An Ordinary Odyssey

I wanna take a moment to talk about why my blog is called “An Ordinary Odyssey.” Kind of a weird name for a travel blog. Most travel blogs are about extraordinary far off places. Or, at the very least, about the coolest places in a particular area. So why am I focusing on the ordinary? I do intend to post about some rather extraordinary place from time to time. As I write this, I am actually surrounded by the piles of things I’m considering taking on my two week Colorado road trip that I leave for in 4 days. I will definitely be writing alllll about that and the crazy awesome places on my itinerary! My whole life I’ve dreamed of visiting exotic far off place. I’ve certainly gone to a few, and my hope is that this blog will help me hold myself accountable to going to more down the line. But, yes, I AM also writing about totally ordinary things. That will in all likelihood be the bulk of my posts and I think that is incredibly important!

You see, I think it is just too easy to get so wrapped up in the longing for the exotic that you forget to appreciate the everyday. We spend too much time scrolling social media and feeling envious of all the crazy adventures of others. We think to ourselves “some day I’ll get out there and do that too” and then we rarely ever do. The Big Adventures are hard! They are scary, expensive, stressful, and require so much planning and ability to take time off work. So we put them off. We make excuses, whether valid or not. And we forget that you can have amazing, impactful experiences anywhere, anytime. Adventure, wanderlust, exploration….these are all more of a state of mind than anything else.

So, I wanted to create a blog that was first and foremost a celebration of the Ordinary Odyssey.

• Ordinary: of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events
• Odyssey: an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest

For me, I learn the most about myself, who I want to be, and how I want to live my life by being out in nature. I used to believe that you had to go to extraordinary places to have any sort of “awakening” but that isn’t true. You can discover SO much about yourself and the world in totally ordinary places in your own backyard, city, and state. By all means, go out and travel the world! I love to see it! And you will definitely cherish those experiences. But also, get out there and see your own little corner of the world too. It will also teach you things.

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With that in mind, I wanted to share this cute little park I found, tucked away in a subdivision in Milwaukee! Let’s take a quick tour of Grobschmidt Park!

At least once a month, I try to visit somewhere in Southeast Wisconsin that I’ve never been. Lately, I’ve been trying to explore all of the tiny little greenspaces that dot the landscape. They are the places that you go if you live nearby but never think about otherwise. Even if you technically drive by them on the highway every day! I’ve driven through this community literally hundreds of times. I’ve seen this on the map, but never once thought to stop! Well, let this be your sign to stop more often! Cause this place was so peaceful and beautiful!

Even though this park is not too far from a busy shopping area and there are homes and apartments all around, we only saw two other people on the trail the whole time we were there! It was a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-May too, which usually brings everyone out on the trails. At first, when you enter from the main entrance on 35th, it feels a little underwhelming. You catch glimpses of the lake through the trees, but mostly you are just walking through dense woods. But as you reach the far side of the lake, things change. You wander off into the woods and get to see tons of different views! The lake becomes more visible, the understory changes, you start to cross little rock bridges over tiny streams, and eventually come to a beautiful prairie.

The whole time we were walking, I was thinking about how lucky we are to live in an area with so many greenspaces and so many bodies of water. So many, many people don’t have access to this, and I am eternally grateful for ours. I was also thinking about this blog and my own Ordinary Odyssey. I have done some extraordinary things in my life, true. But many of those things happened in my early 20s, when I was still incredibly shy, nervous, and scared to take big risks. I travelled through study abroad programs that were well planned for me and I honestly didn’t take advantage of my free-time. I look back and am both amazed at the things I experienced and amazed at how little initiative I had back then, and thus the opportunities I let pass me by. Nowadays, I am much less shy and totally willing to dive headfirst into all sorts of things. But I also have responsibilities. So I do more ordinary things, but with more intention. Like exploring this little gem of a park!

How to Visit

First off, just know that there are zero amenities here besides one picnic table at the entrance! This is a rustic little park tucked away in a subdivision. You have to park on the street off S 35th Street or S 46th Street to access the trails. There’s only really one big trail in the park, with options to just circle Mud Lake or to cut off the far west part of the lake and extend into a bigger woods/prairie loop. If you do the large loop, it is only about 1.7 miles total hiking. However, there are several smaller “desire paths” that people have made that lead off into the woods or down to the boggy area which I haven’t explored yet!

I hope that if you find yourself in this area that you’ll take the time to visit. It’s a short, easy hike, and I think it would pair well with a day of running errands at the shops nearby, or a delightful little meetup with a friend.