Gracywoods Park

Love this park! There’s a playscape for the kiddos, tons of benches, a few picnic tables, bbq pits, a volleyball court, gazebo overlooking the creek, small trail for running or biking and spacious grass areas. I come here often b/​c it’s attached to the apartments I live in, but if it wasn’t I can see that parking would be an issue. I’ve taken a few clients here for pictures. There’s tons of trees and great lighting. I’ve also had a few picnics here with family. Makes it easy when there’s a playground for the kiddos. It’s never too busy and it usually stays pretty quiet.

I’m always looking for good, shaded places to catch some slow walking around, or as I like to call it, «jogging». So, having seen a business listing for another park near me, and the City’s website declaring it has «a wonderful hard surface walking trail», I thought I’d hunt down Gracywoods park.
Well, finding the park was no issue. You can see the sign for it while driving on Metric, on the northbound side, right before the bridge over Walnut Creek. But, alas, this park has no parking anywhere near that sign. Or any real parking at all. I ended up pulling into the neighborhood off Cedar Bend, and just tried to get close enough and pulled over. There is a little spot where there are no houses to park in front of, but I wasn’t too excited about that. Apparently, on the other end of the park (the Bittern Hollow side) the Catholic Church has a lot of parking. But not sure how kosher (sorry for the mixed metaphor) it is to park there.
It’s a very simple park. One playscape, a couple swings, a volleyball court (a net set up in part of the fields), some benches and some tables/​bbq pits. Not sure how you’d get your picnic stuff easily in/​out with no parking. And the «hard surface walking trail» means «about a half-​mile of sidewalk that goes mostly around the back of an apartment complex». It’s that sort of pebbly surface that rich folks get their driveways made out of. And you can never really get out of earshot of traffic. The path does not make a loop. You can make it a «one mile loop», but that would involve half of that trip being outside the park, on street sidewalks alongside Metric and Bittern Hollow.
Maybe if you’re a crafty mountain biker or hiker, you can find the way to connect this park to the larger Walnut Creek to make it more interesting. The city seems like it should be able to connect a good trail from Lamar over to Duval/​Mopac, but it’s not quite there. Sure, if you live in the adjacent properties/​apartments and need a place to entertain/​tire out your kid, or want a short walk to talk with your s.o., or a place for your dog to poop… But I don’t really see any need for folks to come from more than a few blocks away to here, when there are much nicer places close by (Walnut Creek on the Lamar side, or up in Wells Branch).
3.1 stars.