Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Walker/Johnston Park in Urbandale: The Park of Slides

It was another beautiful almost-spring day, so the kids and I went on a mission to try to find a park. I spotted Walker-Johnston Park on a map, but I couldn't find the playground on Google Earth. It must be brand new because it's there now! Parts of it were still under construction (but it was safe to play). The playground is next to the skate park.


Never in my life have I been to a park with so many slides! If you count the double slides as 2, there are seventeen slides at this playground! One is the steepest slide I've ever seen. Joanna had no fear and attempted to go down most of the slides. The tube ones were her favorite, even though she shot down so fast that she'd spin around and come out the bottom facing backwards!
                       


Oliver, my ever-cautious child, was not interested in trying out the steepest or fastest slides. At first, he would only go on the smallest slides. Before we left, he worked his way up to some of the "medium slides."


Now here's the cool part about this park. It's not open yet, but there are two super-long slides that go from the playground down to the swing set. So, kids literally slide down the hill to swing :)


We walked down to the swing set. Oliver really dug the tire swing.

We went for a stroll across the bridge by the playground, which goes over North Walnut Creek. On the other side is a soccer field, which the kiddos enjoyed running across. Back the other way are baseball fields and tennis courts.

There were picnic tables under some trees, which would be a nice place to sit down in the summer.

By the bridge, we also spotted this trail, pictured below. Apparently, there's a way you can take it to another trail and follow it all the way south until it merges with the Bill Riley Trail, which we saw earlier this week from Greenwood/Ashworth Park. It's all connected. Pretty neat! According to Google Maps, it would take about 30 minutes to cycle from this park to Water Works Park and another 15 minutes to get to Gray's Lake.

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