Over the past few years I’ve continually heard about the amazing “dragon” park in Cary with great play areas for all kids. Well, we finally ventured to the super popular Marla Dorrel Park, which features the Kids Together Playground at the end of summer with friends. With its unique play areas for graduated levels of difficulty, variety of wheelchair-accessible play equipment, nicely landscaped areas, and abundance of seating it makes a great park for everyone!
Marla Dorrel Park is located near Tryon Rd/Cary Pkwy at 111 Thurston Dr in Cary. It features a basketball court, access to MacDonald Woods Park via Henshaw Greenway, covered pavilion, and the Kids Together Playground, a playground inspired by two girls whose sisters have special needs where kids of all levels of physical and mental ability can enjoy fully-integrated play. There’s a longer walk to the playground from the parking lot than most parks so make sure you have everything you need when get out of the car. As you walk towards the park your eyes are immediately drawn to the beautiful crape myrtles and flowering plants near the pavilion. The large pavilion provides a great meeting spot for birthday parties and picnics and an easy place to spot the restrooms, which even has shorter toddler-level sinks. Just past the pavilion is the infamous climbing dragon sculpture, Katal, resting in full sun while the kids run up, down and all over it. Heading in the other direction, follow the widely paved sidewalks where you’ll pass interactive purple whisper benches on the way to one playground area full of tunnels, arched ladders, fire poles, shade sails, and more.
Beyond this playground is another play structure with graduated levels of difficulty that feature wheelchair ramp access, twisty slides, arched ladders, a fun rolling slide, interactive play items and so much more. Tot swings, traditional swings and chair swings are also located nearby including a swinging platform with wheelchair accessible ramps. The playground surface is mostly sand so bring your sand toys or enjoy the diggers; but wide paved sidewalks wind throughout making it easy to access all areas. They even have wheelchair-accessible sand tables along the pathways!
After exhausting a lot of time on the bigger playgrounds, we visited the partially fenced-in toddler area, which features a playhouse, river of sand, water sources, sand table, and small climbing structures. While our girls felt they have mostly outgrown this area, the shaded benches made for a nice place to stop for a snack. And everyone enjoyed walking through the misting fountains.
This park is loaded with a variety of play structures and picnic spots – we played and snacked for over 2 hours. And, while it may be a super popular park (parking lot was almost full on our way out) it is so big and has so many play areas it doesn’t feel overflowing with people.
Thumbs up: variety of play equipment for all ages/abilities, lots of shade, abundance of swings, well-maintained landscaping, great picnic areas
Thumbs down: lush landscaping can be hard to see over when trying to keep watch on more than one child!
Before preschool started, we headed to Powell Drive Park to check out the playground renovations finished earlier this year. I 
The ages 2-5 playground features bright neon colors with two small ladders, musical drums, slide, tunnel, water/sand table and stepping stones. The playground’s height is short, making it the perfect size for early explorers. Nearby is the ages 5-12 playground with a large spider web rope climbing ladder, curved metal ladder, and tall slide. The big girls loved climbing to the top of the spider web rope and everyone squealed in delight while being pushed on the large, oval swing. The old tennis courts and basketball courts are adjacent to the playground area. There are some large shade trees near the tot swings, but little shade around the ages 2-5 playground. A few benches surround the perimeter of the play area and several moms with small babes had the right idea by bringing a breakfast picnic to the park!
If you live around the Richmond, VA area you have to check out Rockwood Park in Chesterfield County. While visiting Tech buddies in Richmond at the end of June we set out for Rockwood Park Nature Center’s annual Honeybee Festival and everyone (kids and adults) fell in love with this park!
After spending at least 30 minutes in the center, we headed outside to enjoy the bee festival activities. The friendly staff helped the kids make pipe cleaner bee crafts and plant flowers. Then they enjoyed listening to bee themed stories and having bees painted on their hands. After exhausting the storyteller’s books we headed out across the field to explore the playground area.
