As you may have noticed, we traveled quite a bit over the holidays! First, we went to Illinois to visit my husband’s family, stopping at Aullwood Audubon in Ohio on our way. Then, we ended up driving to my parents in New York after Christmas due to the passing of my grandfather at the ripe old age of 98. It took two days to make the drive from one set of grandparents to the next, and the girls were both exhausted and hyper.
To burn energy and help lift the gloom a bit, my parents suggested we drive out to Wilcox Memorial Park in Stanfordville, NY right off 199. The park has two playgrounds, one recently renovated, plus many miles of trails, and two lakes. In the winter season, the park roads aren’t busy, and are a great place to walk, too. There are restrooms here, but we never checked to see if they were open this time of the year. Wilcox gets super busy after Memorial Day when the swimming beach opens. Just as a FYI, in warmer months, ticks are a big issue on the trails, too, so always do a tick check after hiking!
When we pulled into the park, we drove down past the lake until we parked in a small lot near the playground. There were no other families here that day, so the girls had full run of the place. There were slides, monkey bars, climbing walls, ladders, and more! The girls explored for a bit, then decided they wanted to see the other playground. We took our time, wandering past rushing streams, checking out a dam at one end of the lake, then circling the lake making our way toward the closed swimming beach where the other playground was. We stopped to see the 2nd lake which had a thick layer of ice on top. My father challenged the girls to see if they could break the ice. He had the girls scrambling all over looking for rocks to throw. Amazingly, no one fell in and no one broke the ice.
After exhausting their supply of ammunition without success, the ice was victorious, we moved on to the playground located on the beach of the first lake. This playground was very sad… It had seen a lot of hard use, and had definitely seen better days. There were swings and one small structure, plus a ride-on duck on a giant spring that Pebble loved! It needed a new paint job, but she really enjoyed bouncing on it! One of the slides had been blocked off by wooden boards, and there were no monkey bars. The girls quickly lost interest in the playground, and went hunting for rocks to throw in the lake. Each tried to outdo the other with the size of the rock they were tossing. Stormy found a cool snail shell in the sand.
Eventually, we made our way back to the first playground, and the girls played happily for a bit. On the way back to the car, my dad challenged Rainbow to a race. Unfortunately, when she tried to cut him off, she ended up in a boggy area with water halfway up her shins. She also lost her sneaker… The look on her face was priceless! She didn’t think it was funny, but it was! We retrieved her, and her shoe, and loaded her into the car. It was the dose of fresh air we all needed! The perfect outing on a winter afternoon… Happy trails!
