Georgia Parks

The parks here in Georgia are like none that I have ever seen! They are huge, and absolutely amazing. Here is an excerpt from the county website:

Gwinnett's Parks

The national award-winning Gwinnett County Parks & Recreation Department has it all—ball fields, aquatic centers, community centers, museums, trails, skate parks and more! Gwinnett County Parks & Recreation operates 32 parks and facilities and has one of the most ambitious greenspace programs in the nation with over 8,000 + acres of park land. Seventeen new parks are currently scheduled for future development.

In addition to phenomenal park land acquisition, new facilities include four community centers, four aquatic centers, two tennis centers, a roller hockey rink, two skate bowls, a playground for children with special needs, as well as several ball fields and dog parks.

...and they are not joking! The closest park to us is Bogan Park, which is about a five minute drive:

Bogan Park offers an indoor aquatic center with two pools, a community center and gymnasium, a baseball/softball complex with football field overlay, sand volleyball courts, outdoor basketball courts, picnic pavilions, playgrounds, and two miles of trails.

Yesterday, I had the car, so Zuri and I went investigating. I actually got lost at the park! It was crazy! At the entrance you see the community center where they have the pools/dance/karate, etc. I drove around and stopped when I saw the playground. Zuri and I got out of the car, but there was no one around. It made me a bit nervous that the only people I saw were workers (maintaining the fields and grass--and a cop, just cruising around), but Zuri and I headed to the playground anyway. The playground was situated between around three baseball/softball fields.

Zuri was already playing when I noticed the sign--the playground was for kids ages 5-12 (it was around ten in the morning); no wonder no one was around, the kids were all in school! I knew there had to be a playground appropriate for Zuri's age, so I drug a screaming Zuri back to the car so we could find another playground (I know it is silly, but I didn't want to walk around the park--which was ginormous--and leave my vehicle so far away in an empty parking lot). I finally found an area with lots of cars, and tada another playground, this time with lots of kids playing. Zuri had a blast, and I got to meet a few pretty cool people.

Here are some pictures that I took at the park!

If you look in the bottom left-hand side of the picture, you can see the sign says for children 5-12. In the background is one of the fields.

One of the many cool features of the park are the canopy shades they have over the playground (this is still the older child playground).

Zuri sliding down the slide at the first playground.

Yay! We found the right playground!

At first Zuri thought the bridge was like stairs (it was a movable bridge), so she crawled across them. By the time we left...she was running across!

I had to pick J up at the mall (that is where he meets his boss to carpool), so I took advantage and went a little early so Zuri could play (and I could browse a bit). I went into the Barnes and Noble, and discovered they have a story time hour with the little kids--we are going to have to go! They have a little area all set aside with little chairs and a stage.

In the play area of the mall, Zuri was being really funny. She would go down the slide, come run up to me, jabber incomprehensibly and then go play for a bit. I tried to get a full circuit of her doing that, but every time I would try, she would play for longer and I would put the camera down. Of course, as soon as I did, she would come back up. Here is what I did get!


We then went to meet J and Zuri literally dragged him to the fountain! They both had fun getting wet!