It's starting to look a bit like summer `round here as temperatures moved into the mid 70s on Saturday.  We were driving about with our windows open, enjoying the weather, when we passed by the park and decided to hop out for a walk.  Though it was a beautiful day, the park was surprisingly empty.

There was a nice crowd of folks gathering at the barbecue pit, and three quarters of the tables were occupied.  This is a lovely place to hang out and barbecue with your friends and family.  And right across the street is the famous Forest Park Carousel, which we've been writing about frequently, most recently here. 

We moved along towards the park's greenhouse.  The trees are still bare, but with a few more days like yesterday this place will be covered in green.    

There's the Forest Park Greenhouse below at left.  It appears that some of this area isn't being utilized at the moment, though we did see rows of plants that are being grown.  And in the back there appeared to be a few greenhouse buildings still in use.  We'll see if we cn get inside one day to get some pictures.

People were just getting used to the warm weather.  Some of those who did manage to make it out to the park were still wearing sweaters, but they were soon dropped on the ground, and draped over benches.

Over the years, I've seen crowds of folks sitting at these tables playing chess.  But yesterday it was largely empty.  It looks as if the Parks Department has just finished repairing the damage that the winter had wrought on some of the benches.

Just as you enter Forest Park Drive (just off Woodhaven Boulevard) is the entrance to the walk through Strack Pond, which we covered here back in February.  We didn't take the whole walk today, but we did go in far enough to peek down at the pond.  The last time we saw it, it was frozen solid.  From our vantage point on top of the hill, we could see some folks down below skimming stones across its' surface.   

We came across this massive tree stub.  It might be hard to tell how big this is from the picture, but it had to be around 5 feet across.  Makes for a nice seat, these days.

Right in the center of that area of the park there used to be a stable where they gave pony rides.  It stood there for decades until, after years of not being used and falling into neglect, the stables were torn down.  For years, the posts and fencing that circled the whole shebang was left standing, but it was removed quite some time ago.  Today, if you look closely, you can still see the remnants of the path where the ponies used to walk. 

Here's a better view of the spot where they used to have the stable and the pony rides.   

At this point, we were wrapping up our walk so we stopped off at the carousel to take a few more snaps.  The scant remnants of the pony rides above should serve as a warning.  If we aren't careful, a few years from now we might be looking at a bare patch in the park and writing: "This is where the famous Forest Park Carousel used to be . . ." 

And one last shot of the Carousel before we go . . . this is an interesting picture below because it looks cold. . . the trees are bare, and the leaves are on the ground . . . this picture might have been taken in January, in 30 degree weather . . . but it was, indeed, warm yesterday.  We'll keep an eye on the trees and see how long it takes to fill up with green.

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