Westside Park - Group 2 - Xenia, City of Hospitality

Trip Theme - Xenia, City of Hospitality

Trip Overview/ Things to do

We planed this to go to a park in Xenia and The Dairy Station, an amazing ice cream place that most people here liked. This trip was fairly easy because there weren't many ups and downs. This trip was mostly on flat ground so it was a long stretch to where we were heading. There weren't many curves in the path, mostly a straight path. We could see that Xenia really appreciated many bicyclists, as was evident from the good condition of the biking trails.

We rode 26 miles total. 13 miles to Westside Park (James Ranch) in Xenia, Ohio and 13 miles back to school. Once we got there we played a class game of kickball until our lunches were brought to us. There were other activities that we could have played such as baseball, play tag, possibly soccer. Then we spent about a half hour eating our lunch at the shelter and playground that was there. After lunch A.J., Ray Hampton's older brother came on Ray's bike to bring Ray his bike and join us in a game of kickball and ice cream. When we finished our lunch, we rode about 2 miles to The Dairy Station and we all had ice cream or milkshakes. Once we got The Dairy Station, our teacher Mrs. Curran, got a free ice cream cone for taking up 28 kids to The Dairy Station.

                              Yusuf about to kick a smasher!       Evan throwing a fast pitch

                                       Our excited crowd             Teagan was a fielder and a cheerleader!

 

                                                 LUNCH!!!                                  Joel sliding to home!!

Ice Cream Break!!!!

One of the things that we could have done while we were at Westside Park, was to find some geocaches around the park. One of the Geocaches you could find is Westside Park- Reborn. Geocaching is defined as "the outdoor sport or game of searching for hidden objects by using Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates posted on the Internet." Geocaches can be hidden almost everywhere, as long as they are not buried. There are a number of geocaches around Xenia parks, though there are only two at the Westside Park.
 
Day Plan:

• Leave school at 8:45am
• Ride 14mi. to Westside Park
• Play a class game of kickball till 11:30am
• Eat lunch for a half an hour
• Bike to The Dairy Station
• Ride back to school

Direction on how to get to Westside Park:

1. Turn right onto Woodman after leaving school
2. Continue on Woodman, then turn left onto Iron Horse Trail
3. Follow Iron Horse Trail past Highway 35, then turn right onto Creek Side Trail
4. Follow Creek Side Trail for 10miles, then turn right onto Towler Road Spur
5. Follow Towler Road Spur to Westside Park

 The Green path is the path we took to Westside Park in Xenia.

 Directions to The Dairy Station:

1. Get on Towler Road spur, follow it to Creek Side Trail
2. Turn right onto Creek Side Trail, then right onto Towler Road
3. Turn left onto N West Street
4. Follow N West Street to W Ankeney Mill Road
5. Turn right onto W Ankeney Road follow it to The Dairy Station on the right. 

Most Memorable Experiences:
Going to The Dairy Station in Xenia and feeling sick on the bike back from eating too much ice cream. You would imagine that people would get frustrated having thirty young, smelly people in their restaurant, but nobody seemed to get mad at us. I do supposed that it helped that most of us were buying ice cream, but many of us didn't know what we wanted right away. Though, Xenia is the city of hospitality.

Sources Cited: 

"Parks." Xenia City Hall, 2008. Web. 3 June 2014. <www.ci.xenia.oh.us/index.php?page=parks>.

"West Side Park - Reborn." Geocaching.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 June 2014. <http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3PWGG_west-side-park-reborn>.