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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Our review of some local splash parks.....

Alright local friends, here is the Scollay Family review of some of the free splash parks in our area:
 (oh, and please enjoy this trip down memory lane, as you will see)

We'll start our tour in Rancho Cordova at one of our favorites.
Stone Creek Park, Spoto Dr (just off Zinfandel) 
This park is in a nice area with lots of parking and fairly clean restrooms.
There is a nice covered picnic area, although a bit back from the water area.  The rest is covered in nice grassy areas that are prefect for setting up a shade canopy.  They also have benches around if you do not want to pack in your own chairs, but most are in the open sun.  

The play structure is a lot of fun, with nice climbing areas. 


They offer a nice spray pad with water that sprinklers that shoot in all directions.  
That would be a 5 year old Cody enjoying the water...
also a 23 month old Tyler...
They also have a nice sand area with diggers, 3 year old Tyler approved...
Another fun thing about this park is it's right by the air base, so you get to see all kinds of planes go by as you play. 

The Village Green Park located at 3141 Bridgeway Dr 
Behind the Lowe's off of Zinfandel
The park is just a spray yard, although it also has a lot of nice grass to play in.  There are nice bathrooms and covered tables to hang out for lunch.  Parking is along the street, but it's in a residential townhouse development, so the traffic isn't too bad. 

This is a nice place to go and cool off, maybe even host a simple party at!

Next we'll travel to Folsom.
John Kemp Community Park located at 1322 Bundrick Dr
There is a nice parking lot, frequented by the ice cream truck, nice bathrooms and a great covered picnic area.  Benches surround the spray pad for parents as well. 
The spray pad is a smaller one, but has lots of fun sprinklers.  
2 year old Tyler loved this place!
As did 4 year old Cody...
The next year, it was all about lying on the sprayers.  
There is a really nice play structure here as well. 

Livermore Community Park located at 6004 Riley St
This is one of our favorites.  The parking is nice, they have restrooms that are close, a shaded picnic area is available, and if you pack your chair or blanket there's lots of shade to sit under.  
This one is good for the big and little, with a giant water fall to play under, then the stream to sit in and run boats down or to fill your water shooter.  
3 year old Tyler showing off the water fall.
3 & 5 year old Tyler and Cody in the stream...
7 year old Cody is also a fan of the giant water fight that happens...
4 year old Ty getting in there as well...
This park also has a nice play structure and sand volleyball pits.  To be honest, we go for the water and have never played on either of these as they are off in another section of the park. 

The next part of the tour takes us to Roseville.  
Roseville's web page lists the next three parks as having water features, we didn't find this to be true.  

Mark White Park located at 504 6th St.  
This was not the best area, the parking was all on the street, and there wasn't a bathroom. 

The boys did have a bit of fun on the play structures...
We did finally find the button that was supposed to turn on the water, but could tell where the water was going to come from or what it would do.  We won't be going back to this one, ever. 

R.F. Rube Nelson Park located at 1213 S. Bluff Dr.  
This is a nice neighborhood park, street parking and no bathrooms.  There are some picnic tables, but not much shade. 
Small play structure and decent grassy areas.  
The water feature wasn't working or turned on, it was some kind of sprinkler that sprayed out of the frog.  Good for little ones, but not as much fun for the big ones. 

Leanoard Duke Davis Park located at 1460 Northpark Dr
This is a nice big park, lots of grass, street parking, good shady picnic area, but no bathrooms. 
The play structure was fun and they also have a half court basketball area. 
This stream is the water feature, that goes into a sand box, but again it wasn't on or working. 
They did have some pretty flowers around though...


Our final destination was to tour Rocklin.

Whitney Park located at 1801 Whitney Ranch Pkwy
This is where we entered the land of awesome.  
Big parking lot, nice bathrooms, 3 large covered picnic areas, with lots of other seating around.
The spray yard was a nice size with sprinklers and water shooters.
The play structure is one of the largest I've ever seen, the boys thought it was awesome! 
Fun! 
We will defiantly make a trip back to this park this summer, hopefully bringing some friends along.

Lone Tree Park located at 6101 W Oaks Blvd
Nice park with good parking, bathrooms, 4 covered picnic areas and lots of grass for your own chairs and shade canopy.  
This is the largest water pad of all the ones we've been to with sprinklers from the ground or above on poles, things to run under and water shooters. 
This also hosts another monster play structure that has some feature you don't always find, like a flat swing that goes in a circle. 


We have been here before.  Queue the Ahhhh....  
(11 month old Tyler)
2 1/2 year old Cody...

Memorial Park located at 3980 Rocklin Rd

A nice spray yard with all kinds of sprinklers.
A smaller play structure that was okay, but they have swings. 


We would like to thank you for making it this far on our splash park tour.  
Your tour guides after a day of research...

Looking around, there are also spray yards and even free play pools all around Sacramento.  We may venture out to the one in Land Park the next time we are down that way, but most are not ones we would go to. 



1 comment:

MonkeyMama said...

This is exactly what i was looking for thanks for the article!