Maybe I am crazy or maybe it was the spring air, but when I took my dog out to the park Monday night, for our first long walk of the season, I think I could safely say I was lost - lost on a disc golf course.
Starting about four years ago, the disc golf players who use Community Park in Channahon, worked with the park district to improve the course. Disc golf is a growing sport and there are also courses in Shorewood, Plainfield and New Lenox, just to name a few.
Superintendent of Park Planning in Channahon, Daryl Cole, said the course was originally built in the 1980s and was expanded from a nine hole to an 18 hole course in that decade. The recent improvements were player driven.
"There are a bunch of disc golfers, they have done all the labor, ... and we have paid for the concrete," Cole said.
In addition to the improvements, the players moved the holes around a bit to get better left hand shots and such.
But, this disoriented walker swears there used to be a path that meandered through where the course is...a path that is not there anymore. This is what let to me getting lost.
And, without being out there, Cole could not confirm or deny that there was a path where I thought there was one.
Really, it was kind of funny. Here I am wandering with my dog on a course built for disc golf, one that was being actively used at the time. Had it not been for the need to duck every once in a while or the need to keep my dog from fetching the flying discs, it would have been more funny.
I am directionally challenged, but, luckily, I have a visual memory, so if I have been to or found my way through a place once, I can generally do it again. Since the changes in the park, though, all my visual cues are gone and I was left wandering, ducking and apologizing to the disc players.
After wandering around for a bit on the course, I found my way to the Prairie Woodland path. It was one I have walked before, but now, after wandering aimlessly for more than 30 minutes, there was not enough time in my hour walk to make it all the way to the canal.
But, this was the first of what will be many walks through Community Park this spring, summer and fall. While I like walking in the rain, I do not like walking in the bitter cold.
I love Community Park. A couple dozen feet into the park and I feel like I am miles away from my house instead of only a few blocks. I almost always spot deer, my favorite animal, and if I get close to the water, there might be one or two frogs as well.
So despite ducking and dodging for being in the wrong place, I am really grateful that I have a place so close to my house, where I can escape into wildlife for a while. It would be better off if wildlife had a map.
Or maybe I'm just crazy...
Dawn Aulet is a woman, a writer, a wife and a mother. Often, the lens
through which she sees the world is colored by these roles, but not
always. Sometimes, her experiences have less to do with her roles and
more with the frustration of being a consumer, the need to put gas in
her car or the realization that the world does not have any obligation
to deliver what she expects.
Why am I not surprised that you of all people can get lost in a patch of grass?