46. Sunset Park, Vancouver

After correcting my typo in the co-ordinates I had entered for Sunset Park, we were finally able to go out and find it after daycare today! The park is split in two by Prince Edward Street; the west side is a dog off-leash area and home to "Sunrise to Sunset", a geocache we stopped off to find before walking over to the playground, which was on the east side of the park. There were two structures here, but neither of them was very Charlotte-friendly. She couldn't climb up onto either of them without at least getting a boost from me. "Too much for me!" she kept saying in frustration. She had a go on the swings and so all was not lost - and she enjoyed pushing Owlie on the swings too. As we walked back to the car afterwards, we passed through the off-leash area where lots more dogs were hanging out since the first time we had been by, so we stopped so that Charlotte could give them a pat. We chatted with a couple with a new puppy and she asked me how it had been having a dog and a small baby to look after. I said that it had been fine because Theo is much older now and doesn't have all the energy he used to have as a puppy. "I don't know how I would have managed a baby and a puppy at the same time!" I said. Oops. Because then she told me that she had found out she was pregnant just after they got the puppy - she was only three months along. So I congratulated them and told them that they would be just fine - they would do what they needed to do to make it work. That probably sounded like too little too late after what I had said before I knew she was pregnant! It was actually very sweet - she sounded like she couldn't believe her own words as she said them - I think I was probably one of the first strangers she had told after getting through her first three months. Lovely! The playground is located at N 49.13.382 W123.05.793:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&hl=en

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