Park #25 - Astronaut Grove - Westerville

    This place was kinda a mind-blower. As usual, I never look up any park in advance before going there, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I figured it would be another boring pocket park off of an Astronaut Street or something like that. Instead it was a lovely little place across from Alum Creek Park North. The park was dedicated to the Astronauts lost in the Apollo 1 & Challenger disasters. I first learned of Virgil "Gus" Grissom in the classic film The Right Stuff which documents the original Mercury 7 astronauts. Gus, along with Roger Chaffee and Ed White perished when the Apollo 1 capsule burst onto flames on the launch pad due to a spark igniting the pure oxygen they were breathing. Poor old Gus never got to rebuild his reputation after losing his Mercury capsule upon the controversial splashdown recovery effort.

    If you're of my generation, I really don't need to explain anything about the Challenger incident.

    I got unexpectedly emotional visiting this place, as the Walsh family has a history of Air Force service, and any loss due to flight tends to kinda get me worked up. Anyway, this was a really tidy, well landscaped place that I would highly recommend for a few moments of introspection.

 

Go get 'em, Gus!

Each Challenger astronaut had a tree planted for them. Unfortunately the spring storms of '12 (100MPH winds) knocked down/destroyed a couple of them.

Quite a nice sculpture.

Westerville should be proud of their parks.

This is not a very big space, but I wonder if they would have room for a memorial to the Columbia astronauts?

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.