What the babyface? This park just popped up and was all, "Hey, I've been waiting. What's taken you…read moreso long?"
Big ups to the ladyfriend for pointing out this on-leash, waterside, trail-loaded bundle of escapist joy. Wide open parks for playing fetch (yes, most peeps think their pup is perfectly mannered, so expect off-leash antics), picnic tables, rock faces for bouldering or Little People, Big World belay practice and a sweet lake sporting - GASP! - cattails. Cattails, people!
At five or six spots around the aquatic perimeter, stone steps take you down to the water, which is boring in the warmer months, but come (oh I don't know) January, it's positions you perfectly to grab a paper thin piece of slowly forming ice to chuck along a thicker patch, thus creating that tympanic theremin sound nobody can describe but everyone knows.
I love the proximity to Mass Ave and Route 2 without feeling like it's near either. I love the broken down Vita Course stations that are now just decomposing, wooden posts and I love whizzing stale bread through cattail stalks, sending poofs of velvety fibers exploding in to the crisp air, only to send the damaged crust gliding gracefully across way-too-thin ice to live its bird-attracting life at the center of the lake.
Oh Arlington, the things you do.