Weston Park

Where is Weston Park? I think it might be that place I portaged a kayak through last summer, but I'm not sure. We couldn't find it this time, though. I'll try and find it some other time. This is a place holder.

UPDATE! I found Weston Park! It's at the foot of 21st street and it looks like this:

This is, in fact, the site of the legendary kayak portage of 2011. I remember the stairs through Weston Park down to the seawall being extremely annoying due to an excess of bendiness in the route. However, unless you happen to be carrying a 15 foot boat, these stairs are a great way to reach the seawall from the road.

As with the entire seawall and it's surrounding areas, Weston Park has a lot of benches and a lot of strange in it. If you're wondering what I mean by strange, take a look at this:

See that cute little gate that's so masterfully crafted? It leads from the main stairs to only what you see in this picture. Why do a couple benches and an oval of grass need a gate? Are the flowers going to run away?

While the seawall has a lot of benches, I never want to sit on them. Not many of them have interesting inscriptions ("From his loving family", "She loved this view", minor variations of those), and there's just too many choices. We decided against the benches in favor of settling on the grass. Not gated oval of grass, but the steep grassy hill beside the stairs.

The grass is full of weeds, but they are flowering an not that prickly. We sat there for a little while, watching a steady stream of people moving through the park from the road to the seawall. Many of those people had dogs with them. One of the dogs came over and sat down in between us, fully expecting to be pet. But she was so cute that her overconfidence didn't even matter.

We didn't want to let her go, but that was okay because apparently her owners did. They left her with us for 45 minutes while they went for a walk. And that's how we became spontaneous dog-sitters for strangers. About 5 minutes before the owners returned, just as we were wondering if they would ever come back, the dog takes off in the direction of the road. We didn't even know her name, so we couldn't call her back. Luckily, we were able to catch her, but that gate could have been a lot better placed. Flowers don't run away, but dogs do.

PPR
Good: DOGS!, a lot of benches, nice view, convenient path to the seawall
Bad: lame bench plaques, misplaced gate, high traffic (don't come here if you're looking for peace and quiet)
6/10