Hands on History

The State Historical Museum of Iowa is located at 600 E Locust in Des Moines. There's plenty of street parking, including some of the silver-topped meters that accept credit cards. There's also a parking garage behind the building, opposite of the main entrance, on E Grand, but I've never had a problem finding street parking right by the museum entrance.

It's free to visit the museum. Be sure to sign in at the front desk! They keep a log that tallies the number of visitors to the museum each day.

At the entrance, my kids like to check out the woolly mammoth display. Then, we head on upstairs to the second floor for the "Hands on History" play area. This area also has exhibits to check out, like covered wagons that showed what life was like for pioneers moving westward.

"Hands on History" is only open to families with children. It's not open to day care groups, which means it's generally a quiet experience. When we've been there, there have sometimes been no other visitors in the section. Other times, there are 1 or 2 other families. I think it's a great option for kids who are young and/or quiet who don't enjoy the loud ruckus that comes with indoor play areas at malls and community centers.

When you walk in, the first things you see are a large train table, a tractor, and a giant LEGO model of Des Moines's only skyscraper (so far...), 801 Grand. You'll also find a play kitchen with toy food, a play ironing and clothes washing station, and an imprint table to make crayon rubbings.

To save their resources, they ask that each child only use 1 piece of paper for the crayon rubbings. If you think your child will enjoy the project, you might consider bringing a few pieces of computer paper with you.

   

Sometimes, we've stayed for lunch. Upstairs, there's a nice restaurant called Cafe Barattas that has an outdoor, rooftop patio. They're open from 11am-2pm on weekdays, and they have live music on Fridays. I took a video clip from one of our experiences there on a Friday afternoon. This was from May of 2016:

   



 

Beaverdale Lights

This is our third holiday season in Des Moines, and we've taken a drive through Beaverdale every year. Our first year here, Santa was actually standing in the circle where Ashby Avenue meets Wallace Lane, and he was handing out candy canes. We haven't seen him there since the first year, but every year the lights get better and better. This year, literally almost every single house in a 3 block stretch was decorated. It's beautiful!




I took a quick video of parts of the drive. It's worth driving through, especially if you have kids who love to see the lights!

Chamberlain Park

Chamberlain Park is located on Woodland Avenue, across from the old Woodland Cemetery.

It's a quiet park, beautifully shaded with many climbing structures. We first discovered it last year, during a free summer flicks event in the park.

The shaded picnic tables are shown below. There's also a small pavilion with a few picnic tables as well.

Columbus Park

Columbus Park is one of our regular parks. It's a bit of a drive for us, but my kids really love the sprayground here. It's always jumping when we go. The picnic tables under the pavilion are usually filled up, and there are frequently people there for the day with packed lunches. It's clear we're not the only ones who love it!

Notice the splash pad area is in the shape of a ship. Let me build the suspense here by saying that's not the only ship at this park. Parents of kids who love playing pirates, keep reading...

McHenry Park

McHenry Park is a wonderful park on the north side of Des Moines. I'd never been there before and didn't know what to expect. As it turns out, it has a splash pad, a playground, and a natural playscape. There are three different outdoor shelters, one of which has stunning views! Really, it's an all-around great park. 

We parked on Oak Street, which seemed to be a quiet road. We passed by one of the shelters and the bathroom to get to this really cool splash pad:

There was a frog and a turtle to climb. The turtle got a little slippery, but the ground was padded (like you find at mall playgrounds).

They used the turtle as a miniature water slide.

The water drains down a little man-made "creek."

Looking beyond the creek, I could see a swing set and another shelter in the distance. The distant shelter is the one that's not available for reservations currently. The other two are!

This is the overlook shelter. It has views of the river down below, and of the city. It's on the southern end of the park, away from the road, but also a bit far visually from the splash pad.

This is the playground. Small, but the kids liked it. It has tall monkey bars that gave them a good challenge!

And here's the natural playscape. Both the kids and I were impressed!

The animal splash pad and the natural playscape really made the park stand out as unique and fun!

On the map below, you'll also see a trail marked. It was actually a real nice looking trail, wide with lane lines painted for cyclists.

Stone Park

Stone Park is home to the Pioneer Columbus Community Center. They host a few events and activities there, but this was actually our first visit. We stopped by on our way home from the kids' swimming lessons, and I thought it was just a playground. Not so! They also have a wading pool. It's a good thing they had their suits!

As you'll see in a few of these pictures, there's a lot of construction being done at the park. I'll have to

Sargent Park

Have you ever seen such a stunning park? I was floored when we arrived at Sargent Park. We came here to play in the creek, and we found this beautiful playground, designed as a natural playscape.

Before the kids got too settled into the playground, we went down to the creek to explore. There is access to Fourmile Creek just a short trot down the path from the playground.

Good Park

We finally took the time to check out Good Park. I've been meaning to get there because it's located not too far from us in central Des Moines, and it's easy to get to (on the corner of University & Keo Way). 

