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Hometown Wanderlust: Fairview Park Walking Trail

By January 1, 2017October 11th, 2017No Comments

Hometown Wanderlust is an adventurous, weekly blog featuring one girl’s experiences with food, music, shopping, history, art and life in general around Dublin GA. This week, Dublin GA’s favorite redhead discovers a path not yet taken at the Fairview Park Walking Trail.

On The Go

The mini-me had recently during one of many summer camps, constructed a tiny, wooden boat complete with an erect, bright pink sail that rode next to her in the backseat for weeks after its  construction.  She often would absentmindedly play with it while I zoomed from location to location running errands, imagining it riding serene pools or raging rivers. Occasionally she would mumble something about “wish I could see if this thing floats.” I finally paused long enough one late afternoon and heard, or actually listened to her boating mumblings.

Discover

Our local hospital has the perfect little pond encircled by a fitness trail complete, with a wooden bridge and gazebo perfect for trying out the tiny watercraft. A few looming cedars line the edge of the water and lead to the far end of the pond. A wooded area shades the most shallow end of the water’s edge. We set off around the walking path to find the perfect location to launch: not too cluttered with lily pads or algae, not too deep, not too shallow…

Leaning over the edge of the water, it takes about 2 seconds after she drops the boat in for me to realize this is going to be quite uneventful as the tiny vessel has no way to go. (I know, I know. Gimme a break.) We need a stick. The wooded area is perfect, we’ll easily find something there. I notice as we walk up to the tree line there is a break in the woods, a wide trail which recently has been mowed. We follow it to see where it leads.

Not even several meters into the path, and to our surprise a boardwalk is right in front of us and slightly to the right leading right into the trees! All my years coming out to walk around this very pond and I had no idea there was a boardwalk!

We follow the boardwalk into the thick of the trees, a tiny creek bubbles beneath. The leaves overhead flicker in the sunlight and a few branches of fluffy white flowers fill the air with fragrance. I spot a fat, brown snake lying sneakily in the shallow water at a trees’ base. Mini-me doesn’t like that very much and the adventure comes to and end with her darting back to the entrance.

We actually remembered to fetch a stick on our way out, which was our original mission and set to sailing the tiny sailboat all the while laughing and excitedly reliving the tiny adventure.

Listen

I’m glad I stopped for a moment in the hustle bustle to go sail the tiny boat. It’s so easy to constantly “next time, next time” not stopping to realize, “this moment IS the previous moment’s next time” I’m glad we peeked into the trees and found such a peaceful little path to observe nature. And I’m glad the ol’ snake minded his business.

There’s plenty of space to PLAY outdoors in Dublin GA! Visit https://visitdublinga.org/play-outdoors/