Entries to Win Afghan

Sign up to receive the Books Leaving Footprints Newsletter. Comes out occasionally. No spam. No list swapping. Just email me! jhyshark@gmail.com Previous gifts include a short story, a poem, and coupons. Add your name, and don't miss out!

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Exploring Hesperia's Parks

 
I'll probably show you a few more things from Stan Hywet another day, but I did something interesting this morning that I want to share.

There is a small town about 45 minutes from me that has quite a few parks, and I wanted to research them to use in my newspaper column. So I went there and collected information for a couple of hours before the rain started. I had to come back to get to work anyway.

They just added a "history trail" to the central park in town. I read about that in the Oceana County weekly paper, and that's what kicked off my interest. Hesperia has fewer than 1000 residents so I hadn't thought of it as a big recreation location, but they actually have quite a lot going on. The main park is Webster Park. It's nicely decorated.

Webster Park

They've just added 13 interpretive panels along the perimeter sidewalk. It was pretty interesting reading. This isn't one of those signs, just part of the entrance gate that I liked.

Webster Park

The primary natural feature of the town is the White River, and the dam which has supplied power for various industries since about 1867. Now it provides recreational fishing grounds.

White River below Hesperia Dam

There was a short trail beside the lake above the dam. I just liked these two stump terrariums.

stumps

Caught pictures of two interesting birds. There were a couple dozen killdeer on the mud flats along the lake. I don't think I've ever seen so many killdeer in one place. It seemed odd. Perhaps there was some invertebrate they found particularly tasty.

killdeer

I did get a very bad picture of a kingfisher. It's not worth showing you. I did, however, catch the footloose robin. Quite a few of them actually. The town was decorated with plywood trees which had been painted by school classes. I liked this one.

footprint robins

I need to go back on a day with bluer sky to get nicer pictures.


See more White River
See Killdeer
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Like This!


2 comments:

Secondary Roads said...

My maternal grandfather was born in Hesperia (Oceana Co. side). Although maternal grandmother was born in Ferry (a few miles west), they met as widow and widower. We visited the W Hesperia cemetery to find grandad's father's grave, which we found with help from the sexton.

Ann said...

I like that entrance gate and the footprint bird is cute