The kids get so excited when we go to a splash park. This one had no other people playing when we arrived. When they were little, I loved quiet parks where I didn't have to worry about them getting knocked down. Now that they're bigger, I like busier parks so they can socialize and play. 

Brody School Park

Today, we went to check out Brody School Park, which is located on the north side of Brody Middle School (south of Water Works Park). It has a large tennis court, a basketball court, a playground, and a long-distance view of downtown!

The playground is a fun one for bigger kids and has a climbing wall, but really doesn't have much shade to speak of.

Evergreen Park

Through all of our recent playground adventures, I learned a new term: pocket park. Apparently, a small and easily accessible park is called a pocket park, and that's how I'd describe Evergreen Park in Des Moines. It's in the middle of a residential area, but easy to see and get to from the main road (Evergreen Avenue).

Birdland Park

Birdland Park is directly west of Union Park, right on the Des Moines River. In fact, it even has a marina, where people can pay rent to park their boats (I guess "dock" is the term I was looking for, but you get what I mean!).

On the north end of the park, north of the marina, is 'Ding' Darling Shelter House, which is available for rent. It sits on a lake, and there's a playground there that isn't as busy as Union Park.

When we were there (mid-July), there were still plenty of spent fireworks around the parking lot, and the dumpsters were overflowing. So, I'm not sure how much regular care this park gets, but it seems like it would be a great place to spend the day if it was serviced a bit more. The park itself was pretty quiet--much more so than Union Park, which was full of kids--busy with families and day camps!

Union Park: Rocket Slide and Heritage Carousel

Union Park is also known as "rocket ship park." The rocket slide was first installed at the park in the late 60s or early 70s, and it's so cool to have an actual fun, fast slide these days! I remember when I was a kid, my mom would take us to a park that had a giant slide. I tried so many times to do it, but I'd always get scared halfway up the ladder and come back down.

Guess what? Jo was no different. When we arrived, she went straight to the top of the rocket ship! And there she remained. Oliver went up to try to get her to come down the ramp, but she refused to budge, terrified she'd end up going down the slide. Another boy tried to help her as well, to no avail. So guess who ended up climbing up there? That's right--yours truly.

There were a few tears when I refused to let her climb back up there. For what it's worth, there is a regular, smaller playground next to the rocket ship area. There's also a splash park/sprayground. But the highlight of the park really is this rocket slide!

Once Oliver was done playing, we crossed over the parking lot to the Heritage Carousel, The animals on the carousel are all hand-carved. Although the carousel is from 1998, it was designed to be a replica of a turn-of-the-century carousel. There are painted scenes of Des Moines on it. It's really beautiful! A ride costs 50 cents for children and $1 for adults.

Union Park is a big place. If you're wondering how to find these attractions, here is how we got there from 235:

We headed north on Pennsylvania (exit 8B on the highway). We went past the first few turn-ins for the park, and we turned right at Guthrie Avenue. It basically ends at the park, where you can turn left to keep driving, or turn right to park in the parking lot. From that lot, you can access the playground, the splash pad, the rocket slide, and the Heritage Carousel.

Here's a map, with the parking lot starred:

Greenwood Park Splash Pad!

Today was opening day of the new splash pad at Greenwood/Ashworth Park. It's official name is the "Dan and Mary Kelly Family Sprayground." I think it's gorgeous! The kids had the best time.

The ground looked like it would be slippery, but I didn't see any kids slip. In fact, Jo kept climbing on rocks and jumping down without any problems. It must be well textured (I didn't venture in to find out), but I'd probably be a little more cautious with younger kids.

When we first moved here, I thought this park was kind of hard to find. So in case you're not familiar with it, you turn south on 45th Street from Grand, almost as if you're going to the Art Center, but don't turn into the Art Center's parking lot. Keep heading south. You'll drive through a bit of forest and reach a big pond. As soon as you're at the pond, turn left and head east. It's a small road that winds up to the park, shelter, and new splash pad. I circled the spot in blue where it's located:

It's easy to turn on the splash pad. There's a stand right in the middle with a big, yellow button on it. When the kids pushed the button, it seemed to last about 10-15 minutes before everything turned off, and they needed to push it again.

More pictures of the kids having fun at the splash pad:

In the background of this next picture, you can see the shelter house. During the school year, they hosted a lot of after school activities for kids there, like bird classes and even snowshoe hikes.

There are plenty of picnic tables, made in the same design as the splash pad structures. They aren't shaded, and neither is the splash pad. However, in the background you can see the playground area does have a lot of shade--which is why it's one of my favorite parks! There's also a picnic shelter for shade, too.

This playground was already one of my favorites, but now that they've added in this new splash pad, I think it's going to be our go-to park this summer. It's just so lovely, and the kids had a ball playing there. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

For more details and pictures of the playground area, see this post from 2014.