White Rock Creek

The campus of Children's Hospital at the southwest corner of  Hedgecoxe and Preston has become so beautiful this spring that I can not help looking at that direction whenever I pass by. One day I noticed people jogging on the east side of the campus. Is there a trail? I became really curious.

Sunday after lunch we decided to go and explore. I was surprised when we got there. The paved trail by the hospital runs both south and north directions, with no ends in sight. 

We decided to go south first. The trail is parallel to a creek which gently flows southward. Wild flowers were blooming on its bank. Many birds were flying around.  A unique black bird with red flower like patches on its wings caught our eyes. The paved trail stops at Legacy road; but an unpaved trail continues south across Legacy. I went further to check it out. The creek opens up wider and is more like a lake on the south side of Legacy. Perhaps there is a dam down south. 

Heading north on the trail passing our starting point, we crossed the creek over a bridge. There is a ranch. Three horses were munching and playing. The creek is really shallow now, white rock at the creek bed is visible. The trail follows the zigzagged creek, crossing Preston via an underpass, and continues going north on the east side of Preston. There it winds into a large wooded area, quiet but a bit desolated. Our curiosity to find the trail's northern end led us all the way to an underpass near Ohio. 

I've been driving pass the bridges near Hedgecoxe Road and Preston Road for years, yet I had never checked what the creek is beneath the bridges.It turned out that the creek is named white rock creek, which starts from Frisco, TX, and runs all the way to the White Rock Lake in Dallas. The trail is named Legacy trail, which starts at WH "Razor" Park in Plano, and ends on W Spring Creek Parkway. The trail is not continuous; the portion we walked on is a longer continuous portion of the trail.

In a densely populated area, right by a major south-north traffic artery,  white rock creek shapes this area into a truly urban wilderness, an oasis in concrete and brick. What a gem!