Best park E.V.E.R.

This park is in my hometown, and I am neither kidding nor exaggerating when I say that it is the best park ever. Seriously, in all my 41 years, I have never seen a better park. It has the coolest playground, with all sorts of unusual stuff to climb, a huge swing that holds multiple kids, and a saucer-shaped merry-go-round that one person can get going with just their body weight. Part of the park is under a roof -- it used to be one of the pavilions for the old fairgrounds that was once there -- so it's nice and shady. The ground under the roof is either sand or that rubbery playground stuff, and the toys and cool things to climb on there are mostly suited to littler kids. There's a second pavilion too -- huge! -- with a bunch of picnic tables under it. It would be a great place for a kid's birthday party. I hear they're eventually going to start having a farmer's market under the second pavilion, but I haven't seen signs of it yet. My mom said they're also going to set up booths along the river for local artisans to display their work. There are a lot of artists in town; it's a town that's known worldwide for its sculture and many sculptors live in town. They even thought of the dogs -- there's a dog park there -- and they saved the bleachers from the old rodeo arena and apparently have concerts there in the summer. It's a killer park, I'm telling you. If you're ever headed that way, let me know & I'll tell you how to get there. Now if the lame town I live in now could just come up with something like this!

The merry-go-round

Giant swing

Speaking of sculpture -- there's a beautiful one near the river made of silver metal & blue & green glass that I sadly forgot to photograph -- next time. Just below that, they've dammed the river and built wide, shallow steps down into the water. It was moving too fast to play in the day we were there (thanks to the spring runoff and all that crazy rain we've been having), but it would be fun later in the summer on a hot day.

Not that we all stayed dry:


Because they also have a splash park:


B was pretty happy to get wet once we'd been there for awhile, but Z wasn't so into it. The water was pretty cold, so I don't really blame her.


Z also got tired of me taking her picture. Here she is running away from me shouting, "Stop. Taking. My. PICTURE!!!" Did I stop? Eventually. Until she wasn't looking.

Still a kid at heart

The elusive and mysterious J

Z was so in need of a nap after the trip to the park that she snuggled down in the dog bed