Spring certainly dragged its ass getting here this year, but it took no time at all for the scorched earth of summer to chase us into our air-conditioned holes. If you can only take so much pool time and still plan to venture out with kids into the hot-hot heat, here’s a review of what to expect from some of this area’s popular parks.
Apex Nature Park. Nothing says “nature” like several acres of newly installed artificial turf. So if you love being outside, but don’t really love dirt and grass, you’ll enjoy their rubber soccer fields and paved tennis courts. But if you expect something more natural out of your local nature park, there’s still plenty for you, too. Its lengthy walking trails have some great shady stretches and a few fun ponds. And their frisbee golf course is a great way for kids to enjoy a walk in the woods while parents recapture a college pastime--that is, until you’re deep in the trees with 15 holes to go and your kid decides he needs to take a shit. Meanwhile, back on the playground, the play set designed for 3- to 5-year-olds has not much to it, so expect your little ones to inevitably gravitate toward the 5-12 side that’s considerably more advanced. One slide is accessible by a wide staircase that easily accommodates a parent for yanking young kids back from certain peril. The other pair of more interesting slides is only accessible by more Temple of Doom-type features like a beanstalk ladder, wide-rung rope bridge, rock walls, or basically, helicopter. Natural climbers will love this place, but more timid, less coordinated kids can expect to be frustrated or partially maimed by its level of difficulty. They can also look forward to its piece de resistance, a revolving spinner that accommodates only one kid at a time. This thing is serious. When it really gets going, it looks like a centrifuge trying to convert your kid into enriched uranium. It completes the trifecta of being coveted, dangerous, and insanely addictive. If your kid doesn’t completely melt down waiting for a turn, they’ll either slam into it by accident while playing tag or get so dizzy from it that they wander into the wetland when they finally get off. This playground sits in the bold face of the sun, but its nearby shelter is a great spot for parents to cool off and stop paying attention until their kid gets nailed by the spinner, falls through the rope bridge, or gets stuck at the top of the rock wall. Because all those things can and do happen every time you go.
Kelly Road Park. This place is a wonderful wooden labyrinth of tunnels, towers, and bridges. It’s manageable and interesting for a broad range of ages, with swings for the young and old and monkey bar configurations of different lengths and heights that appeal to cautious kids and chimpanzee children alike. It’s a great place for hide-and-seek, but a notorious nemesis for parents, who regularly concuss themselves on low-hanging beams when retrieving kids gone AWOL. It’s made of wood, which keeps the surface safe and accessible even after a good rain. But it’s made of wood, so anticipate epic splinters and frequent equipment repair. Expect favorite features to mysteriously disappear overnight, leaving you to wonder whose kid impaled themselves on what for a giant square of plywood to be where the entrance to the big orange slide once was. Meanwhile, new things tend to pop up now and then. In fact, Kelly Road’s newest feature is a massive orange merry-go-round that has just enough room where the equipment meets the ground for a small child to get sucked under like the old “escalator” urban legend. If a barren crater ever magically appears in the mulch where the merry-go-round is supposed to be, you’ll know that somebody got got by the big orange monster. This park is also completely exposed to the sun’s punishing blaze. So unless you can squeeze your adult body into one of those wooden tunnels, be ready to sweat your ass off.
Davis Drive Park. Shade, glorious shade. This park is one of the few in town that has any, so be sure to take advantage of slides that won’t give your kids 3rd degree burns on their legs before 11 am. It also has a sandbox, soccer fields, a basketball court, and a paved loop for jogging and biking. The loop is reasonably flat, with ample straightaways, making it a great place for new riders to practice their craft. Just beware of the Nascar-style bank on Turn 3 that might send your kid careening into nearby traffic.
