March 3: Imagination at the Park

Today was Saturday, and it was BEAUUUUUUTIFUL outside. My daughters and I went to the park, so I thought I would share a list today.

My Top 8 Favorite Pieces of Park/Playground Equipment

1) I love to swing. I love the way it makes you feel like flying. I love the taller, sturdier sets, and my favorite thing to do is to swing high, bend back, and look at everything upside down.

2) I can really dig a good slide. I prefer plastic because metal gets too hot. I want a slide that you don't have to climb down just to get to the bottom. Confession: the slides that are too high I cannot handle because I am scared of heights, but the enclosed ones I can handle. Oh, and slide races with those big side-by-side ones are the best!

3) When I moved in fourth grade from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to Welch, Oklahoma, the best thing about the new playground were the teeter totters. They were wooden boards, and there was one that was so giant. What a blast I had on the teeter totter!

Quite a new teeter totter

4) The equipment that I miss is the merry-go-round. We had one at both of my elementary schools, and my family and I discovered one at a park in my brother's town once. It is much easier to push a merry-go-round as a kid with friends than as an adult with children (in case you were wondering).

5) The other great inventions they have developed since I became an adult include the sit down spinner and the stand up spinner. It is a seat, and if you lean, you just spin and spin and spin. It makes you laugh till your stomach hurts, and it makes you dizzy, and why is that so wonderful? The stand up one is one you can share with a friend, and spin the wheel and fly around in a circle.

Sit down spinner

6) At the Joplin rebuilt Cunningham Park, they have the metal zip line. You grab the two handles, take a run, and wheeeee! all the way to the other end.

7) Another blast from the past is the spider monkey bars--there was the crisscross version or the dome. I would climb to the top with my friend Minta and hang upside down. We would talk and giggle all of recess.

8) If I could have had a new piece of equipment in my childhood, it would be the wooden playground piece, like the town at Cunningham, or a bridge or a rocketship. Make believe makes the park even more special, and the wooden equipment sets up for so much imagination. For instance, today, Haidyn, Paisley, and I and some other random girl at the park played that the equipment was a TreeHouse that flew, and we went to Cloudland to pick our unicorns, visited RestaurantLand with sweets, meats, or seafood, and eventually played McDonald's drive thru. 

City of Joplin

Reminiscing on all of these wonderful park days and playground experiences reminds me to keep visiting parks and letting my inner child continue. A tour of parks on spring break or on summer break is a great way for anyone to enjoy a free adventure, and it is always better with friends or family! Enjoy a park adventure tomorrow if you can.

McDonald's Drive Thru