Houston Parks

I love walking and taking photos.  While in Houston I usually buy a temporary gym membership and this time is no exception, but walking out of doors (with my camera) is my exercise of preference.  I don’t think I realized in the 30 years that I lived here that this area, Houston and its surrounding counties, has so many parks.  I used a few of the larger ones when I live here; Herman park that houses the Zoo, Museum of Natural science and the rose garden and is right beside the Medical center where I used to work (jeez – 20 years ago), Memorial Park just west of downtown – a good place to stop off after work for a quick 3 mile walk around after a long day in the office and Bear Creek Park in far west Houston where in my single years (pre-Camillo) I played women’s soccer every Sunday.   Only since I have been coming back to ‘visit’ from Brasil have I started hunting smaller, close to Missouri City Parks and find myself pleasantly surprised. 

Last spring while here I walked in the Brazos Bend State park.  If you didn’t follow my ‘Walking with Alligators’ posts then check the link to catch up on that park area.  I also have posted about ‘Kitty Hollow’ here in Missouri city and need to go back to see how it looks one year later.  On my walk yesterday morning I thought that in the next few weeks, maybe, I could find a few more small, secret parks that the locals enjoy, taking the opportunity to feel more connected and knowledgeable about this specific area. 

Yesterday I walked in the Oyster Creek Park of Sugarland.  Like Memorial and Bear Creek parks, Oyster Creek has walking / bike trails and soccer fields.  With this action all around you don’t get the feeling of being out in nature, but you do feel that you are an area important to the community.  There seems to be 3 interlocking walkways each covering about 2 miles.  There is a small pond with fountains and dark water creeks wind along side the path.  There are the requisite warning signs posted to give way to the alligators.  I suppose that all these creeks and ponds connect and if one has an alligator then they all have alligators.  

Along with the soccer players, there were families with little children, middle aged adults meandering or running, a few walking their dogs, and one young woman walking her grandmother (seeing this made me feel – well happy - that a young, modern women would take the time to slowly walk her grandmother along a half mile or so of nature walkway – dare I think that there is hope for us all)

Thank you for letting my take my photos.  Your Grandmother is beautiful – AND you are too.

My only complaint, if I have to make a complaint is that this park is along the creek but also under the electrical grid.  There are acres and acres of grass land, all neatly mowed and easily accessed, but those walking their dogs had allowed the dogs to ‘do their business’ right on, in the middle of the path.  The walking, jogging, biking path, where children play and elderly women are walked by their families, how can you be a nature lover, an animal lover, a member of a community and not help keep this area beautiful by picking up after your dog, or in the very least walk them up the hill and away from the path until they have done their thing….?   Does the government have to say, ‘keep pets on a leash’ as well as ‘clean up after them’  before these dog lovers behave properly…..?  EEK! makes me so mad I could spit. 

Okay I will go back out and walk another path to calm myself down again.