A crane barge has been sitting at the base of the outlet tower for a few weeks now, visible from almost every bend in the Lakeside Nature Trail. Netting has gone up around the gazebo cap. By the time you read this, the external fixtures will already be off and scaffolding will be wrapping the upper shaft. The Lafayette Reservoir most of us walk three mornings a week is in the middle of the biggest physical change it has seen in nearly a century, and the visible part of it is happening now.
Here is the thing worth understanding before you reroute your summer: the park is not closing. The schedule of what is allowed, when, and where has been written down in unusual detail this year, and residents who know the sequence will keep their routines mostly intact while everyone else assumes the gates are locked. The disruption is real but narrow. The rhythm around it is more interesting than the rhythm being interrupted.
