Doha Eve: The Chattahoochee

When we first moved here, I was quite excited about living so close to the river and we really did enjoy going to Jones Bridge Park and splashing around and walking the trails. But then COVID happened and the park was shut down and then tore up "Paradise" (a big bush the kids used as a fort) and then they closed the whole creek area for "conservation" (and turned a natural creek into what frankly appears to be a manmade disaster) and then they closed the bridge that makes the park be so close to us (quadrupling the time it takes to get there). But we decided we should go today and it was beautiful...but we were a little annoyed to see that the sewer project from last summer (which also closed a large area of the park again) meant that they also shut down half the trail. So the entire hiking trail is now about 200 feet long. 

Perhaps one day the park will be better again, but it has been a bit of a disappointment every time we've gone these last few years. 

That said, the river really was beautiful:

The kids all noted how cold the river is (and they are not wrong).

Sitting by the river made me wish that we had been able to visit more often (but, again, with all the closures for construction and whatnot it wasn't really possible).

This lone female mallard swam up to where Phoebe was wading and gave her a disgruntled little "QUACK!"

Never has a child ever exited a river with such intensity. She screamed and ran up the stairs to Andrew and me, exclaiming, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

Here she is nervously (and a little sheepishly) laughing while recounting the scenario:

The only child to slip and fall in the river was Phoebe (everyone else managed to stay mostly dry, which is a small miracle). After she plunged in, I asked her how the water was.

"Goo..." she started to say and then ended with, "...old."

We figure she was merging the words "good" and "cold."

"Why did I do that?" she lamented. 

"You slipped," I said. 

"That was dumb," she said. "Now I'm wet and cold."

Well...yeah. You are. But it wasn't really dumb. It was just an accident.

We tried to see if we could recreate this picture of the children by the "annoying noises prohibited" sign (circa 2020), but that sign has disappeared with all the updates to the park.

We settled for taking a few pictures with the playground behind us (observant eyes will notice that 2026 Alexander is wearing the same shorts as 2020 Benjamin and 2026 Phoebe is wearing the same pants as 2020 Zoë...this was completely by happenstance, but I kind of love that it happened):

The gathering, grumbling storm clouds once again informed us it was time to head home...

But not before we held one last oak worm:

Bye, Chatt!