Hyland Park

Monday we went to the Hyland Play Area, which is just a short drive from our home.


I have to say, even as an adult I found this place impressive. It had two very nice smaller play structures for the five-and-under set. Cora enjoyed both the medium one:


(See her climbing up the slide?)

And the little one with the sand pit:


There were a few other features, like this cargo-net cube climber thingand some tire swings and some shaded benches (thank you! A park without shade is brutal).

And then for the bigger kids there is this huge, multi-story monolith of fifty-foot slides and tiers of rope ladders and tunnels and I don't even know what else was going on in there, but whatever it was, the school-age kids were enjoying the heck out of it. It's hard to describe and I'm not sure even the pictures capture this thing. It looked like so much fun:
One of Geoff's co-workers has a six-year-old, and they call this the chutes-and-ladders park.
I had a little bit of trouble keeping Cora out of there, but it was way over her ability level, and no way could Hazel and I go in there to accompany her. I finally told her that if she kept trying to sneak in there we would have to leave.

No problem, because she was gleefully distracted by her discovery of the misting arches. These were great--she got soaked to her satisfaction, but I was glad they didn't water-log her diaper or shoes.


Here she loses sight of me for a minute, but handles it just fine:

Satisfactorily cooled off, she's back to playing.
She had dried off to being only slightly damp by the time we had to get back in the car.

Hazel enjoyed this outing in the manner she does all outings that occur during her nap time.
Cora eventually slowed way down and then said she was ready to go home.

Very nice for a free public playground!