My Town Monday: Something Fun to Do

One of the common complaints from Livingston County Youth is that there's nothing to do. I think they're just not trying hard enough. There's lots to do.

Livingston County is home to several parks, including Kensington Metro Park, which boasts a water park along with beaches, dic golf, nature center and trails for walking, biking, and skating. There's also the Hudson Mills Park which has disc golf along with trails beside the Huron River. And the Lakeland Trail, which is a linear state park. Plus there are several beaches.

Hartland Consolidated Schools has a fancy new pool with water slides, lazy river and other things since, when building the new high school and it's accompanying facility, the community was in favor of making it a community center. Non-residents are welcome, for a small fee of course. Most local schools have open swim for a nominal fee.

There's a couple miniature (or putt putt) golf courses in the area, including one in Howell and one in Hartland. I believe Golf-o-Rama, the indoor putt putt golf moved into Great Escape, which is a one acre indoor attraction featuring putt putt golf, bumper cars, go carts and more. And it's all indoors, so even in Michigan's lovely winter months, there's a place to go play. We can't forget Rollerama, the indoor rollerskating rink that's about as old as I am. More recently, for the extreme sports folks, a skate park was constructed behind Meijer in Brighton.

There are two movies theaters in Livingston County (well, more or less...) the large MJR theatre with 20 screens and movie tickets that cost more than the hourly minimum wage. There's also a small historic, two screen theater in Howell that is currently supposed to reopen, likely showing dollar movies. Oh, and not far away, South Lyon's historic theatre also shows the older flicks for a dollar. (That's a price I can deal with!)

For the younger kids, there's the Imgaination Station and Castaway Cafe. The former is a massive castle and play structure on the Mill Pond in Brighton. The latter is a large indoor play-place-- like the McDonald's play place, but on steriods and away from the intoxicating scent of McD's food.

For the more extreme, there's Hell's Survivor's Paintball Park. I never saw the appeal in amassing bruises, but I'm told it's great fun. There's also skiing and snowboarding in the winter months at our own Mt. Brighton. Plus summer includes rolling a giant hamster ball down that same hill.

One of the state parks in Livingston County is a riding stable, where you can 'rent' a horse. (That doesn't seem like the right term!) There's hour long trail rides and if you're like me, you learn that the hours can tell you're a pansy...

There's also the usual assortment of fairs and festivals... honestly, I think there's something about every two weeks in one town or another in this county. Hamburg's Railroad days or the Balloon Fest or the Melon Fest or the Summer Fest or Fowelerville's Fair or something or other going on.

Fall includes the Terrified Forest in Pickney and a slew of corn mazes, haunted or otherwise.

Most of the attractions are fairly inexpensive. If you can't find something to entertain yourself in Livingston County, you're not trying hard enough. Besides, it's less than an hour drive to Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Flint, all of which boast their own set of attractions. We've kind of got the best of both worlds here-- small town charm and close proximity to the attractions of the city.

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