There's a playground near where we live that was put up when I was in my twenties. I remember my next-door neighbor had three children and they were telling me about this, "All Children's Playground" and how fun it was. One day I got around to going with them and then I saw what they were talking about. It was not only a fun playground, it was a fantastic playground.
It was made of almost all wood and whoever designed it was a master at stacking play spaces on top of each other. The whole structure looks like a castle of sorts. There are so many ways to get up to the various high points and the number of lower-level dungeon-type areas or corridors is exciting in and of itself. I don't believe I could imagine a more challenging hide-and-go-seek location.
There are slides and poles and big tires and tunnels and zip lines and rubber walkways and rocking bridges and over twenty years later, I'm still having fun at that playground. We went to play there with our neighbor's daughter yesterday and I discovered they were doing a fundraising motorcycle motorcade event today to help raise money for a special needs addition to the park.
I brought the flyer over and my husband and mother looked at it with me. My husband said he'd be interested in participating and that's just what we did today. Mom and I took the children over to the park and we waited for daddy to arrive, with some new motorcycle-riding friends he had just met via a police escort and big fanfare to the park to help raise awareness and money for the playground.
It was great fun, most notably because my son was so excited by all the nice motorcycle riding people (who are about the nicest people you could meet.) We had some food and played on the playground and it was then that I looked again at the plan for the park's expansion.
They weren't raising money to add to the existing All Children's Playground in the empty area off to the side. This was a plan to tear down the old wooden structure and put in place a new plastic and metal pre-fabricated play area. It was at this point that I got a little sad. Sure, I love these new, colorful, exciting looking, feature-full playgrounds that seem to be appearing in parks all across the nation, but they're so much the same.
There's nothing wrong with them, but they lack character. They feel new and shiny, but they don't have the feel you get from natural materials like wood. I'm not sure why the existing playground needs to be replaced, it looks like it's got lots of life left in it but that's the plan. I'll miss the old playground. I wonder how long it will be before there aren't any wooden playgrounds left?
The Big Boy Update: Motorcycle Rally. He had the best time today watching close to fifty motorcycles ride into a nearby park and pull up all around him. I videoed the whole arrival in the hopes he would go crazy yelling and pointing at all the motorcycles. Instead, he was struck silent as he tried to take in both the number and volume of the motorcycles around him. When he saw daddy on his motorcycle, the grinning and finger pointing started and then the jumping up and down. It was fun to watch as a parent.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Hauling the ice. Today she got the large plastic dump truck that gets pushed around the house regularly and backed it up to the ice machine. This is the ice machine she likes to spend time standing in front of eating ice. This time, she decided to load up the dump truck with some ice and take it on a tour of the house.
Fitness Update: Eighteen miles this morning. I ran long. I ran slow. But I ran my furthest distance yet. Eighteen miles sounds like a lot, and believe me, it is. But it's still eight point two miles shy of a marathon. My legs were shaking when I got home and I'm far more tired than I would normally be after a run. I am nowhere near ready to run a marathon as of today, but I'm getting closer.
Someone Once Said: All normal human beings have soi-distant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts; those who know this and those who do not.
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