Trip 1: September 20th

On a cool September morning, I set out to do my first visit of 11 parks in Ann Arbor. Today, I wanted to think about my own experience in parks, especially how I’ve interacted with them from my childhood to now. I pre-planned a 4-mile running route,

with most of the parks concentrated in a half-mile radius, so I could spend as much time in them as possible. The air was crisp, the light golden. Burns Park was first; there were already a handful of people walking dogs, parents shepherding kids toward the nearby elementary school, and one golden retriever joyfully chasing a ball across the field. The park had everything: tennis and pickleball courts, a playground, a community center, and even a swinging bench that made me want to stay longer than I had time for.

From there, I moved through smaller parks tucked quietly into neighborhoods — Forsythe, Graydon, Iroquois, Douglas, Postman's Rest, and South University Park. Forsythe surprised me most. I’d walked past it hundreds of times but never noticed its brick ground or the steel sculpture that doubled as a water fountain. Graydon and Iroquois were smaller, almost secret. At Graydon, I was grateful for a water fountain after too many stops without one. Iroquois felt like a park that belonged to its neighborhood, just two benches, a few trees, and a patch of grass that could easily be mistaken for part of someone’s yard. Still, it had a sense of intention, like it knew its role: a place to pause.

Frisinger Park, near the stadium, was one of my favorites. It had big open fields, a few playground structures, and a red merry-go-round that immediately pulled me back to being ten years old at Paw Paw Early Elementary. My childhood friends and I would ride the merry-go-round nearly every day, spinning each other around until one of us would fly off. Probably not the safest thing to do, but fun nonetheless. By the end of the morning, I found myself at Crary Park, a simple patch of green by Washtenaw that I pass almost every day. Nothing special, no sculptures or fountains or even people. But that was the point. Standing there, I realized how these spaces, from the most elaborate to the most ordinary, quietly shape how we experience our city.

The first trip in my journey to visit all the Ann Arbor Parks was quite reflective fo

r me. Now you may be wondering why I only listed 9 parks if I intended to visit 11. I ended up missing two parks (Wurster and Allendinger) on my planned route because I stayed too long in others but that’s not a bad thing! I mean, can you really ever stay too long at a park? I’m excited for the journey ahead and to keep getting out in nature and exploring all the cool outdoor spaces Ann Arbor has to offer.