Germantown Greenline

Occasionally Team Oster does make it out of Midtown/Downtown to enjoy the surrounding amenities. Our goal for the four day weekend with the kids was to check out the Germantown Greenline that runs along the Wolf River on Humphreys between Germantown Parkway and Kirby.

Frankly, I didn't know it existed until Warren made an off-handed comment about it as we were driving down Humphreys one day. Then it clicked. "Oh that must be the trail that runs up next to Las Tortugas on Germantown Parkway," I said.

Now, I had a real incentive to explore the unknown treasure.

This weekend, we took the boys, their bikes, our skates, a skateboard, lots of water and some snacks and headed out east around 11:00am. We parked at the first trailhead a little east of the intersection of Humphreys and Kirby near the electric substation. There was a nice little .5 mile loop to the west and a 1.5 mile stretch to the east. We did the loop just to test the waters and then ventured out towards Las Tortugas. (Warren made the smart decision to switch to his skateboard from his fancy inline speed skates at this juncture.)

The Greenline was nice and smooth and had some really fun rolling hills. Also along the way were several interesting things to check out with educational signage. We saw a life-sized beaver den, a butterfly garden, an Osprey habitat, a well, and a solar panel demo. (Hi Al!) There was even a city employee on a tractor blowing leaves! And nice restrooms! And garbage cans!

At one point Warren and Satchel (who were several yards ahead of me and Jiro) came across three deer. The deer were startled and quickly scampered off as Satchel screeched, "Look! Kangaroo!"

It took us about an hour and a half to get to Las Tortugas. The trail actually kept going and had we not have been starved, we would have gone further. We couldn't resist skating/riding underneath Germantown Parkway just for a minute though. It was nice and cool and much to Warren's surprise, graffiti free.

Lunch was AWESOME, of course. (I'll write more about that later.) Once refreshed we headed back to the car. The ride/skate back only took about thirty minutes. (Probably because we didn't stop every few feet and check out the sights/signage.)

It was a great way to spend the afternoon and I can hardly wait to go back--especially when it cools off. We're considering canoeing again if we can convince the monkeys that it won't be like last time!


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