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:

   



 

Raccoon River Park

Raccoon River park & beach in West Des Moines is about a 10 minute drive from our house, and I've gone with the kids a few times now. The playground is pretty big, which isn't a good thing when there's a beach in running distance. I have to make sure I always know where the kids are. When Andrew comes with us, the trip is definitely worth it. The kids love all of the equipment, and they really, really love the beach!

And then, like the responsible parents we are, we had the kids run through the splash pad to get sprayed with chlorinated water to clean them up for the beach :)

Prospect Park

My parents came into town for a quick trip this weekend. They arrived Friday evening and left already on Sunday morning. It was really nice to see them and, of course, show them the house!

My mom and I wanted to take the kids to an egg hunt at Union Park. Time got away from us, and by the time we got the kids dressed and ready, we were really cutting it close to get to the hunt on time. We drove by the park without seeing it, so we decided just to give up on the idea and take the kids to another park to play.

We went to Prospect Park, which is right off of the Des Moines River. It's nicely forested, and a busy trail runs through the park, on the opposite side of the river from the playground. I really want to go back when everything's green!

There was a crew team or something in the water. It was a beautiful day for it.

The park is lovely, and I could see taking the family there for picnics. The only downside was the trash. It was overflowing from the trash cans, and some people had set their bags of trash around the pavilions and stuff. I guess park clean-up hasn't started yet for the season, but it really needed it.

South Karen Acres Park

It was another perfect almost-spring day on Friday. Temperatures reached 60, and there was a nice breeze. It's perfect park weather, so the kids and I set out to play at yet another local park! I looked for parks nearby on Google Maps and found one called South Karen Acres Park. It's just a little southeast of Walker-Johnston Park, where we'd played the day before.

This park is in the middle of a residential area, but it has some wide spaces for kids to run and play. There was also a little kid-sized basketball hoop, and there was a (currently empty) wading pool for the summer.

The playground was small, but the kids loved it. That is, they loved it until Oliver spotted...

...the ride-on, sand-digging crane!

That was when he went crazy for the park! We used to play with those all the time when we were kids, but I think they mostly disappeared when sand parks were replaced with wood chips and gravel. Oliver took to the crane immediately and dug and dug and dug.

Here's a video of him working so hard:
                      

Jo just loves to be outside and play. She has no fear on the play equipment and was content to just keep climbing & sliding.

I had to keep telling her that this climbing wall was for going down and not up. She seriously kept trying to go off the edge there.

Wee!

Digging in the sand:

There was also one of those merry-go-rounds that they used to have at parks when we were kids!

And, again, we spotted a trail running through the park. A few cyclists went by as we played. I checked the map. Apparently, this trail does a big U and can take you back to Walker-Johnston Park, where we played yesterday. About halfway along that trail is a main trail that you can follow south all the way into Des Moines and the parks there.

Photos of the kids playing with some trees and planting magic beans for a beanstalk:

I'm really looking forward to seeing these parks and trails when everything is green. Just a few more weeks!

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.