The Swamp

This won't mean much to most. Last week we did a family ride on the trails that I used to bike on as a kid. We all called the undeveloped wetlands area at the end of our block "the swamp". We would ride down, dump our bikes by a big oak tree and play "war", which mostly meant crawling through the high grass with wooden toy guns or sticks that we pretended were guns.

Mike was always talking about how his dad was in WWII or Korea or something, so he ended up our resident expert on making platoon sweeps of the swamp, which runs along Shingle Creek. We would often ride our bikes along the then dirt paths, fish for bullheads, wade the 'rapids'. 

It was weird to go back after over 20 years. Much has changed. What I remember as mostly dirt paths is now paved. The prairie grass and weeds that lined the creek is mostly mowed. The thicket at the end of my old street is cut down so you can see the water. I am going to post some pictures that I took along our old stomping grounds from Twin Hills (aka "Booby Hills") along shingle creek, around Palmer Lake, to Brooklyn Center Civic Center and on to where Brookdale Mall stood until recently. 

What seemed to take us all day to ride, would have taken Sarah and me 20 minutes, if I hadn't stopped so often to take pictures and explain like an old man what we used to do at this point and that.