We wanted to share some park updates for March 2010.
Citrus Ranch Park opened up in Tustin on February 27th. It looks just how you’d imagine: a wonderland of yellow lemony and orange blossom themed play equipment. I can’t wait to climb the citrus grove hill and see the view from the gazebo up top. As you know, I like to take photos without people – so it might take a while for me to get some good shots. Leave some comments if you’ve played there and tell us what you think. I’ve been “stalking” this park for months. Here’s the map and I’ll put up a post ASAP. MAP to Citrus Ranch Park in Tustin
Great News! We wrote a post about the hidden playground and nature walks at Laguna Niguel Regional Park last April and noted that the playground was dirty and covered with spiderwebs. When Dara went to purchase her OC Parks annual pass a few weeks ago, she found out from a ranger that they’ve been steam-cleaning the playground a couple times a month to keep it in good shape for playing. So don’t hesitate to visit. My 4yo and I just had a very enjoyable picnic there this week. The sand was neatly raked and the playground sparkled. Thanks to OCParks.com for caring!
On a recent visit to Creekside Park (off Stonehill in Dana Point) we noted that the triple slide was missing and boarded over for repair. Also, the really fun “ferry” equipment is missing, visible in the photo on the upper right of the page. I have no idea if/when they will be replacing it.
One of our park friends reported that Foothill Ranch Community Park playground was completely underwater and “knee deep for toddlers” after the end of a January rain storm. Four days later she reported the water was starting to smell rancid. So give this park some time after heavy rains to dry out.
Photo Courtesy of Samantha (1-22-10)
Watch List. Dara and I each visited parks this past week which don’t really meet our standards. We’ve never thought of ourselves as “playground snobs” but that’s what we feel like. However, shouldn’t we have a right to expect a clean and safe playground?
This hasn’t really happened in almost 2 years of posting parks and presents us with a bit of a conundrum. Our goal is to promote play. We simple go play at new parks with our kids and write it up to share with you. It’s pretty much a playground journal. So far, the parks we’ve posted are ones we’d generally recommend. However, excessive graffiti, vandalism, and safety issues make us question whether we should post the parks we’ve visited lately. We won’t be taking our families back anytime soon and we don’t want to appear to recommend them. We are working on a watch list which will focus on ACTIONABLE ITEMS (conveying what must be fixed, changed, or addressed before we’d consider recommending the park to our readers). Do you have one of these parks in your neighborhood??? A park right around the corner, which you don’t visit because of reasons X, Y, and Z?
If you’d like to include it on our watch list as a way to caution other moms/families, please e-mail us the name of the park, the location (city), and try to clearly list actions which must be taken to make the park feel safe and clean. Our e-mail is ocplayparks [at] gmail [dot] com.
Resources and Updates
- Join our Facebook fan page.
- We put up a shiny new yellow button under the playground map to make it easy for you to recommend your favorite park. If you click on the map, you’ll see an alphabetical list of all the 112 locations we’ve already covered.
- If there are parks you can’t find on the site, we’ve listed links to all the city websites on our post: Finding Parks on OC City Websites.
Thanks for reading! We’ll see you out in the sunshine.
