Paradise in the Oddest Place

Who would've thought we would discover a small piece of paradise nestled away in the hustle and bustle of the big city? It turns out taking the dog for a nice evening walk can really uncover a lot of hidden gems.

It started out as the usual routine of walking the dog, peering into the backyards of others (purely to get landscaping ideas) and nonchalantly catching up on our days activities. We decided to take the dog to an area that she hadn't been to before and maybe even hit a garage sale or two on the way. As we made our way through the row houses and the cookie cutter houses, we came across a path. Normally a path all by itself wouldn't warrant a change of direction, but it was the mature trees and slight glimpse of a small road that caught our eye. We decided the garage sales could wait and we would take this unknown path to see what lay beyond the trees...

Once we turned the corner, we both knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. At first we were uncertain what lied behind the trees, but we walked a bit further and then we saw them. In the clearing we could make out 3 acreages, yes acreages in the heart of the city. We couldn't believe our eyes, with this discovery we decided to proceed down the tree lined roadway that somehow got us to the 'Twilight Zone'. As we continued on our little excursion, we soon discovered not 10, but 20 acreages hidden away. We're not talking tiny acreages either; from what we could tell some of them were 20-30 acres in size. All I could think was "…This is unbelievable."

Once the shock wore off, we proceeded to do more "investigating" and it turns out from what we can gather, these houses were built in the late 70's, early 80's. We thought back to when the owners initially purchased 20 odd years ago...and wondered who would’ve predicted these out of the way acreages would someday be a part of our ever growing city?

As the night sky started to grow darker we decided to leave what we now call "Our new favourite place in the city", we couldn't help but smile and think to ourselves...what a lovely hidden gem. Then we turned the corner back into the cookie cutter, row houses and reality. I guess paradise really is where you least expect it.