Picking some low-hanging fruit
So I was doing a little math the other day. Of the 100+ parks I have pledged to explore this year, as of yesterday I had officially visited 28. That leaves 72 more to go before the end of December.
Now, there are about 25 weeks left in the year, which means I have to average (lessee, divide by 25, carry the 2, subtract pi, round to the nearest week...) about three parks a week. That's not accounting for inclement or cold weather, snow, vacations, injuries, and the like.
Needless to say, I had a minor panic attack, which motivated me to travel around to five parks today. I call them low-hanging fruit because they are all in Webster, none of them more than about 5 miles from my house, and not a trail among them that needed exploring.
Having lived in Webster now for almost 20 years, I thought I knew pretty much everything there is to know about the parks here in town. But today's travels reminded me that there's always something new to be learned, every single day.
Ridge Park
Ridge Park is located at 1000 Ridge Road, behind the Webster Town Hall and police station. When my kids were quite a bit younger, we knew this park primarily for its playground and the gazebo where we would picnic. The playground is still there and much improved from those days, and the gazebo now hosts weekly summer library storytimes.
In recent years, Ridge Park has become home to WAA Softball, and as a result has been turned into a beautiful sports complex boasting eight impeccably manicured softball fields. The park is also slated to be home to the Rochester area’s first Challenger Miracle Field, designed to accommodate children and adults who deal with physical or mental challenges.
There are bathrooms here which are open even when the playfields aren’t being used, and when there are games in progress, there’s also a nice concession stand with picnic tables.
Getting back to not knowing everything about my hometown parks, I saw for the very first time a memorial placed not far from the field nearest to Ridge Road. I assumed the Jon S. Gerling memorial was relatively new. But after doing a little research, I was surprised to find that it was dedicated in 1977 -- almost 40 years ago -- in honor of Gerling, a well-known local man who died at age 35 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
The park can be accessed through the parking lot on Ridge Road by the Town Hall, or another large parking lot off of Van Ingen Drive, which itself is off of Hard Road.
The gallery shows a close-up and wide view of the playground area, a few shots of the baseball fields, and a fun sign. (Just in case you need to know how close we are to Iwo Jima.)
Wilmorite Park
I had never been to this park before, and since the village website calls it the “Wilmorite Recreation Area,” I didn't know quite what to expect. However, I did assume it would be rather small since it’s tucked into a densely populated village neighborhood.
I was right about the tucked-in part, but way wrong about its size. Wilmorite is located on Iroquois Street near the south edge of the village. There’s on-street parking, from which you walk down a short gravel driveway back into the park. At the end, the park opens up into a very large grassy expanse which just invites neighborhood flag-football games.
There’s also a nicely maintained playground, a basketball hoop, picnic table and benches. The images below show the driveway which leads into the park, and a wide-angle view of the playground and broad grassy areas.
Schantz Park
There’s not much to say about Schantz Park, which is another simple village neighborhood park. It’s accessible from Hawley Drive to the north, with on-street parking, and State Road to the south, where there’s a decent-sized parking lot.
Unlike Wilmorite Park, which is very nicely maintained, the tennis courts and softball field here could all use some TLC (although I’m sure many a summer memory has been made here). It does have a pretty nice playground, however, which is no doubt regularly visited by neighborhood families.
There is a porta-pottie in the State Road parking lot, which was actually very clean and pleasant-smelling when I used it.
Harmony Park
I love the name of this park. Several years ago the Village of Webster held a contest to name the new park, which is located on Phillips Road, just south of Ridge. The winner was “Harmony Park,” which is pretty perfect since the main feature of the park is a bandshell, in which the Webster Village Band holds weekly concerts in the summer.
Aside from the bandshell, the park is just a big, pleasant grassy area surrounded by woods. Nice place for a concert, actually.
D’Amico Park
Only a mile or two north of Harmony Park on Phillips Road, just north of Klem, is D’Amico Park. Baseball is the name of the game here. It has two senior-league baseball diamonds, each with a very small set of bleachers, and a concession stand. That’s pretty much it.
According to my letterboxing website, there is supposed to be a letterbox hidden here, but I couldn't even find that. Needless to say, this was not one of my most scintillating explorations. But that was OK. This my last park of the day and I wanted to get home.
Look for the sign and the driveway on the west side of Phillips. Be careful -- the speed bump is wicked.