Kent Park and Arboretum, Webster
Kent Park is located on Schlegel Road, between Salt and Basket roads. The aboretum there is well known for its incredible variety of flowers, shrubs and trees, and a nice big gazebo, which make it a popular destination for wedding and prom photos. Perhaps less well known is the trail system which winds through the adjacent woodland.
These are very easy trails. A lot of them are paved, others are nicely gravelled, and still others are wide and grassy (although these were very muddy). They are not very well marked, and even with a trail map I lost my bearings. Getting lost, however, is pretty impossible, so I just happily wandered around until I found my way back to where I started. I ended up walking traversing most of the 1.3 miles of trails. But along the way I did a lot of off-trail exploring of gardens and trees and gazebos and benches.
There are a lot of benches. I think that's because the arboretum is just a downright peaceful place to be. That was especially true this day, before all of the lilacs, azaleas, irises and roses were in bloom, which make late spring and summer weekends very busy indeed.
Because these trails are very level, mostly paved and easy to manage, even the youngest children would enjoy hiking here. The nice playground on the east side of the park and adjacent (in-season) bathrooms are an extra bonus. There's also a pavilion there where you can set up your lunch.
The kids might also enjoy the arbor maze at the west edge of the park. It's just big enough to provide a challenge, but small enough not to frustrate children. Plus there are plenty of opportunities to sneak out through the trees if necessary.
Park in the main Arboretum parking lot (the western-most of the two entrances) or in the playground parking lot (eastern entrance) to access the trails.
P.S. I had a little extra fun exploring this park. A reader wrote to me shortly after I started my park quest, encouraging me to engage in some letterboxing while I explored. (For those of you unfamiliar with letterboxing, it's like kind of like geocaching without GPS coordinates.) Already very familiar with the hobby, I agreed wholehearatedly, and started investigating which parks have letterboxes hidden within. Kent Park is one.
So I followed the online directions to one of two letterboxes. I took out the logbook, into which you're supposed to leave your mark -- or stamp -- to indicate you have been there. I opened the logbook to a random page and was surprised to see it was the page my children and I had stamped when we first found the box almost 8 years ago.