The playground area is made for kids mostly 5 years and up, but that didn’t stop these almost 2-year olds and 4-year old from playing. The playground has a small slide for younger kids that is connected to higher play areas by monkey bars. There are several more climbing areas connected by ladders with access to twisty and straight slides. With the recent rains the kids happily discovered the large mud puddle at the bottom of the twisty slide. Tot swings and regular swings are nearby and several benches and picnic tables are also located in the playground area. The entire area is mostly shaded by tall, mature trees and there are several more amenities (such as a dog park, pickleball courts, baseball fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, pavilions) adjacent to the playground. As someone who has spent a lot of time visiting family and friends in Chesterfield, I am excited to explore more parks in this area.
One sunny morning this winter we headed out to Cary for haircuts followed by a visit to the nearby Robert Godbold Park. I’m always impressed by the Town of Cary parks and despite being an older park it packed the fun.
After exhausting the playground we walked over to the basketball courts to run around some more. We had a quick snack on the nearby picnic tables and then ran through the woods a bit before walking to the adjacent skate park to check out all the construction. The skate park was temporarily closed for renovations, but according to the 
This Fall, we visited Bill’s parents in Howard County, MD and made a morning trip to the nearby Western Regional Park. Western Regional Park is located at 
After exhausting our climbing skills, we explored the nearby paved trail in search for the other playground. At the end of our short walk we saw a large lighted multipurpose artificial turf field with field hockey, soccer and football goals, a large open field, small mobile concessions, fenced-in basketball, community center, baseball fields, a line of porta-johns, tennis courts, and a playground. Unfortunately the playground was being resurfaced while we were there so it was closed, but looked like it offered a lot for all ages and was fenced in! The multipurpose field conditions were pristine – the grass was a luscious green color and very well maintained. Another interesting feature of this park is the natural area preserved next to the sports fields; I imagine the spectators enjoy some depth to the typically flat parks.
There’s also a separate smaller basketball art sculpture for the younger kids. The girls had such fun shooting baskets and watching the ball spiral down the ramp. If you forget your basketball or don’t have one, the friendly staff at the community center will let your borrow their ball.
The playground area has two playgrounds – one for ages 2-5 and one for ages 5-12 with a large oak tree and mulched area in between that provided great morning shade for the smaller-age playground. The smaller-age playground has a rubber surface with two tot swings, ladders, climbing structures, one slide, and some fine motor twisty toys and noise makers. The age 5-12 playground also has a rubber surface with several climbing structures, rope ladders, monkey bars, a slide without side rails, and two regular swings. A big hit for the kids was also the stationary board with pretend car gauges and noises.
In addition to the community center and playground, this park also has outdoor full court basketball with nearby benches, a large fenced-in open field for soccer and baseball (and a poor attempt at kite flying), and great views of the freight trains coming and going. Combine this park visit with a trip to Tyler’s Taproom or Bad Daddy’s in Seaboard Station and you’ve got a pretty fantastic outing!
MacDonald Woods Park has playground areas for the 2-5 and 5-12 age groups with two swings for both groups. The 5-12 age playground is rather large with several ladders and slides, monkey bars, and climbing wall with rope. The loop-shaped ladder was by far a challenging favorite for this duo. The younger playground is very small with only 2 slides, steps and a platform ladder. There are a few bouncy rides and a small low-to-the-ground structure for early walkers. A small elevated sandbox is located between the two playground areas. But, by far, the best feature of this park is the merry-go-round. Yes, that’s right…they have a merry-go-round! Go Cary! Of all the parks we’ve been to this was a first so you can imagine the confusion when the girls first saw it. Having never been on a merry-go-round they watched several groups of people get on and off before getting on with a group of toddler girls. These sweet maniacs quickly caught on as to why you hold on to the bars but also moved into more challenging feats such as dangling their feet over the edge. That proved to be rather anxiety-ridden for us but they had fun and no one went flying off the thing, so it was a success!
The 2-5 age group playground is a short walk from the bigger playground. It has a fun climbing wall, a few slides, twisty toys, the dreaded butterfly shaped ladder which is too young for a 2-year old in my opinion, a seesaw, tot swings, and bongos.
This past winter has been one of the longest I’ve seen since moving to Raleigh over 11 years ago so when the temps hovered above 45 degrees in January we headed to North Cary Park with a friend and her girls for a short run and playground time. North Cary Park is located at 1100 Norwell Blvd in Cary off of Cary Pkwy. It’s a very large park situated along the northern end of 
