Springfield Parks, Greenways, and Outdoor Spaces

4/4/16

Today I visited parks twice, this afternoon with my mother and this evening with Charlie. Both were places we had visited before.

#43. Sequiota Park 3500 S. Lone Pine
This historic 28 acre park is on Lone Pine Ave. south of Battlefield Rd. and features a lake and a cave. The cave was a former show cave with guided boat tours and at one time the park was a state park and fish hatchery. The cave is open for public boat tours a few times a year based on when the bats are there. We have never been in the cave. The tours were canceled a couple of weeks ago on the weekend we were planning to go due to early migration of the gray bats. This park is close to our house and is our second most frequently visited Springfield-Greene County Park. This park is also parking and access for the Galloway Creek Greenway Trail. Mom and I walked around the lake spending 25 minutes and walked 6/10 mile. There were a lot of people here today and lots of waterfowl on the lake.

#44. Galloway Linear Park/Galloway Creek Greenway Pershing Middle School south to James River
We have been on this 5.5 mile trail in southeast Springfield many times and have covered all 5.5 miles but this is the section we visit the least. It has also been a while since we've been on this part of the trail but have recently been on the section south of Sequiota Park. We started at Battlefield Rd. and walked north just past Southern Hills Blvd then back. We started a little late so there were just a few other people on the trail. We spent 45 minutes and walked 1 3/4 miles.

#45 Lone Pine Park South of Lone Pine Ave. and north of Battlefield Rd.--This is the description on the website but the park is more accurately east of  south Lone Pine Ave.
This 51 acre park is the green space along the Galloway Creek Greenway trail, mostly on the west side. We have walked through here before, as I commented above, but I never knew this was actually a park so this may be a new designation. I didn't see any signs identifying it and the parking is the same as for the trail. This is primarily natural but there were a few areas mowed. This is on the list of 102 Springfield-Greene County Parks facilities on the website and is labeled on map online but not labeled on the map in the current Park Bench or listed on the facilities list in the publication.

We are steadily making our way through the list of park facilities and are getting close to half finished with 57 facilities left to visit.