Vancouver, WA

The sun was bright, the weather hot and Layla and I were looking for an after school adventure. This was our first outing since school started and the only thing she demanded was a playground. We drove around for a while and saw some bright colored poles sticking up in the air, which was our sign to stop and check it out. It was just north of the corner where Klickitat Street and McIntosh meet. If you take the SR14 get off at exit 10 (192nd Avenue), take a right onto Brady Road and another right onto McIntosh. Follow that to Klickitat, make a left and there is a small parking lot on the right.

I looked all over for the name of this park, but there was none, just a Camas Park Rules sign. It was such a pretty little park it should be known as something other than “no-name park”. There were a some broad paths, but Layla was in charge and she wanted to unwind first, so we spent about 45 minutes playing on and around the playground, with a few instructive moments where “you be the owner and I’ll be the horse” type of adventures where she usually uses a necklace or something as reigns. This is not really my idea of a fun time, so I quickly begged off. (While looking for a map of this area I discovered the name of the park is “Klickitat Park”.)
                                   
We found a large tree, which provided plenty of shade, next to the playground. I pulled my lounger out of the car, dragged it up the slight incline and sat down with my book, though I did not get much reading done. Layla never did tire of the playground, so I finally said it was time for a walk; and as a bribe, told her we would go find something to drink after we finished.
       
The park has many different features: benches, picnic tables, even a covered section, nice wide paths, a basketball half-court, drinking fountain, the playground, a habitat area, and a huge hill. The drawbacks also include the nice wide path…parts of the trail are fairly steep, other parts are paved with small bricks, which could cause problems with strollers or wheelchairs. When you get to the top of the hill you must turn around and come back, it would have been much nicer to continue down the other side of the hill and back to where you started for running, jogging or walking.
        
Even with these drawbacks, it is a very nice park and when Layla and I turned around at the top of the hill we decided to jog back to the car, bad idea. You get really, really hot doing this and then you have to get into a really, really hot car. Good thing we had already decided to get something to drink.