Lakewood Park

The struggle to get out of the house and burn some of the energy continues, and so we took our first visit to an old favorite of mine, Lakewood Park. This park is one that my grandma took me to tons of times as a kid. What I remember most is that is had these two huge bugs that kids would climb up and down and usually fell off. The park was one of those old school types with monkey bars and stand alone slides that everyone broke their arms at. Exactly the type of thing that isn't allowed anymore.

The older parts have mostly been taken out, but the park still has tons of huge old trees which give it lots of shade. The park is well maintained, has parking, basketball courts, picnic shelters and grills, bathrooms, baseball fields, football fields, a small dance studio where they have classes, and a tennis court. As a kid I played soccer on one of the fields for several years, and Neil and I took a ballroom dance class together at the studio. ODU has its rowing center in the back of the park too.

The playground is made up of a few different sections. The first are these American Ninja Warrior looking structures where older kids are challenged with getting from point A to point B.  The next is your typical play structure with bridges and slides which is the best for toddlers. The third is made up of some of the old school climbing structures. There are also toddler and regular swings around the outside.

We found this little guy too, who kept popping up to say hello!