Springfield Parks, Greenways, and Outdoor Spaces

3/22/16
Three more parks/trails visited tonight plus we were briefly on a city walking/biking corridor. The temperature was nice but it was very windy.

#12. Ray Kelly Park 2225 S. Fremont
This a smaller park with a short (0.15 mile) track, picnic tables, three slide/gym structures and swings on the corner of Fremont Ave. and Seminole St and there was plenty of parking. There were 2 "ball fields" with chain link back stops but no actual bases and appeared to have had very little use recently with just faint base paths visible.  We had been here just a few times years ago. Charlie had practiced volleyball here on outdoor courts. The volleyball courts are gone but you can see where they were. There were three small, raised garden beds, two of which were covered with plastic "greenhouses' and we could see something growing in one of them. This is also the site of the Southside Senior Center. The only other people here were a couple of people working on the gardens. We spent 12 minutes and walked a 1/2 mile around the park.

#13. McDaniel Park  2405 S National
This is the trailhead and beginning of the South Creek Greenway Trail/Linear Park on the corner of National Ave. and Sunset St. We have parked here before to ride on the trail but have never explored the rest of the park. It is a fairly large park(16 acres on the website and 20 acres on the sign at the park) with a kiosk  giving information about the trail and a large rock sign with a metal historical marker telling the history of the park at one end and a playground at the other end. The playground has two swing sets and two slide play structures with a gravel parking area. There is a larger, paved parking area at the other end. The park appears to be a narrow rectangle with National Ave. on one side and vegetation growing along a creek(South Creek, maybe) on the other side but if you go through a break in the vegetation on the west side of the park, there is another area nearly as big. There is yet more open land further to the west through another tree line but I am not sure how much is actual city park land. There were several people hiking/biking/walking dogs on the trail but no one on the playground. We parked at the trailhead and walked down to the playground then through the break in the tree line into the other area then walked back down to the trail. Combined with our walk down the trail, we spent one hour and walked 2.3 miles.

#14. South Creek Linear Park  Lee McDaniel Park
This trail is also referred to as the South Creek Greenway Trail, South Creek Greenway National Recreation Trail and just South Creek Greenway. We have been on this trail many times and have started biking from the 0.0 mile marker here at McDaniel Park a few times but have primarily started this trail at Nathanael Greene Park. We walked out to the 0.8 mile marker then back. It's been so long since we travelled this section that the last time it was not complete and the actual trail ended at Holland Ave. and you had to ride down the street/sidewalk until it restarted at Campbell Ave. Now the trail is complete and you cross two bridges as the trail crosses back and forth across South Creek and there a couple of nice areas with benches. Two miles of the trail starting  just west of the McDaniel Park trailhead has been adopted by the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society and is home to over 100 species of birds. This was a very enjoyable walk through budding trees and plenty of water running in the creek.

The Link
The Link is a seven mile walking/biking path going north/south across the center of Springfield from Doling Park to Battlefield Rd. using low traffic streets. It looks like it follows Holland and Kimbrough Avenues for much of the way. There are plans to extend it south to Cox South and beyond connecting to the Ward Branch Trail(see yesterday's post). There is a HAWK Signal crosswalk crossing Sunset St. at Kimbrough Ave. and four cycle aid stations with bike stands, air pumps and tools located along the Link. This corridor is designed to provide a safe, low traffic bike route across the city connecting four college campuses with many current and planned links to other bike paths. We walked for a few yards along this between Broadmoor St. and Sunset St.at Holland Ave.

George W. Moore Park
On the Springfield-Greene County Park map there is a George W. Moore Park marked near Seminole St. and National Ave. This is not included in the list of 102 Springfield-Greene County park facilities and nothing comes up on the internet(including on either the City of Springfield or Ozark Greenways websites) when I search for this park. We couldn't find any evidence of this park but the location on the map is not specific. I have three possible theories about this park. The first is that is may refer to the playground area of McDaniel Park. Another is that it may be another name for the Holland Elementary School Park. The third theory is that this may be the name for one or both of the empty lots with water retention basins(presumably city property) at both the northwest and southwest corners of Seminole St. and National Ave. Of course someone just may have made a mistake when designing the map.
4/10/16 update. I found a reference to this park that described it as adjacent to McDaniel Park. McDaniel Park has three large fields separated by creeks/ tree lines. Apparently, one of these is George W. Moore Park. This park was referenced in a description of future Springfield-Greene County Park projects as the site of a planned children's tricycle/safety course.

We have now visited 14 of the Springfield-Greene County Park facilities over the past three days leaving 88 more to go!! We spent about 1 1/4 hours today.