Washington Park – Day 1

September 17, 2016

Washington Park – Denver, CO

This was my second trip to Washington Park, though the first with this blog in mind. I had gone last Sunday with the intention of escaping the hustle and bustle of campus life and to sit peacefully in the shade of a broad-leaf Cottonwood. On both excursions the weather was impeccable and so the park was teeming with activity. Around the paved road that runs along the perimeter of the park, people pushing baby strollers and walking dogs were being lapped by bikers, skaters, kids on motorized scooters, and the occasional Iron Man athlete running faster than them all. Picnics and barbecues filled the air with the smell of food that enticed the frisbee throwers and the volleyball players.

On this particular late summer day, I went with a friend who, like me, wanted to escape. The sun was strong, and it fueled those who basked in it. It would seem that, like the broad-leaf Cottonwood, the men, women, boys and girls were all energized by the sun. It gave them the energy to run around endlessly, only stopping when it turned their cheeks as red as the trees in the middle of Autumn. The shade, where we chose to sit, was a haven from the star that sat 93 million miles away, where it could not see nor cast its rays upon us. From the blanket, spread out in the shade, we had a view of the biggest field in the park, on the south side. We began watching what seemed to be a volley ball tournament, but because it was across the field, we could never figure out whether it was organized or just people having fun. We watched their games, reacting and commenting to each other when someone scored a point. There was a group of people having a picnic close to us (barely visible on the very left of the photo above), and we eavesdropped on their conversations. We made guesses as to what they were talking about based on their movement, laughs, and the few words they yelled loud enough for us to understand. At one point our existences intertwined when someone miss-kicked the soccer ball and it rolled to a stop slightly outside of the shade in front of me. I jumped up to kick it back to them, a gesture that was reciprocated by an invitation to play. Torn, I declined, eager to return to the shade, eager to continue people watching.

After a little more than an hour of sitting in our haven of shade, we adventured out, me on my skateboard and her on her cruiser bike. We followed the road around the park, noticing that every part of the enormous park had a different scene. After riding around for a little bit and stopping to get lunch at a deli nearby. Our cheeks were reaching early Autumn level so we stopped on the bank of one of the two ponds in the park, taking shelter in the shade of an old oak tree. The tree had likely watched over the pond, park, and its people for over a hundred years.

The pond held a different, aquatic scene. Some people chose to relax on paddle boards, soaking in the sun until the skin on their faces reached late Autumn level, when the leaves begin to fall off of the trees. Others were racing around the circumference of the pond in kayaks, their faces being shaded by bucket hats and baseball caps. The pond was home to many animals as well. The families of ducks stared at the families of geese, quacking once or twice as a friendly greeting. All the while fish swum underneath them, eating the myriads of bugs that swam and skimmed the surface and aimlessly exploring the little pond that they have spent their whole lives in. 

After spending the better part of the day exploring the park, observing everything it had to show, we headed back to campus. Returning to the city really makes you appreciate places like Washington Park.