On a Sunday morning in May we headed out to Leesville Community Park in hopes of finding a fun playground with some open space for flying a kite. The playground was unlike any others we had ever been to before and we were able to find a small space for kite flying so it was a successful morning!
Leesville Community Park is located at 5105 Country Dr in North Raleigh and has a Wake County Library on the premises. It has two playgrounds near each other – one for ages 2-5 and one for ages 5-12. The smaller age playground is covered by a large shade tarp and is a series of one foot tall platforms for playing and climbing on so this playground is best for a steady climber or even a non-walker who likes to just stand and hold onto things. Ashley had a blast playing with the spinning toys on the younger playground.
The older age playground is a series of metal or rope climbing structures, a very narrow slide, and a stand-up spinning structure. It had yellow caution tape in a section where the rope ties were broken. I’m so thankful Bill was with me this morning to assist Ashley as she spider-monkeyed the rope climbs while I could tend to Claire. I was pretty nervous with Ashley being so high up, but she did great and even made it down the very narrow slide by herself. However, I wouldn’t take both girls back to this park by myself because Ashley would require so much assistance on the older playground.
After some playground time we busted out our princess kite in the nearby open space. We had the park to ourselves this morning which proved to be crucial when giving a 3-year old a kite – she ran all over the place instructing her kite to “C’mon on, kite!” It was super cute watching her fly the kite, until she ran into some small, unnecessary stumps located in the middle of the open space.
After flying kites we explored the shady median between the parking lots, which featured a short dirt pathway with benches that lead to the Carlton family cemetery. Finally we got some use out of the public restrooms, which were very comfortable for temporary trailer bathrooms.
Thumbs up: bathroom facilities, monkey bars at smaller age playground, library/park combo trip, shade tarp over smaller age playground
Thumbs down: lack of picnic tables, playground features require kids to be very able at climbing, park entrance was hard to spot (we drove right by), small jagged stumps in open field
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.
