71. Memorial South Park, Vancouver

Brr!  It may still be August, but today, fall was in the air.  Maybe even winter!  This large park has several caches in it and I was hoping to cache the park out, but Charlotte only had it in her to get two before she wanted to hit the playground.  We cut across the playing field between the two caches, flushing out all the mosquitos that were hanging out in the wet grass.  They swarmed us!  We managed to shake them when we returned to the dead, brown, end-of-summer grass in the rest of the park.  There were a few kids playing on the playground with not a parent in sight - very refreshing!  They were a bit too old to want to play with Charlotte, but she had a good time anyway, digging in the sand and swinging off a bar as she's doing in the photo.  It was truly cold though, so I convinced her to come back to the car with me sooner rather than later - and we got back just as the skies opened and the rain began to pour.  The cache is located at N 49.13.836 W 123.05.158 and is point no. 71 on the map at the bottom of home page.

70. Ross Park, Vancouver

We finally returned to Ross Park, the little park we discovered a few weeks ago but were swim diaper-less at the time. This time around, Charlotte was ready to go – but to our disappointment, the wading pool was bone dry. Still, there were tons of kids around as there were families having picnics, so it seemed like a fun place to go hang out for a while.  We got off to a slow start - all the kids were bigger and then Charlotte had a small meltdown when she wanted to play with the steering wheel but another kid was using it.  We had to have a discussion...  But eventually, she made some friends and ended up having a good time.  There was very little helicoptering going on here - the picnicking families seemed to be all related to each other and everything was very relaxed.  The really disappointing thing about this playground is how much garbage there was everywhere.  It was really quite disgusting - it was on the grass and it was on the sand around the playground itself.  I was thinking that if I ever organize a CITO, this is where it would be!  There are no geocaches in the park itself, but the "Entrance to Narnia" is just a few blocks to the north.  Sounds like an interesting one to go back for one day!  The playground is located at N 49.13.010 W 123.04.932 and is point no. 70 on the map at the bottom of home page.

69. Princess Park, North Vancouver

We had a great time in Princess Park today!  First, we took Theo for a walk and we came across a couple of other dogs playing in the creek.  Charlotte waded in the creek with them and I guess I knew it was an accident waiting to happen.  Sure enough, one of the dogs bowled her over and made her cry.  I got her dried off and changed and we headed off to find "Dangerous Daschunds".  We stopped to listen carefully to see what we could hear in the woods - and we came up with a woodpecker!  We got our cache and then went to the playground to play for a while.  We had such a good time that we came back again the next day with dad and found another geocache, "Princess Poisson" and had another play.  The playground is located at N 49.20.456 W 123.03.365 and is point no. 69 on the map at the bottom of home page.

68. Lynn Valley Elementary, North Vancouver

We are staying in North Van these days while nana and grandad are away, so this evening we hit one of the playgrounds near their house.  This was the elementary school that both my brothers attended, but it's a lot different now than it was back then.  The building that used to house the school is now the North Shore Archives and a brand new building has been built beside it for the school.  There are two playgrounds and both of them are a little bit big for Charlotte as they are meant for elementary school kids, but she still had a great time climbing and exploring.

There were a few big kids playing and Charlotte tried doing what they were doing.  She even managed to keep her owlie clips in her hair and the hair out of her eyes - all in the name of being a big girl!  The playground is located at N 49.20.311 W 123.02.228 and is point no. 68 on the map at the bottom of home page. 

67. City Park, Edmonds, Washington

Our second playground today!  We headed to City Park with our friends, The ClueFinders.  Yes, of course they have real names, but we call our geocaching buddies by the handle chosen for them by their daughter - back when she thought geocaching was cool!  The ClueFinders live nearby and there is a cache near the playground that Mr. ClueFinders has been having some trouble with called "Table of Peace".  We went to see if we could help him cross it off his DNF list, climbing all over the picnic tables in search of a cache hidden in the rafters of the shelter above.  This was a little bit awkward given the fact that I have been trying to teach Charlotte some table manners lately!  In the end, it was Mrs. ClueFinders who came through, finding a tiny cache hidden in a piece of fake gum.  With the cache found, we headed over to the playground for a bit.  Mrs. ClueFinders walked home while Mr. ClueFinders proved to be great fun at the playground.  We had a good play before finally heading back to ClueFinder HQ for some dinner - and lots of geocaching conversation!  The playground is located at N 47.48.343 W 122.22.944 and is point no. 67 on the map at the bottom of home page.

66. Edgewater Park, Mt. Vernon, Washington

It’s that time of year again – time to head down to Seattle for the annual Groundspeak block party! I took Friday off work so that we could take our time getting down there and we stopped about half-way in Mt. Vernon so that Charlotte could stretch her legs and have a play. There was a cache in the trees just a few metres away called “Fish On!”; we looked for it, but couldn’t immediately find it, so we moved on to the playground. Charlotte was anxious to get climbing and besides, there was a bit of a dodgy guy hanging out nearby.  We eventually spoke to him a little; he just got in from Alaska a week prior and it sounded a lot like he didn't have anywhere else to go.