Jack Smith Park. Known as the long-awaited “Spray Ground”, this park has all the blistering heat of your typical play area with the sweet relief of sprinkler features just a few stifling steps away from its slides and swings. It’s refreshing enough for all ages without being wildly unsafe. Kids do collide occasionally when sprayground-induced euphoria makes them disregard the “no running” rule. But parents otherwise have the option to join in the fun or sit on the sidelines, stepping in only when grill marks begin to appear where your skin meets the metal picnic bench. It’s a great place to get your kids outdoors without giving them heatstroke or completely submerging them in water. Their covered picnic areas also offer a nice segue-way between water play and the parking lot when it’s time to get the hell outta dodge. If you leave a trail of fruit snacks from the shelter area to the minivan, you’ll be half-way home before they realize they're pissed about leaving. Just watch out for the yellow jackets. They occupy a 12-inch radius around every trash receptacle and they’ll sting the shit out of you AND your kid, faster than you can say “Don’t squeeze that Capri Sun!”
Kids Together Park. This park has fantastic shade, a wide variety of play areas, and a giant dragon embedded in the side of a grassy knoll. Your kids will love the “assembly line” slide that propels their tiny bums across a series of rollers, like Advils headed toward the blister pack. They’ve got swings, slides, tunnels, bridges, and a sand area with built-in digging toys. Your kids will lose themselves in the wide array of options--to the point that they will literally end up fucking lost, because there’s absolutely no line of sight that encompasses the entire playground. Count on at least one parent per visit frantically approaching you about a kid they can’t find. “He’s wearing shorts and rubber Paw Patrol boots; the last time I saw him, he was trying to pick the dragon’s nose…” Luckily, the playground is fairly enclosed, so wayward kids are unlikely to wander into the parking lot. They might have to miss a meal or two while the search party fans out for a few hours, but if they make friends with the resourceful family of squirrels living in the picnic shelter, they’re likely to end up with a pretty impressive spread of leftover birthday cake and half-eaten snack packs of Cheez-Its.
Apex Community Park. This park is built around a lovely lake. Its paved paths and dirt trails are great for walking, jogging, biking, or carrying your crying 4-year-old and his Big Wheel when he’s “too tired” to make it all the way around. They’ve got a cute wooden dock for duck-watching and wooded picnic areas not far off the trails. If your squad is not up for trekking, this park is jam-packed with fields for soccer and baseball, courts for tennis, basketball, and volleyball, and 3 different playgrounds for young and old kids alike. Their most recent addition is the American Ninja Warrior-style course for the strong and coordinated to show off their skills. For everyone else, it’s a good place to over-estimate your abilities and get stuck dangling from a rope or clinging to a side-panel. Yes, even the parents will be tempted to get in on the action. Just be prepared for the possibility of a full abdominal tear from your first awkward attempt at monkey bars in about 30 years.
Hunter Street Park. Depending on who you ask, this place is known as “The Train Park” for the soothing sounds of locomotion that roar by periodically or “The Skate Park” for its amazing arrangement of skateboard ramps, rails, and inclines, including an empty concrete swimming pool for getting fancy like kids in a summertime Coke commercial. Feel free to bring your 5-year-old with his matching BB-8 scooter and helmet during the slow spells, but when big kids are out doing the real shit, it’s best to get Junior the fuck out of the way. The playground has low set monkey bars that are great for beginners and the play area is adequately fenced to keep the riff-raff in. It’s got a baseball field, a jogging path, a dog park, and another rubber soccer field—because who needs grass when you could have a shoe full of recycled tire pellets? It's also got zero shade, so watch out for scalding-hot playground equipment and the general feeling of being sauteed by any surface you stand on.
Let’s face it. It’s already hot as fuck and any park can be a tough sell when merely stepping outside makes you feel like collards in a pressure cooker. But it’s hard to really complain about skate parks and ninja courses when we all grew up on busted aluminum play sets with dents in the slide. So pack yourself some sunscreen and a discount seltzer--and get the hell out there! Cuz sweaty or not, we’ve got it pretty damn good.
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