbus MetroParks website. This keeps things interesting.

Bonus: I was rockin' my Jerry Garcia 1942-1995 T-shirt and some guy, totally business-man looking stops chatting into his cell as he's passing me about here and is all "killer shirt man."

 

    So, having said that, it was nice to stumble on this BMX/skate park being enjoyed by some of the local kids. I used to go to a place in Hamilton/Fairfield Ohio called Joyce Park that had a BMX track. My 12 year old self realized I didn't have all the talent I thought I did with my beloved Mongoose FS-1 bike. Still had a blast though, and an acquaintance I met let my try out his titanium bike. Man, it was quite a difference. 

I think I broke at least 6 of the rules getting these. Walking on the track? Check. Smoking a cig? Check. etc.

 

 

   This was one of the early hot days of late spring so I didn't stick around too long because of that, and also because I didn't have too much time before I had to grab the COTA bus back home. Westerville is a hell of a long way to Olde Town East if you've missed the bus. This was a Saturday, so the bus which runs limited hours out there anyway was even more limited.

 

BTW, is it Alum Creek Park South, or...

Alum Creek South Park???

    I kinda wanted to chat with these kids so I could've gotten some great close-up shots of them doing their thing, but they probably would've looked at me like I was from Mars. Oh well, like I said, I had limited time, and I have 300 more parks to get some good stuff.

 

560 Olly dude

   All in all a nice spacious park in the linked up Alum Creek trail. Just a bit north of here was Alum Creek Park North, which is coming soon...

Park #10: Alum Creek Park North - Westerville

The sister park to Alum Creek Park South, separated by the quite extensive Alum Creek Trail which runs from Alum Creek State Park North of the 270 outer belt all the way to my neck of the woods in Olde Towne East. Along the creek were several of these cute artsy things on the telephone poles.

Rawr

For running thru some of Columbus' most busy parts of town, Alum Creek is quite the serene oasis.

This smallish park along the Main Drag in Westerville was quite nice. It was just a short walk away from Otterbein College (home of the fighting Methodist Cardinals. Go Cards!!).

Although it looked like a nice creek, hell if I woulda waded in it or eaten anything caught there!

I need to figure out what kind of events they hold here as it was pretty sweet to stumble onto this. I feel a repeat trip coming on.

 

As Alice says, "School's Out For Ever!"

After looking up this park's Amphitheater, it looks like they hold concerts there under the title of Sounds of Summer Concert Series. Big Bands & cover bands, all free, and the community is welcome to bring lawn chairs & coolers. All in all, both the Alum Creek Parks combined with the adjoining trail and a concert would be a great way to laze away a nice Sunday Afternoon. Well worth checking out along with adjacent Westerville, OH. http://www.visitwesterville.org/calendar.html for a calendar of events.

Parks #8&9: Alton Road Parkland/Alton-Darby Parkland - Prairie, Ohio

   Ah yes. These places. Well, lets start with the fact that COTA ran as far west as past the 270 outerbelt on US route 40 and stopped at the Kroger by Doctors Hospital. Much farther west and one gets to the boonies. Boonies usually no sidewalks and high speed limits, so needless to say it was quite a "pleasure" getting to these places.

   The walk from the Kroger drop-off was maybe 45 minutes one way to these 2 separate but equally named "parks". It was walking down the 2 lane country roads that kinda made me white knuckle it. I learned an interesting fact during this part of the tour of parks: apparently "Parkland" doesn't mean "Park". I kinda got excited when I saw the comparatively large tracks of land on the map because the last few places were represented by a pine tree symbol and a number (read: "Pocket Park"). Well, I guess Parkland means an undeveloped prairie style place. Essentially that has not been farmed in a while.

   Or something like that...

   So all in all, kind of a waste of a trip, although I got to see the progression of the new mega Casino that's going up on the west side. I also got to try the new-ish Coke Freestyle machine at Wendy's for the first time. At least it was nice to get out of the cramped confines of Old Towne East where I live in Columbus and actually see some vast tracts of farmland.

Dead end into nothingness

So THIS is a "Parkland". Huh.

lazy  Clover Groff Run

   And this was the equally impressive Alton-Darby Parkland. I just missed catching a picture of a crane in this little bog. I didn't see him till it was too late.

    I decided to snap a few more pics since this was kind of a waste of a trip, and slightly nerve-wracking. This was a huge field of last-years corn that should be sprouting up in a couple months as long as Ohio gets a better share of rain this year. Also pictured is an old church cemetery decorated for the then upcoming Memorial Day. In general, I really hate cemeteries UNLESS they are so old and historic, nobody in the area are around anymore. Something about mourners or recent sad memories, I guess. All in all it was nice to get back home to sidewalks and houses that were too close to one another ;)
 

I wonder who she was, what she did, why she died at 41? What did this part of Columbus look like then?

Park #7: Alt Field - Hilliard

   Oh this was another pain to get to... COTA only runs Hilliard buses TO downtown 2x in the morning and back to Hilliard 2x at night, so basically one is shit outta luck if you want to visit hilliard sometime during the daytime/afternoon... Unless you want to walk about 2 hours from Upper Arlington, which I did. Thankfully, I talked my pal Nicole into giving me a ride back.

   A cute little place not too far down from Hill-Yard's library with a pretty beat water tower. I'm a sucker for baseball so it was nice to stumble onto a game. Don't know who was who but presumably someone won.

   This was another place that took 2 trips since my original pics of it were on my cellphone which is missing. Always some thing.

Introducing the new logo... Just gotta resize it and figure out how to use it. Yeah, kinda newish at this blog thing...