Sunday, March 22, 2015

Memorial Park

Always up for looking for something new and exciting that will be good for Henry, we stumbled upon another park close to home. This one we have known about but there are several bridges that go over a lake. That is why we had not been there before with the 3 pugs. Benny was not a fan of bridges (or piers, or board walks, or anything with slats underfoot).This park also has a lot of bird activity (various ducks and other crazy Florida birds) and thus, we would not have been anxious to take Luna there (as her favorite pastime was rolling in bird poop)

We had kind of forgotten about this park until recently when we were looking for somewhere close to go when our closest and favorite City Center path was holding a large event (and way too crowded for Henry). We recalled a park near a doctor's office park. We did not know the name of it until we made it around most of the loop. It is called Memorial Park. And while it won't soon be at the top of our favorite list, it is a good one to have as a back up. Come to find out, Henry is no longer that fond of bridges now either and without using a bridge, you have to walk the whole 7/10 of a mile. Not that 7/10 is so long, but Henry's max these days is just at half a mile or on a super cool day he could do 7/10 or 8/10 but on this day it was not Henry friendly enough weather to make it the full 7/10. So, it's that last 2/10 that is rough for Henry's "staff" that have to carry him. Unlike Benny and Luna who would kind of "help" adjust their weight and even distribute it when you had to carry them, Henry becomes like a wet bag of sand. He is not only dead weight but then he gets kind of "slippery" and is not easy to carry like the others were. And there is no way he would be lowered to riding in the Solsey pouch!

One of the things that was good about this park is that the sidewalks were wide and when Henry wanted to go off the path, the grassy area was pretty safe (just a few briers here and there and only the occasional ant hill. Henry could get pretty close to the water but if you give him an inch in that direction, he will take the mile for sure, so we had to be sure to keep him far enough from the water that he didn't drag us all in! Even though I know the name of this park, I will always think of it as "Duck, Duck, Henry Park" as there were so many ducks there and then there was Henry. And some of them were so big that if Henry messed with them, his goose would be cooked!