Walk With Me - Through A Park?

I posted a few days ago about how boring this town is I'm working in right now. The view from my window is horrible, I'm stuck eating pub food, fast food, or microwave food all the time, and there isn't much to do here unless you want to spend money.

I don't!

I had mentioned in one of my last posts about going out and finding a concrete pond or something so that's exactly what I did. I ended up walking up the main street, past the mall that doesn't really sell anything useful, past the fast food restaurants, and through intersection after intersection of people waiting to race to the next red light.

Eventually, I found a 'park' that I could walk through. I'm not sure I'd go so far to call it a park. If the last set of trails I walked through in this town was classified as a park, I'm not sure this one should meet the same requirements to get the same name. Everything in it seemed very fake.

Don't take my word for it. Have a look for yourself.

Right off the bat you can see that this park is filled with an assortment of old shady trees for anyone to sit down under and have a picnic. The grass is green through the whole park, and there is no evidence at all that there is a whole sewer system under this park killing the grass each year.

The artwork along the paved nature trail was interesting. It really helped to get me in touch with nature while strolling through this park. Nothing does that better than pressure treated lumber encased in polished metal with shitty looking stars cut into it.

At least there is a nice view of a brainwashing facility up where everyone can see it. No Quebec town is complete without at least two brainwashing facilities. It would make a nice picture if those disgusting power lines and cookie cutter houses weren't there.

After a lot of bushwacking and treacherous asphalt walking, I made it to the concrete pond. The effort was well worth it. It was so relaxing watching the water flow along its natural course along the rapids down to the pool of water below. Mother Nature sure knew what she was doing when she made this pond.

On my way back to the hotel I thought, "What could possibly beat that fantastic concrete pond I just witnessed?" Well, it occurred to me that there were a number of trees around that just didn't quite seem like the other randomly placed trees that were all growing in a straight line along the natural asphalt path.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it though. Can you spot the difference between these trees and the others throughout the park?

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am not a big fan of cities. This place isn't even a city, it just wants to be. I believe there is only a population of about 45,000 so it doesn't come 1/3 of the way to qualify for even a Costco. That doesn't stop them from having a 4 lane road with a divider running down the town, complete with a set of traffic lights every 100 meters. The lights aren't even pressure sensitive so you more than likely will be the only one sitting there at the red light while nobody is on the green direction.

From what I can observe, this place is only doing well because it is required to pass through it coming from the Atlantic Provinces into the rest of Canada if you want to avoid the US. There are also a lot of nice houses just outside town overlooking the St. Lawrence River. I suspect it's all people who work in Quebec City and come back for the weekend. They all look too well kept and too perfect for my liking though.

The whole town just gives off this fake vibe to me. All this art, pavement, concrete, water features, fake trees, and even the real ones were paid for through extortion. None of it was necessary, and it just seems like it was added as a distraction to make it look like it was for the people being extorted. If they had a choice to pay for that park or not, what do you think the majority would have done? Would they go with all the stone and concrete or use natural building supplies that probably would have cost less? Would they put a stone waterfall thing in, or made a natural pond to attract ducks and other animals? Would they have cut down all the trees just to plant other trees? Would they have paid for the hideous artwork at probably a special inflated government price?

I'd like to think not, but I guess I'll never know since they didn't have a choice.

At least the weather was good for walking. It was much better than hanging out in a hotel room all day. Even if I was surrounded by concrete.

Well, off to get some fast food, again. Have a good one.