 

Charlotte was on her own at the playground at first, but then another family showed up.  Charlote ran to say hi to the kids, but they were steadfast in their refusal to have anything whatsoever to do with her.  Eventually another family arrived and clearly they had agreed to meet there.  The kids played together, but still no one even made eye contact with Charlotte, despite her efforts to talk to them.  The parents all looked through her like she didn't exist.  The whole situation became more and more bizarre as I noticed that there was no noise whatsoever coming from the playground - the kids all played in absolute silence.  It was completely surreal and made me want to say something to the parents who had so instilled the "stranger danger" attitude in their kids that they couldn't even play with a two-year-old at the park.  But what could I possibly have said to make any difference?  Time to continue on to Seattle - and as we got back into the car, we waved to our new friend from Alaska - the dodgy guy who turned out to be the friendliest guy at the park.  The playground is located at N 48.25.232   W 122.20.518 and is point no. 66 on the map at the bottom of home page.

65. Thunderbird Park, Vancouver

The very top of this playground structure is visible from 1^st Avenue if you happen to be stuck at a traffic light, waiting to turn onto Highway 1. Since we almost always seem to hit this light on our way to North Van from Richmond, we have had plenty of opportunity to notice the playground and finally today we had our opportunity to go and play on it! It was a bit of a grey day, the kind of day that suggests that summer might not last forever. A couple of kids were playing there while their uncle sat on the wobbly bridge with his face so far forward over his device and his cap so far forward over his face that I never did really see him. I may complain about helicopter parents sometimes, but this uncle had clearly never heard of the term!

 

Charlotte had fun playing with five-year-old Jeremy and nine-year-old Angel. Angel seemed to take to me too – I had the feeling that she might not have a lot of adults in her life who cared about what she had to say and she seemed very happy to be able to have a conversation with me and to be listened to. We ended up staying much longer than I had intended given that we still had groceries to buy for the upcoming week! The playground is located at N 49.16.096  W 123.01.735 and is point no. 65 on the map at the bottom of home page.

64. Harris Park, Pitt Meadows

This playground is easily visible from Lougheed Highway as it passes through Pitt Meadows, so I had it up my sleeve if we were ever out this way and needed a playground. It has a spray park and even an outdoor pool, so it was packed on this hot summer day. It wasn’t very Theo-friendly for this reason and poor Theo had to hang out under a tree and keep a low profile while Charlotte played.  We had a delicious picnic lunch and then Charlotte headed off to play. She met a couple of older girls who were really nice to her, engaging with her and playing tag with her. She gleefully chased them back and forth across the wobbly bridge while they played along with her until they had to go. It was really sweet and made a change from our usual solitary playground adventures!

 

Charlotte checked out the spray park, but this really isn’t her thing yet – maybe next year she will be into it more.  There is a geocache nearby called “Pitt Meadows Info Centre”; I had found it quite some time before, but I didn't have the coordinates on hand to find it with Charlotte.  The playground is point no. 64 on the map at the bottom of home page.

63. Maywood Community School, Burnaby

Today, we discovered a great little park with a wading pool that would have been perfect for this hot afternoon. I started getting us out of the car, but realized that Charlotte's swim diaper, which is usually under the stroller, had been left at home. Poor Charlotte was so disappointed, but I promised her a different playground instead. It took her a while to get over her disappointment, but when we finally found the playground at Maywood Community School, she was finally over it for good. There were lots of things to explore here; she even did a little rock climbing, though it was a little bit much for her for now. A couple of other kids came by after a while, but they were with their dad and he kept them pretty occupied. Charlotte was a little disappointed, but what else is new? I'm so tired of these parents who don't allow their kids to just play and to learn social skills on the playground. I can't understand how they fail to see how abnormal it is.  Charlotte still managed to have a good time, though it wasn't my favourite playground; there was a fair amount of garbage around and it just had a bit of a dodgy vibe altogether. I didn't have a working GPS at the time we visited, so don't have the co-ordinates for the playground, but it's no. 63 on the map at the bottom of home page.

62. Meadowood Park, Burnaby

With another blazing hot day ahead of us, we hit today's playground early.  We picked this small neighbourhood park in Burnaby because it had a cache in it.  We were in the shade at first, so Charlotte played happily; the little picnic table inside the smaller climbing frame was a nice touch.  Theo had a good time here too as he was able to climb part of the way up the big climbing frame, returning Charlotte's hat to her when she dropped it overboard!  We went to look for the cache afterwards, "Meadowood Park".  It was a little bit off-trail and so we left the stroller behind and started looking.  It was just the right amount of off-roading and climbing over things for a two-year-old explorer!  We found the cache without too much difficulty, then played some more before the heat sent us back into our air-conditioned car.  The playground is located at N 49.15.812 W 122.56.004 as is point no. 62 on the map at the bottom of home page.