123. Howard Miller Steelhead Park, Rockport, Washington

After our misadventure in Sedro-Woolley, we picked up our groceries and headed out to Rasar State Park to find a campsite.  We had a walk-in site, and though it was hardly any distance from the parking lot to the site, it was a bit inconvenient given that I was on my own with a three-year-old and every single trip to the car was a bit of a production.  So I decided to head east on Highway 20 in search of a picnic site - I knew there were many places along the way that would be nice to stop at and explore.  We ended up at a little county park in Rockport on the banks of the Skagit River - the same river I had pictured Charlotte in earlier today!  I pulled out the kitchen box - only to find my camping stove in pieces.  So much for the delicious pasta dinner I had planned - and so much for hot water for dishes too.  We made do with a lunch picnic.  While I was getting things ready, Theo and Charlotte were racing around on the grass near the picnic table when she spotted this playground around the other side of the nearby building.

"Maybe we can play at the playground!" she said.

"What playground?" I asked - I couldn't see any playground!

But eagle-eye Charlotte had spotted one.  It was pretty strange as a public playground goes - just a collection of Little Tikes equipment - only more of it than you would normally see in a private yard.  Charlotte wasn't picky though - especially as it was something that her friend Theo could join her on!  I was without a loaded GPS at this point, Paddy having recently died in a freak accident.  It was killing me to know that there was probably a cache hidden in the park and I didn't know where to look!  I actually took a peek in some likely-looking spots, but to no avail!  In the end, we found the closest cache, "Here's to Slough" the next day when we were caching with our friend Mr. ClueFinders.  The playground is located at N 48.29.119 W 121.35.636 and is point no. 123 on the map at the bottom of home page.

112. Richmond Nature Park, Richmond

Our second new playground in a row is birthday party-related!  This time we headed to the Richmond Nature Park to celebrate Alex's fifth birthday.  The playground itself is a rope pyramid that's a bit much for Charlotte for now, but she did play on it a bit with the other kids.  Mostly she cared more about the giant log nearby that was just perfect for climbing on - lots of kids seemed to prefer it over the structure that was actually designed for climbing!  When everyone had arrived, we headed along the boardwalk on an Easter egg hunt, with all of the kids finding a treasure.

We ended in the "grassy meadow", where we had a pizza picnic and the kids romped and played.  I turned on the GPS from underneath the picnic shelter and found myself just three metres away from "Green Meenie"!  At that moment, some other geocachers arrived and we all hunted for the cache together.  We actually came back to the park a few days later after work and daycare to climb on the log some more and to find one of the other caches in the park, "Time Machine 2".  There are still lots of caches to find in the park, including some of the Richmond GeoQuest caches, so we will be back again for sure!  The playground is located at N 49.10.247 W 123.05.640 and is point no. 112 on the map at the bottom of home page.

103. Robson Park, Surrey

We were out and about with no real plan today.  It had recently occurred to me that our playground map avoids Surrey almost completely - and say what you like about Surrey, it's nearby and must have some decent playgrounds?  We headed across the Pattullo Bridge (this dodgy bridge may be the reason we've avoided Surrey) and asked the GPS for the nearest cache with "Park" in the title.  And that is how we discovered lovely little Robson Park.  We played for a while on a cute little playground designed like a tree house - and Theo had fun too as some people came along who were only too happy to play stick with him.  We headed off in search of one of the three geocaches in the park after we'd played - the way to the cache was across a cute little bridge over a creek that had been dammed by beavers.  We didn't see any, but there were plenty of tell-tale tree stumps, sharpened like a pencil where the beavers had chewed.  I promised Charlotte we would come back one warm spring evening to see if we could see any.  I was very proud of Charlotte when we got to the site of "Robson Park Tree Hugger South" - it was clearly in a large tree and we started making our way around it when Charlotte said "There it is!"  She found it before me - I hadn't even had to pretend so that she could find it first!  We watched a pair of ducks paddling in the creek, then played at the playground for a little while longer before we were driven out by the smell coming from the potheads perched on a nearby picnic table.  This is Surrey, after all.  The park is located at N 49.11.054 W 122.52.247 and is point no. 103 on the map at the bottom of home page.

60. Guilby Park, Coquitlam

After a long, hot day exploring Burnaby Lake, we wanted to finish off the day with a quick visit to a playground. We sure picked the right park for a quick visit - this playground was decidedly underwhelming! All it had were swings - one set for the big kids and another for the little ones. We played for a little while, but there were wasps buzzing around everywhere - they even seemed to be building a nest right inside one of the swings. This playground was one to rack up the numbers, but it didn't do much more than that!  Perhaps we should hide a geocache here to liven it up a bit...  I took the co-ordinates, but Charlotte was playing with my GPS and re-located the playground into the South China Sea. Still, it's point no. 60 on the map at the bottom of home page.

45. Gordon Park, Vancouver

We weren't planning on coming to Gordon Park today. I had entered the co-ordinates for Sunset Park into my GPS and intended to go there, collecting a geocache along the way. I knew the general area where I was heading, so couldn't understand why Paddy (my GPS!) was pointing me elsewhere. Soon enough, I realized I must have entered the co-ordinates incorrectly and I wasn't sure enough of the location of Sunset Park to find it otherwise, so we ended up at this park that we had spotted last week on our way to Maywood Park. Charlotte had a nice time here; the taller climbing frame was a little daunting for her and she insisted on holding my hand across the wobbly bridge and down the slide, but she was okay on her own on the small one. Not long before I was thinking of getting ready to leave, a little girl who seemed very close to Charlotte in age showed up along with her mum and dad. It would have been so nice for them to have the chance to play, but Clara's parents micro-managed every movement she made, instructing her where to play instead of allowing her to explore on her own - and to have the opportunity to perhaps make a new friend on her own. Sometimes these playground expeditions are very disappointing... The park has no geocaches in it - there are more of these cacheless parks around than I had realized! Though I expect that many of them have multi and puzzle cache finals in them. The playground is located at N 49.13.409 W 123.04.287:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&hl=en