Great Bear. Great Day.

Well, I'm way behind on the blogging again. But I'm going to do my best to get caught up here. We actually visited Great Bear on the morning of Tuesday, August 9th, but I worked a couple of overnights this week and then I was just too tired to blog on the nights I wasn't working. Anyway...No more excuses.

If you ask the kids which park visit has been their favorite so far, they will tell you, hands down, hiking at Great Bear! They absolutely loved it! How have I never been out there in the summertime before? It really was a lovely way to spend a cool morning. Leah and Bo told us they wanted to do a hard hike, no baby hikes for them. Baby G was in the Moby, so we just hoped it wouldn't be too difficult for Fletch to keep up. Nope. There were just a couple of steep spots where we had to slow down a little bit for him and at the very end, he allowed Bill to put him on his shoulders. But up until that point, he was not even interested in holding a hand. If the big kids could do it, he could do it!






I suppose if you wanted to get a workout, you could carry a weighted backpack or go a lot faster, but we were in no hurry. We wanted to "stop to smell the roses." Or as the case may be, stop to see the snakes, stop to see the salamanders, stop to see the frogs, stop to see the bird, the butterflies, the flowers, and so on and so on. The only not-so-beautiful part about hiking in town is that while the surroundings looked peaceful, and you couldn't really see anything from city life, the peace and quiet was occasionally interrupted by the back-up alarms from trucks at the nearby excavating businesses. It wasn't exactly the Canadian Rockies or anything for the majestic scenery and pristine glacial waters, but considering it was less than ten minutes from home, it was definitely worth it! The kids, and I, can't wait to go back and try the other trails sometime!

The Tunnel Park

If you look carefully, you can see a little pair of legs and some green fabric behind and between Bo and Fletch. That would be Leah, who declined being seen in the picture because Bo asked first if he could hold Grier. For real. A mom can't make this stuff up.

Okay. Really it was Hayward Park, but even Fletcher noticed the abundance of tunnels on this playground. It's incorporated into the school playground for Hayward Elementary School and it's really very nice.

Bo? Where'd you go? I can't see you amongst all that yellow.

"Mom, take a picture of my crazy hair." Is it really the hair that is crazy?

Tunnel!!

We used to have these exact same sets of bars on the Horace Mann playground. I remember doing penny drops from the lowest bars on the red set (above) and I can't say that I ever remember crossing the monkey bars in the silver set (below), but I could tell you the names of the kids who could. And I can remember sliding down the fire poles, at least.

Another tunnel!!!

The other end of that bear that Fletcher was crawling out of.

What's that, Fletcher? Another tunnel!!! And I didn't even take pictures of two others. This kid was in heaven, except he's still not so sure about going down tunnel slides.

There was tons of green space and some soccer nets. A picnic shelter with no tables. Hmmm...Not sure about that one. Several different areas with equipment. And lots of blacktop with lines painted for games like hopscotch, four square, and basketball.

Glenview Park

We actually drive by this park along 57th Street all the time as we drive between my parents' house and ours. It's just east of Cliff and 57th and you really only notice the cattails and walking path from 57th, but if you look a little farther to the south, you can see a shelter and a playground too.

From now on, when people are looking for a park on the south/east side of Sioux Falls for a group picnic, this will be the one I recommend. Although it is lacking in shade trees, the picnic shelter is right next to the playground. Many of the other parks such as Morningside or McKennan have their shelters out of sight from the playgrounds. That's fine for some events, but at this point, most of the events I attend are the kind where you want to be able to send the kids to the playground but still be able to see them. And Rotary and Cherry Rock are kind of out of commission until they get all that construction done.

Loving the cattails.

Fletcher is loving tunnels these days.

Fletch says, "No Yaya. I the drivee."

Nice look, Bo, with those shorts pulled up and the shirt tucked in.

One result of all the park visits has definitely been Bo's increase in upper body strength. I still don't think he could do an entire set of monkey bars, but he can hang onto one of these zip line thingies the whole way across now.

Anyway...There was a nice playground, it's in a quiet neighborhood, and the kids loved the cattails. One of the "locals" from the neighborhood, though, said this park gets pretty soggy after a hard rain. So, don't try to go here right after it rains and you should be able to enjoy it as much as we did!

LAP Award

And this year's award for Least Attractive Park goes to....drum roll please...Kiwanis Park!!

I know I haven't been to all the parks yet, but I actually feel really safe handing out that award, even if it is a bit premature to do so. To begin with, I've driven by it a million times in an attempt to figure out where the park is at the intersection of North 1st Avenue and 6th Street. My best guess was the "greenway" that was now a gravel-way along the east side of the river, north of 6th Street. Just to be certain, we stopped at the Parks and Rec office.


There is no sign to take a picture at. Leah and Bo were both at camp, but I don't really feel as though they missed a lot by not being at this park visit. Fletcher would whole-heartedly disagree. He is still telling people about how he got to throw rocks in the river.





There isn't a lot else to do at this park along the bike trails. There are currently no benches to sit on, no grass to play on, and no landscaping to admire. It is definitely a work in progress. As the kids get older and we actually go for lengthy rides on the bike trails, I bet we will see this area transformed. When you look north along the river, you can see where Falls Park begins. They just haven't quite made it this far yet. Oh well. For now, it's a great place for throwing rocks in the river, if you're two years old (or 32 years old, in Bill's case). And someday, I bet it will be a peaceful and pretty little spot along the bike trails.

