February 21, 2009

Cambier Park, Florida

For our trip to Florida, we expected the sunshine, warm weather, palm trees, and beaches. Cambier Park in Naples was an unexpected treat. I’ve become quite a conoisseur of playgrounds, and hands-down Cambier park has the coolest playground I’ve seen.

The Swing

A massive wooden play structure dominated the playground. Part castle, part pirate ship, it was full of twisting passages, tunnels, swinging bridges, and even xylophones and wooden drums to bang on. Supervising a not-quite-three-year-old, it may have been too much of a good thing: Alex could quickly move to places where I couldn’t follow him and I couldn’t see him. I learned to trust that he’d come out somewhere, sometime, and find me.

Drinking

This being Naples and not Seattle, the playground had one other feature I wasn’t used to seeing: A sprinkler. It looked like a giant blue candy cane. When you pressed a button, a fine mist came out of the end of the candy cane and made a cone of water about four feet across. When you didn’t press the button, a stream of water drops leaked out. Alex prefered the leak and loved sticking his head into the water drops.

Sprinkler and Sunshine


Written by Brian Dewey.

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