Directions to Wrightwood Park

Wrightwood park is probably the closest park, and we have recently discovered that we can travel most of the distance by walking through the woods in back of the house, up a quiet residential street, and finally across one relatively busy road.

The woods are accessed via steps behind the kids' playset (B or Z can show you where). The steps are very old and need repair (we only recenly uncovered them; the had been buried under dirt and debris for at least a decade or two!), so step carefully. Our connector trail continues from the bottom of the steps on down into the woods (it re-enters directly across the new clearing for the power lines; the kids can point it out, if they haven't already run ahead...). It crosses a dry streambed and connects to the "main" trail next to a wooden sign saying "Boredsville" (the origin of this sign is a long story involving Anna Nikola). Turn left onto the main trail. After awhile, you will reach a split in the path; take the right fork. This eventually leads you around the back of Lakewood School. Keep to the right if there are any more forks, except for the one which actually goes into the school's backyard (if you accidentally go this way, you can tell pretty quickly where it's going). Eventually you will wind away from the school and down a hill towards a small cement footbridge at the bottom of a street corner. Go up the right-hand street (Prince St.) At the top of the street is Anderson St.; go left until you get near the bottom of the hill. You should see a baseball diamond across the street – that is part of Wrightwood Park. The part the kids will be interested in is the playground behind the parking area over to the left.

For expeditions, we always bring a bottle of cold, filtered drinking water, because kids get cranky quickly when they get dehydrated. The filtered water is in the large container in the fridge (kids can show you how to work it), and there should be bottles in either of the drying racks next to the kitchen sink.