Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Play It Again

 
There's a poster I've seen around that reads, "Eat organic food, or as your grandparents called it 'food.'" I thought of that poster as Bob and I went to play at a special mud play area or as your grandparents called it, "play." When I was a kid there were fields and empty lots to run in and forts to be made. Now, here in our neck of the suburbs, we have planned play-dates and carefully structured playgrounds. These are lovely but there is an absence of down and dirty playing. We went in search of old school adventure.


There was a large pond with pallets for floating on. Or falling off of, as I did.


The muddy slide was very popular.


As was the splash landing.


There were numerous tree forts and piles of wood and hammers. Nails were given out for building.


It took us an hour and five freeways to get there but it was worth it for a day in the dirt.

6 comments:

  1. How fun! My daughter is the type to carry worms in her pockets. She would love it. My family and I recently had a similar experience with the Wildlife Rescue Center in Missouri. They were sponsoring an event called "Go Play!" and basically involved us standing back and letting the kids lead and find their own fun with sticks and leaves and rocks. The kids skipped rocks and played a game of jacks...erm, "rocks"..it was only slightly dangerous. They discovered deer tracks and made mini rafts from sticks and vine to float down the creek. Good, not so clean, fun.

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  2. This is SO COOL. And I love the sentiment. Growing up in Texas, I spent many (many) hours in my front yard, devising games to play in the big tree that grew in the middle of the grass. My favorite was to drag my dad's freestanding ladder out of the garage, position it near the tree, then leap off one of the steps and catch a limb that grew parallel to the ground. After each leap, the ladder would get dragged a little further away from the tree, making the leap progressively more difficult. How did you know you'd dragged the ladder one step too far? You'd miss the limb and fall on your face.

    Man, I miss those days.

    XO
    A.

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  3. That is awesome! Where is this place?

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    Replies
    1. It's called Adventure Playground in Huntington Beach.

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  4. We tried to go there a couple of weeks ago and messed up times-- the man at the gate said they were closing in 8 minutes. Imagine the sad children.
    So glad you guys got to spend a day there. Looks like a blast.

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