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Terry Hershey Park At 15200 Memorial Dr.


roadrunner

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I wasn't sure where to put this, but this seemed like the right subforum.

How awesome is Hershey Park? For such a narrow park, it is amazing how once you walk around it you feel like you aren't in Houston. There are hills, the bayou, beautiful views...it's really a gem that I think the rest of the city hasn't caught onto. The stretch between Dairy Ashford and Wilcrest is especially scenic.

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I wasn't sure where to put this, but this seemed like the right subforum.

How awesome is Hershey Park? For such a narrow park, it is amazing how once you walk around it you feel like you aren't in Houston. There are hills, the bayou, beautiful views...it's really a gem that I think the rest of the city hasn't caught onto. The stretch between Dairy Ashford and Wilcrest is especially scenic.

There are a lot of people that complain about Terry Hershey Park, how its development by the Corps of Engineers resulted in the natural course of the bayou being straightened.

I am not among those people.

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There are a lot of people that complain about Terry Hershey Park, how its development by the Corps of Engineers resulted in the natural course of the bayou being straightened.

I am not among those people.

We live right on the park and totally love it. Its clean and natural, and amazingly the bad elements don't find it appealing. I think the limited parking to it helps to keep it more of a neighborhood park.I just wish they had let the horse stables stay. My husband grew up here having horses back in that area, and what an awesome place that would be to ride through. I think Hersey is even better than Memorial Park because you don't have to listen to the traffic and breath the exhaust fumes. Also the wide open fields are great for all the two hand touch football that goes on round here. Not having my flowers crushed by twenty 11 year olds is a good thing.

The only problem I have with the park is the bikers going 100 mph, hell bent on running over your dog while you are walking. There are signs everywhere about excessive speed, but some people.........

About the complainers: What they did, and how the neighborhoods are built around it keeps homes from being flooded and a natural enviroment for the bayou and the animals around it. ( However due to this we have a rabbit problem in our garden. :ph34r: ) I think its more important for the bayou to have breathing space than to have it mangled and winding, which causes massive trash backup. Once you get inside the Beltway, the houses are slammed right on top of the bayou, and I think that's worse IMHO. I think it would have been an incredible asset to the city if the park had been able to go all the way into downtown.

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What they did, and how the neighborhoods are built around it keeps homes from being flooded and a natural enviroment for the bayou and the animals around it. ( However due to this we have a rabbit problem in our garden. :ph34r: )

There's no such thing as a rabbit problem.

To harvest the fruit of your garden, I recommend a bolt action .22 rifle and that you use subsonic rounds, which because they don't break the speed barrier, don't produce the loud crack of noise like a regular gunshot. If you already have a semi-automatic rifle, you can use it, but be prepared for lots and lots of jamming with this ammo.

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There's no such thing as a rabbit problem.

To harvest the fruit of your garden, I recommend a bolt action .22 rifle and that you use subsonic rounds, which because they don't break the speed barrier, don't produce the loud crack of noise like a regular gunshot. If you already have a semi-automatic rifle, you can use it, but be prepared for lots and lots of jamming with this ammo.

I agree, rifles are better than shotguns. That buck shot can really crack a tooth. :D Seriously though, if those critters start messing with my herb and veggie garden I might have to go all Elmer Fudd on their fuzzy asses.

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  • 3 months later...

Here're some photos from our dog walk this past Saturday. I'm not in any photos since I've got the camera. My son is in the red shirt, and my daughter is in the white shirt. The big guy is my brother-in-law from Austin and his son in the Iron Maiden shirt.

The Dogs: The small white fuzzy dog is Roxy (we just call her "stupid dog" because, she's stupid). The fat white dog is Jewel. She's smart and as you can see has some sort of growth in her eye.

The beagle is Scarlette, Boris' girlfriend. And, of course, there's our dog Boris (my sign in name).

Now for the walk. We were at Hershey Park in West Houston close to our house. Hope you enjoy:

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Looks like Boris got a yank:

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Boris trying to act tough. He's a wus:

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Hey, it's Stupid Dog:

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What a poser:

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Time to feed the ducks:

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  • 1 month later...
I agree, rifles are better than shotguns. That buck shot can really crack a tooth. :D Seriously though, if those critters start messing with my herb and veggie garden I might have to go all Elmer Fudd on their fuzzy asses.

