Sedgley Woods

Shawn and I very rarely get days off together, so two weeks ago when a Tuesday finally popped up that we both had off, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. Despite the threat of high temperatures later in the afternoon, we laced up our sneakers, threw on some hats, packed up some snacks, and headed to the nearest disc golf course: Sedgley Woods in Fairmount Park.

Disc golf is, essentially, golf in the woods with frisbees. Once you've made the initial purchase of a few discs (I say a few because you will lose them. The forest eats them up! I lost mine this game :( but that's what I get for having a green disc!), the activity itself is free. Our friends Dave and Briggette introduced us to disc golf about a year ago; we played a few games with them and got hooked. There are courses everywhere, but Sedgley Woods happens to be very close to us and it's one of the larger courses in the area. We are, by absolutely no means, anything more than novices. But a huge part of the joy of the game for us is that we get to be outdoors, enjoying nature. Surprisingly, the bugs wanted nothing to do with me that day... normally I am a bug magnet!

In the middle of the course, there is a structure that has been abandoned and graffitied for years. Every time I would try to go check it out though, Shawn would stop me by saying "Oh, I've heard there's a homeless man that lives in there... you don't want to bug him" or "The grass is really high, so it's hard to get out there", but this trip I wasn't hearing any of that. Next to one of the holes, I found a clearing in the forest that led right up to the structure, with no tall grass or homeless man standing in my way. There's not much there other than rubble and graffiti, but it was still satisfying to finally see it up close.








We took advantage of the fact that we finally had an opportunity to pull out our new camera (we bought it for ourselves for Christmas) and brought it along for the adventure. I mostly took photos of the sky and played around with macro mode. There's also a sport burst option on there that we tried out while throwing the discs - Shawn captured that great still of me "floating"... I didn't even realize that I hop when I toss the disc! It's neat to see what we both choose to take photos of, and it's really cool to see things through the eye of the camera. I couldn't read what was written on that bench above, but through the camera lens it is as clear as day! Hopefully we get a few more days off together this summer for some fun outdoor adventures.