I’ve been finding a lot of old posts that never made it out of draft status. Thought this nice sunny, warm weather one would be welcome about now!
My friend told me about a new park on the other side of town (in early summer!) If you are in the Rochester, NY area I recommend checking out the Abe Lincoln Park on Empire, near Bay Road in Webster (or is it Penfield?) This park really surprised me. From the road you see the same basic plastic play structures, but when you get out and explore you see two clearly defined playing areas. I wish I was able to get more pictures of the plastic play area, because it incorporated some neat ideas, but I was so taken with the natural climbing area, I mostly took pictures of the boys there.
Here are some photos:

I was told there was an old house on the property and I’m told the trees that were felled from taking the home down were secured to the ground to be used as a natural climbing area. You can see the boys love it! Check out their balancing skills! That takes a lot of coordination and concentration!

There are a couple of tall tree trunks let standing, but hollowed out with peep holes created in the side and steps carved in as well. These make great forts and hideouts! Cutie Pie loved peeking out to watch us adults talk.

My friend’s son had been to this park before and had hidden a few sticks to play with again. I thought this was a really cute photo of the boys exploring a drain near his stick hiding place. (People at church sometimes think they are all brothers!)

I love that there are little hiding spaces built in to the climbing logs!

The boys were really having fun! This is definitely a park we will explore again. We didn’t even start to explore the path down to the bay!

This is the only picture that came out of the plastic play area. My boys really loved this area, too. One of the structures was shaped to reflect a train, complete with train whistle! Another structure included a twisty slide with big plastic bongo drums underneath it as well as a couple other things you don’t find on many playgrounds.

Like I said before, if you live around here you should give this park a try! It is worth a visit! And if you don’t live around here, maybe pass these ideas on to your parks and recreation department!
We have been here several times since I drafted this post and each time my boys had a blast. They absolutely love climbing all over the logs, under them, around them…they are so intrigued! Even now, with it being 40 degrees out, they are asking to go back!