Heritage Park

Our county here is Johnson, and they have to have their parks along with the cities of Overland Park and Olathe. One of the largest is Heritage. It is about a mile South of the airport control tower that I pictured day before yesterday.

This place is huge, as it is a mile wide and two miles from North to South. It has a bunch of Soccer fields. This is only three of them, but there have to be over a dozen.

There are several softball fields, complete with a refreshment building. It may have some locker facilities, but I have never gone and checked that part out.

There is a big dam with the creek held back into a lake. Note the walking path across the face of the dam. That path goes on for several miles. The marina is in the distance.

I stitched a couple of shots together to get the marina, and those spots out on the water are kids swimming from the docks, which they are not supposed to do. It kept getting overcast and then sunny, which was fooling my point and shoot camera. I had it today, so the cell phone took a rest.

But I stopped at one of the empty shelters and ate my McDonalds 99 cent McDoubles. The scooter seems small against the backdrop of the hay field, that has been recently baled.

It had rained in the night, with quite a storm. The wind blew the water under the shelter roof, and even in mid afternoon, the tables and concrete floor were still wet. The temperature was 94 F and the Humidity was 75%. My shirt suffered from the sticky guy inside.

But there was a slight breeze from the West golf course. It is fenced, and in the distance, so I couldn’t get in to take pictures of some of the better holes. For a county course, it is quite popular, and loooong. I should go get a card and see the total yardage, but my sons always complain about its length.

In the spring, when I was practicing riding between cones in order to pass the motorcycle test, the parking lots in this park were my best friends.

Another part of the park, is the off leash dog run. It is about 40 acres of ground that is completely fenced. It has woven wire fencing on the inside of a wooden fence, and dogs cannot get out once released. Owners and their dogs can take an extended hike. The dogs really go crazy for a while when they are freed of their leash.

I ride out here as a therapy, for the ravages of the entrapment I feel when I am stuck on that little city lot that is our home. I can answer my wife’s questions and the neighbor lady shakes her head in agreement. Too close!

Retired Rod