When we were preparing to leave Louisville last year, I wrote about the things I would miss most. The first thing on that list was Cherokee Park.

Last weekend, we returned to Louisville to pack up our apartment for D.C. I planned to pack running shoes for a final trail run in Cherokee, then left them out, realizing that 1) I probably wouldn’t have time to run and 2) if I did, I would be tired and achey, making packing more difficult.

I was right, there was no time for running or walking in the park, so I settled for a quick drive through with a stop at the top of Baringer Hill. As soon as we drove underneath the green archway leading into the park, my eyes started leaking. That park gave me so much solace in my time in Louisville, and I missed it and will continue to miss it. I needed this one final visit and view.

If you read last year’s post, you’ll recall that the first time I ran in Cherokee Park, I got so lost I had to call home for a ride. Going on these exploratory runs is becoming a habit. I did it once in St. Louis and kept running until I found my way home. The most extreme was Louisville. It never happened in Cambridge because I try to run on unpaved paths, and the most convenient one I found was along the Charles. Can’t get confused going up and down a river.

Smartphones make getting truly lost nearly impossible, but I managed to confuse myself on my inaugural Washington, D.C. run. We’re staying near Rock Creek Park, so yesterday I walked to the Melvin C. Hazen trail and started running. When I got tired, I looked at my phone to find my way out of the park. I went the wrong way before I decided to stop running and start using the map to get home. It took me about 45 minutes of walking through Chevy Chase and Forest Hills before I got home again.

Crossing creeks makes a run more interesting.

After the first time I got really confused running in St. Louis, I decided this was a great way to learn a new neighborhood. I fully plan to confuse myself in Rock Creek Park again. Our new home will about a five minute walk from the park, on the other side of the creek. I’m happy to be close to a park again and look forward to learning it as well as I did Cherokee.

Number one on my list of places I love and will miss like crazy in Louisville is Cherokee Park.

I have been so lucky to live within a five minute walk of this gem since I moved here. I’m there every few days, walking, biking the Scenic Loop, giving someone directions that I hope will either get them to the Big Rock or out of the park, but most likely will just get them even more lost. I know this because my first encounter with Cherokee Park left me so lost I still don’t know exactly where I was.

In August 2008, I took a Peace Corps vacation to visit Gabe in Louisville, where he had moved while I was in Togo. I was training for a marathon, and I needed to run 12 miles. We mapped out a route online that would take me up Lexington Road, through Cherokee Park, and somehow I would return to point A. I got into the park, and then I ended up at what I think, looking at a map now, is the green part between Pee Wee Reese and Rock Creek Road. The people I asked for directions back to the Cherokee Triangle proved useless, so I just turned around. Then I was by Bowman Field (or the “indie airport,” as Gabe called it when we planned the route. To be clear, the airport was not included on the route). Then I was at a gas station on Taylorsville Road. Then I was at the Heine Brothers at the Douglass Loop, calling Gabe to please come get me, because although I finally knew how to get home, I was too dehydrated to keep trudge-running down Bardstown Road.

Cherokee Park and I got off to a rough start. But we’ve been making up since then. I’ve watched Thunder from the playground by the golf course, made friends while running the trails, seen unexpected wildlife (turtle on the trail! Deer bursting out of the brush!), and gotten immense joy from watching dogs play on Baringer Hill at dusk. In winter, I get sad when, standing by Hogan Fountain, I can see clear through the leafless trees, down the hill to the rugby field (or whatever we call that field where the LARPers gather). But in summer, the leaf-cover is so thick and green, it’s easy to pretend you’re far from civilization (until the ice cream truck drives by on the road above you).

Winter is made better by children sledding & strangers muttering, "Do they have to scream so loud."

I don’t get lost in the park anymore. I know exactly how to get to Big Rock, and while I can’t give you very good directions (“Go down the second hill, and if you go up the hill at the hairpin curve, uh… follow that road… and turn right… or, if you take the curve, go right at the stop…”), I could lead you there on my bike. But it’s probably something you have to learn for yourself.

Go left to get to that rock. Or is it right? I will miss you, Cherokee Park.

Just Exploring (Getting Lost in) Rock Creek Park

31 Days of Louisville Love: Cherokee Park