Jim Ferris

Review of Wesselman Nature Society

There are two things we look for when we travel. ...

There are two things we look for when we travel. 1) Brewhouses and 2) Parks. We found both in Evansville, and Wesselman Woods is an amazing place, even though our visit was cut short.

It's a bit off the beaten path, as you have to go through a residential area and then past another park/sports complex, but it's worth the drive. The parking area is next to a community recycling center, which I think is appropriate because anything that's returned there isn't getting put in a landfill or thrown out into the wilderness.

When you enter the park there is a heavily-treed path you follow to the Visitor's Center. For being located near a large city you'd think that the park would be pretty open...exposed....but that's not the case. This park is SO green and you can't even tell where the Visitor's Center is until you're almost directly in front of it.

That Visitor's Center has quite a few displays (plant and animal) for you to peruse before you go out into the wilderness. The part I liked the best was the curved display that looked out onto an area that a variety of birds frequent, along with informational plaques. I could have spent hours in that room alone.

The cost to walk the trails is $5 per person. We were advised that we should apply some mosquito repellent because it had rained pretty heavily during the previous couple of days and, as a result, the mosquitoes were pretty thick. Well, I'm here to tell you, "the mosquitoes were pretty thick" doesn't even come close to describing the density of the mosquito population that day.

Nowhere Near.



What we were able to see of the nature preserve was beautiful. The trails are very clearly marked and directional signs are never too far out of sight (which came in handy as we tried to frantically find out way back to non-mosquito-infected territory), and the trails themselves were very well maintained.

The next time we're in Evansville we plan visiting again (hopefully NOT after a monsoon) so we can take our time to better enjoy the plant and wildlife without being attacked. It really is a beautiful place.