Grant Park

So I admit, after awhile all these playgrounds's equipment begin to look the same. I mean you've got the slides and the towers and kid friendly steps. If you're lucky you get monkey bars. And for some reason the metal posts are always painted green. I suppose its to try to blend in with the environment. "Look! I'm really a leafy tree!" (Personally, I haven't been convinced yet). Or maybe green is one of those colors science says is soothing and conflict reducing. You know, to cut down on the violence that naturally occurs whenever two or more children are located within 100 feet of each other. Not sure how much that works, but my kids continue to steal toys and yell at strangers without much regard to the soothing effects.

Color scheme aside, Grant Park is quiet. Super quiet. Like I could hear the white noise of nature quiet. Which, now that I think of it, is actually disconcerting because nature is rather few and far between in the middle of the city. Anyways, very peaceful and relaxing. It is separated from a quiet, residential street by fencing, a small parking lot, and more fencing. There are big swaths of grass for running and for flowers to pick and even trees on the far away fences that provide handy-dandy sticks. Hardly anyone was there on a pleasant sweater morning.

Oh yeah. Check out the climbing rock back there! I love climbing rocks. If I wasn't a mother of three and chasing them around half the time (and terrified of strange looks) I'd totally be sitting up on the climbing rocks. AND a tire swing! I thought I wouldn't ever see tire swings anymore. Admittedly there are warning stickers all over both of these playground treasures berating you to be careful and play with caution and to take note that the city is not responsible for your idiotic use of the equipment. But I'll deal with a little bit of slightly peeled, gummy paper if I get to have tire swings and climbing rocks.

Spider nets are fun too.

And mud makers. Officially it's a water fountain but we all know its real purpose in life - supplying water to the mud addicts.

I felt a little weird taking this picture, like I should be asking the parents to sign waivers and permission forms for me to photograph their kids. But I decided that I was just photographing my own kid and the other children were unfortunate casualties in the line of fire. I'm always paranoid about taking pictures in public because I just know one of these days some angry person is going to yell at me for capturing their child's soul in my camera. So I try to do it furtively without being furtive - quickly and discreetly, without the "I'm doing something wrong" guilty look on my face. Yeah, I totally think too much about these things.

All in all, Grant Park is an excellent, quiet park. Small enough to keep track of kids, while spacious enough for a bit of exercise. In fact, I can't think of anything to complain about. OK. I take that back (After all I am a master complainer). My one complaint: It's not close enough to my house. The city planners totally should have thought of that when they decided to build it. Selfish city planners.

1575 Holt Ave, Los Altos, CA 94024