Urbandale Parks Challenge: Walker-Johnston Park

For our third park in the Urbandale Parks Challenge, we went back to Walker-Johnston Park. I love this park! There's something to do for kids of all ages. Even the skateboard park was filled with teenagers practicing tricks and having fun. I think it's great when big kids can stay busy and challenge themselves in public parks.

On our drive over, the kids let us know that they were hungry. From the sound of it, they might have been close to starvation. Thankfully, there's a McDonald's on the way to the park. We picked up a couple Happy Meals and had a little picnic.

Supposedly, there's an area of the park filled with play houses for little kids to explore. I still haven't found it. Our kids were happy to explore the slides, which range from very small to tall & steep.

Oliver decided he'd tackle the giant metal slide. Before now, he'd always been too afraid. Almost all the kids use their shoes to slow themselves down and not go too fast, but a few of the bigger kids shot down the slide like a cannon! They were all having so much fun. I really was thrilled to see the kids have a good time and face their fears on the big slide. One kid kept approaching the slide as if he'd go down on his belly, head and arms first like Superman. Then he'd think better of it and go down on his bottom.

Walking by the skateboard park:

Here's video of the big slide:

Walker/Johnston Park in Urbandale: The Park of Slides

It was another beautiful almost-spring day, so the kids and I went on a mission to try to find a park. I spotted Walker-Johnston Park on a map, but I couldn't find the playground on Google Earth. It must be brand new because it's there now! Parts of it were still under construction (but it was safe to play). The playground is next to the skate park.

Never in my life have I been to a park with so many slides! If you count the double slides as 2, there are seventeen slides at this playground! One is the steepest slide I've ever seen. Joanna had no fear and attempted to go down most of the slides. The tube ones were her favorite, even though she shot down so fast that she'd spin around and come out the bottom facing backwards!
                       

Oliver, my ever-cautious child, was not interested in trying out the steepest or fastest slides. At first, he would only go on the smallest slides. Before we left, he worked his way up to some of the "medium slides."

Now here's the cool part about this park. It's not open yet, but there are two super-long slides that go from the playground down to the swing set. So, kids literally slide down the hill to swing :)

We walked down to the swing set. Oliver really dug the tire swing.

We went for a stroll across the bridge by the playground, which goes over North Walnut Creek. On the other side is a soccer field, which the kiddos enjoyed running across. Back the other way are baseball fields and tennis courts.

There were picnic tables under some trees, which would be a nice place to sit down in the summer.

By the bridge, we also spotted this trail, pictured below. Apparently, there's a way you can take it to another trail and follow it all the way south until it merges with the Bill Riley Trail, which we saw earlier this week from Greenwood/Ashworth Park. It's all connected. Pretty neat! According to Google Maps, it would take about 30 minutes to cycle from this park to Water Works Park and another 15 minutes to get to Gray's Lake.