Eagle Park

Yeah, more lazy camera action going on here.  These ones are too dark. What we need is a camera phone that takes as good pictures as a regular camera.  With zoom function.  Or maybe I can just stop being lazy and paranoid that someone will berate me for taking pictures of their kid when I whip out my normal camera. Yeah. Camera phones are great for stealth mode. 

Anyway.

This is one of those perfect, standard parks.  No bells and whistles, but it is done right. It has it's own parking lot which means no parallel parking on the street.  This is very important to me: you'd be surprised how heavily my park ratings are weighted towards ease of access.

You can't really see it here, but this is a really neat teeter-totter.  It is arch shaped.  I wish I had a good picture of a similar one to show you.  Maybe I'll update with one when I go back to this park.

It is also very shady, which is super nice during the warm months.  During the cold months, it may be a bit chilly but that's what sweaters are for. There is a great big field to play in and pick flowers.  Nearby restrooms. Lots of Mom benches.  Sand.  No unexpected water equipment.  I couldn't think of anything negative at this park while I was there.  Of course, I might just have been in an unusually good mood.

652 Franklin Street, Mountain View

Las Palmas Park

Ok, So the pictures in this one are kind of weak because I was using my phone.  Convenience over quality and all that jazz.  However, don't let the pictures fool you, because this park is pretty neat.  It's a very large park, inset from the road with it's own parking lot so that's nice.  Apparently, during the summer the playground is surrounded by a little pond, but when we went it was empty.  Sadly, the pond suffers from the "No Wading" obsession most local water features have around here. For younger kids, the pond may give parents heart attacks, so I think this park is aimed more for the older kids or the helicopter parents who follow 3-4 feet behind their only child the entire time.

There are several parts of this park.

First, there is the boat area.  It is over a bridge and would be mostly surrounded by the pond.

Then there is the other playground. It is not surrounded by water.

 Finally, there are these blue pillars that I am told spray water during the summer and the concrete slide which is right next to where the pond would be.

 One of the main attractions to this playground is that it's a little different.  You get so used to the standard 2-playground, sand and field arrangement that throwing in a boat and a pond and a water play area would make for an interesting day. We will have to try this during the summer to see if the water features end up being a plus or a minus. 

850 Russet Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94087

Ortega Park

Just another decent park.  It was fairly busy on a Saturday because there was like baseball or something in a nearby field so it was hard to find a place to park.  Right next to a school.  But it's away from the busy road so that's nice.

The "Castle"

The whole time we were at the park, Addy called these tower thingies her castles.

Water play area which is nice if you plan on it, not so much when you're just randomly exploring parks.

 

Why do so many of these parks have climbing walls?

 I really have to choose my battles with Adelaide.  So she often goes out and about in either a princess dress or her fairy wings.  Apparently they don't get in her way.

The coarse sand was actually kind of nice.  It doesn't stick as much as the finer sand does.

636 Harrow Way, Sunnyvale, CA 94087

The Dennis the Menace Playground

Nice Park, but a little too far to be practical.

Ha.  Just kidding.  This is an AWESOME playground.  It's more like a mini amusement park than a true blue park.  So here is a run down of the way cool things here.

A huge train for climbing on.

Climbing wall.

Bouncy bridge between two hills.

 

Various tunnels.  Who is that guy?  I don't know.  Apparently Kyle has no qualms about taking stranger's pictures like I do.

Enormous slides.

Huge bridge arch thingy

Playground type stuff.

 Bush maze with lookout tower.

Nearby paddle boat rentals.

Umm... I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to be.

Here are some shots of us enjoying ourselves.

There were some signs saying how far we were from different cities.  Bonus points to whoever figures out where we are without looking at the end of this post.

Downsides?  

It was a little crowded on a Saturday.  Parking is scarce.  It is in Monterey so it's a bit of a drive just to visit.  

But this park is so awesome we will definitely come here the next time we are in Monterey.

777 Pearl Street, Monterey, CA