Welcome!
Welcome back to Outings!, a blog series chronically my urban outdoors adventures. Basically, each week I try out a different park/trail in my town, and write up a review for you!
This week was a bit of an audible for a couple of reasons:
- Trevor got hurt setting up an event on Friday. He’s okay! But he did sprain his ankle pretty bad, so he’s out of commission for this walk, and probably next week’s too.
- I originally wanted to walk a different trail, but we struggled to find the trailhead and once we did, there was an old man with an ADORABLE old corgi starting their walk. Sadly, Simon is very dog reactive and I didn’t want to ruin all of our mornings by starting on the trail at the same time as this old man and his old corgi.
So, I flipped a bitch and headed to the nearest park I could think of. Which brings us to:
Morningside Park
Morningside Park is a neighborhood City Park with a few amenities. There’s a playground, a sort of splash pad thing for hot days, a couple different fields, picnic tables, and a combination basketball/tennis court. There’s a couple interior paths leading to and from the playground, which connect to an outer loop that circles the whole park.
The park sits on a street corner, so two sides of it face a street. One side is lined with lovely little maple trees, all turned red and yellow with the season. The other has mature oak trees and the “front” of the park where the sign stands. The other two sides back up to fenced backyards of the neighborhood. Here there’s a horseshoe pitch and a copse of pine trees which the outer loop trail passes through.
It was cold and foggy, which gave the park an almost spooky vibe, which I really appreciated. I might be acclimated to the Pacific Northwest weather, but my Desert Rat brain will never see dense fog and feel anything but creeped out. Good thing I like the heebie-jeebies.
To be completely honest, there isn’t a whole lot to say about Morningside Park. It’s a pretty basic, run of the mill park, with limited features. But it’s easy to get to and walk, so it gets plenty of use. Simon and I have been here before and he always enjoys it, because there’s lots to sniff.
Stats & Specs
This is the part where I break down the park by the numbers!
Park Specs:
- Distance: .82 miles. This was the distance tracked on my FitBit. We walked the full loop once(ish) and did the inner loop a couple of times. So, a pretty small park.
- Elevation Gain: None. It is a flat park, no hills.
- Hours: Sunrise to Sunset
- Environment: This is a neighborhood park, on the corner across from a school. Traffic sounds are pretty constant, as well as the typical neighborhood noises like barking dogs, playing children, and yard maintenance equipment. The back corner does have a nice wooded area that’s a little quieter, but there’s no escaping that this is a centrally located city park.
- Condition: The paths are well maintained, the playground equipment is in decent shape, but the basketball/tennis court is… rough. In the fog it looked downright decrepit.
- Popularity: Very popular. I drive by this park pretty frequently and there’s ALWAYS someone there. On this visit it was about 9am, 37º, and foggy and we still saw three different people and their dogs. In the nicer weather, kids make use of the fields, courts, and playground equipment pretty much every afternoon. This is not a secluded or quiet park.
- Uses: Walking, primarily for short dog walks, picnics, parties, playground time. It’s your basic neighborhood park and doesn’t offer much beyond that.
My Stats:
- Duration: 24 minutes
- Pace: 29’05”
- Average Heart Rate: 116 BPM
- Max Heart Rate: 140 BPM
- Active Zone Minutes: 8 minutes in Fat Burn.
- Steps: 2,029
- Calories Burned: 177
My Gear:
- Adidas GalaxyTrail Trail Runners.
- Mystery Columbia Pullover. You know the one.
- Fleece-lined leggings, black.
- Columbia Omni-Heat Womens Full Zip Belted Coat, black and gray plaid.
- This was a Christmas gift forever ago and it is my FAVORITE winter coat.
- Salem Ale Works Beanie
Simon’s Gear:
RuffWear Front Range Dog Harness, in Aurora Teal- RuffWear Knot-a-Leash Rope dog leash, in Aurora Teal
Suggested Gear:
- Any comfy walking shoe. This is a very accessible park, with predominantly paved paths.
- Layers. You should know this by now.
- Gloves. I’m gonna need to invest in a decent pair because my hands are sick of getting chilly on these winter walks.
The Verdict
Look. It’s a perfectly fine park. It could use some TLC, and it’s just too small and flat to be of much interest to me. This is a I-don’t-know-where-else-to-go or a -I-don’t-have-much-time kinda park. And in the nicer months it’s just too busy to be worth it, in my opinion.
SO. MANY. SNIFFS! And SQUIRRELS! But, it’s very short and the field was soggy and my paws got wet and muddy and cold. I don’t love that. But, did I mention the squirrels?!
It’s a decent neighborhood park that gets a lot of use. Nothing too exciting happening here, but it’s a nice spot to have a stroll if you can’t make it out to a more interesting spot.
That's All Folks!
Thanks for making it to the bottom of this week’s Outings! It’s a busy week, so I don’t know if I’ll be back on the blog before Monday’s Goals Summary.
Until then, Bloggarts!
BZ