Jefferson Park

In case I haven't said anything about it before, I really dislike being hot. Jefferson Park will not be winning any awards as my favorite park, simply because it was unlucky enough to be visited on a 100 degree day. Ugh. It wasn't even fun.

First of all, even when I have another adult along, I still can't get out of pushing people on the swings.


There's no port-a-potty here, so I had to find Bo a spot in the bushes. While he was taking care of business, a mosquito took a big old bite out of the boy. You can't see it in the picture, but he swells up like it's nobody's business.


When it's that hot outside, all this fun equipment is too hot to even play on. Riding down the slides burns, burns, burns! Bill did blow bubbles for the kids to chase, right up until he thought he might fall over from being light-headed.



So, do I have anything nice to say? Yes. There is a recently added walking path, landscaping, and shelter in this little neighborhood park that make it a very attractive park. It is within walking distance of Inca Restaurant. Other than that? Not much to report.

Marion Park and Sertoma Park

I'm so mad at myself. Is there a way to get this to post before my post about Nelson Park and Drake Springs Pool? It's going to drive me crazy that technically, these two visits happened before that one. Granted, they were the same day, but these two were in the morning. Oh well. Movin' on with life...

I worked overnight on Saturday, July 22nd, so Sunday morning, that husband of mine took all four kids and went to a couple of parks so I could sleep in. That makes this post pretty easy. I don't really have much to say at all. I've been to both of these parks before, so it doesn't really mess with the idea that I'm supposed to be going to all of them, but I can't really tell you much about this particular visit. Just enjoy the pictures, I guess.

Sertoma Park

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me now?

I don't think they did anything at the Outdoor Campus that day, but of course, you can't forget that the OC and the Butterfly House are at the same location. The Outdoor Campus is free and offers lots of classes during every season for all ages. You can go in and see their small animals and look around the museum area. It's a fun place. I've never been in the Butterfly House, but both Leah and Bo have gone there on field trips and think it's neat. I just can't bring myself to spend the money.

Marion Park

I bet there's a story behind this one, but I don't know it yet. I'll have to ask the kids.

Nelson Park and Drake Springs Pool

This park visit has been a long time coming. It has been several years now that my children have been begging to visit this pool every time we pass the intersection of 10th Street and Cliff Avenue. I swear, though, every time, it is just crawling with people and it doesn't even look like it would be fun. Knowing we had to try it sometime, though, we decided Sunday, July 23rd, was the day.

It was absolutely perfect! The weather was beautiful, so I thought for sure the pool would be packed, but it really wasn't bad.

Unfortunately, we arrived just in time for a ten minute break. But I guess it gave us time to find a spot on the "grassy" hill. Note the quotation marks because the grass on the hillside was rather sparse. The big kids had a great time playing super heroes with their towels as capes and Baby G was rather proud of herself trying to stand up without assistance.

It was a riot to listen to them. They each had powers based on their towel, so I'd hear them saying, "Leah, with hula powers! Bo, with froggy powers!" I can't remember what Fletcher's powers were. Poor guy had the plain orange towel that day. Didn't stop him though!

Oh. And I forgot to mention that Bill worked on his sweet tan.

This one's going to be trouble. She won't be satisfied until she can keep up with the rest of them!

There was no need for us to discuss or go to a vote for what we would try first. Everybody agreed that the Lazy River looked like a great place to start! Even Grier loved riding along in the tube with me. Aside from a little bit of time spent in the zero-depth pool and Leah going down the big water slide a few times, pretty much our entire afternoon was spent on the Lazy River.




Even I got a chance to try the water slide. I honestly don't remember the last time I got to go on one. I remember watching with envy as people would go down the slide at the public pool in Lex, but I always seemed to be pregnant or holding a baby (or both) during the summers there. It's not like we go a lot of places with water slides, but even if we do, the kids always seem to want Dad along for those kinds of things, so I usually stay back with anyone who's too little to go. It was a big day for me. : )

The only bummer of the day was for poor Bo. He patiently waited his turn for the slide, only to be sent back down the stairs. He couldn't have missed the 48" mark by much, though. At his kindergarten check up a couple of months ago, he was 47". I told him it will be something fun to look forward to next year, but that doesn't really make it feel any better in the here and now. Oh well. Nothing another trip around the Lazy River won't fix!


And when we got out to take our sign picture, Leah just thought it would be lovely to take a picture by these flowers too.


I also want to say in this post, that the lifeguards and pool manager at this park had a great thing going on. As we were walking over to the Lazy River, I didn't catch exactly what was going on, but I turned to look when I heard the yelling. A young man in the pool was yelling, I think at the lifeguard, and she simply put her hand up in the air. Immediately, another lifeguard did the same, and within moments, the woman I assume was the pool manager was there and dealing with the boys who were causing trouble, so the lifeguards could go back to supervising the other swimmers. I never heard any yelling on the part of the staff and other than the fact that I heard that swimmer shouting, you never would have even known anything was going on. It was all dealt with so quickly and quietly. As we were leaving a short time later, I saw those same young men speaking with a Sioux Falls police officer in the parking lot. Thanks for keeping the pools a pleasant and safe place for those of us who don't (usually anyway) cause trouble!

Just a view of the zero-depth pool area. I didn't take any pictures of the kids actually swimming here, but it was fun. The Lazy River was just funner.