That never seemed to turn out well for Elmer.

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I grew up around the Kirkwood side of it before the redevelopment, and I think it was pre-Hershey Park.

Hershey Park, as I rememeber it, only was around Eldridge/Memorial only in the early 90's.

The part you mention was all dirt paths. There was a great fort on top of a hill with a rope swing, as well as the horse stables mentioned above.

I love it as a kid, and my friends and I would use that as a way to bike to each others home (they were off Wilcrest).

I have not seen it recently, but I think the asphalt paths and such ruined what was a nice natural field.

It was a piece of rural in an urban/suburban neighborhood.

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The only problem I have with the park is the bikers going 100 mph, hell bent on running over your dog while you are walking. There are signs everywhere about excessive speed, but some people.........

It would help of the pedestrians would pick the right side of the pathway and stick to it, as well as keep aware of us bikers coming upon your left. Half the time people are stumbling around like a bunch of drunks and aways seem take up the whole-wide pathway when walking in couples. It's also good to keep a tight grip on your dog and have him heel rather than wonder around on some 15 ft leash....

I'm just say'in...

Otherwise it's a great park!

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We live right on the park and totally love it. Its clean and natural, and amazingly the bad elements don't find it appealing. I think the limited parking to it helps to keep it more of a neighborhood park.

[. . .]

Once you get inside the Beltway, the houses are slammed right on top of the bayou, and I think that's worse IMHO. I think it would have been an incredible asset to the city if the park had been able to go all the way into downtown.

I think the lack of access to the park is a problem. Sure it keeps the "bad elements" out, but at the price of making it almost a private park for people who are lucky enough to live along it. Whenever I've been there, it has struck me as being seriously underused.

But I certainly agree with you about inside the Beltway. There is only one tiny park along the Bayou from the Beltway to Memorial Park, which is a damn shame.

Speaking of rabbits, here's one on the Terry Hershey bike path:

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And here is a fantastically lovely, rolling meadow (but completely desserted, alas).

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You can see more Terry Hershey photos here: http://robertwboyd.blogspot.com/2007/07/ho...s-6-part-1.html

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  • 1 month later...

Puma, it's still a great nature park and plenty of the old places are still. My husband knows all of them. The boys are always down there catching minnows and frogs.

It has been a getting a lot more traffic lately. I think word is getting out. When with the kids and dogs we stay up on the old trail, now called the "Quail Trail," that runs along behind the houses. When biking by ourselves, we go on the asphalt path. Often times we don't go west of Dairy Ashford. It goes from shaded pathes to being in full sun. Its amazing how fast the terrain changes.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hershey Park, as I rememeber it, only was around Eldridge/Memorial only in the early 90's.

My dad lived in the old apartments right by the park rights off Memorial near Eldridge. We used to around. It went to Eldridge and circled back to Memorial at that time. It didn't go on to the other side of Memorial. The back side (the one on the West side of the Bayou) was just a dirt path at the time and it was like that for a long time. I did the path last summer all the way to Beltway 8 and I was amazed at what all they've done.

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my friends sister kept a horse at the stables in the 80s

some other friends had a rope swing and a half-pipe on the other side of the bayou from the park behind Walnut Bend I never fell in the water off the swing, but some others did :o

some of those same friends found a dead guy on the other side of the bayou from the park right where Wilcrest meets the bayou.....he was hauling ass late at night and lost it in his vet and jumped the rail on the bridge and managed to flip just right to get between the two bridges and then spin and land backwards into the south imbankment of the bayou.....he had been there a few days when they found him :o:huh:

we never went over to that side of the bayou much as kids it was usually closed off to driving and there was nothing out there, but fields

I can't imagine the trouble we could get in out there if it was like it is today :D:lol:B)

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Most people don't realize that all the hills and rolling prairie aspects are all man-made. The Corps and Harris County Flood Control District planned it that way to support the hydraulics of the bayou and to provide increased flood protection.

Buffalo Bayou from Hwy 6 to east of downtown and the lower part of White Oak Bayou from I-610 to downtown are in a current federal study being performed by HCFCD. The study won't be fully complete for another 5 years. The target is increased flood protection and to a lesser extent to provide ecosystem restoration.

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  • The title was changed to Terry Hershey Park
  • The title was changed to Terry Hershey Park At 15200 Memorial Dr.

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