On a beautiful Tuesday morning, Pebble and I visited Davidsonville Park. It wasn’t a park I had been to before with any of the children, and I could see from the pictures that the playground was pretty small. Still, I thought it could be neat to go somewhere we hadn’t been before, and we were in the area.
The park is easy to locate, the address is 3042 Patuxent River Road in Davidsonville. Once you make your turn into the park, you make the first left to go over to the playground. Pebble and I didn’t do that, though. Instead we drove straight to the back of the park, past several different ball fields, and parked near a paved pathway, which we followed back into the woods, following signs for the canoe launch. The trees were in full fall color, and it was beautiful out! Pebble found a few leaves that were bigger than her head, and kept coming up with imaginative ways to play with them, like using them as a fan or wings to fly or even a simple game of peek-a-boo.
It wasn’t a long walk to the canoe launch nor a hard one, and the reward was worth it. At the end, after we’d walked down a long flight of wooden stairs, we had a great view of the Patuxent River. Pebble quickly found stones and twigs she could toss in. Next to the stairs we’d climbed down, we spotted a metal slide used to slide canoe or kayak down to the river easier instead of trying to climb down the wooden stairs with it. When Pebble had had her fill of tossing items into the river, we walked back to the car, and drove over to the playground.
As I had seen on the website, the playground was pretty basic, with just one playset and a few swings. I had forgotten a towel, and it had rained the night before. Pebble dried the slides off with her pants instead. Thank heavens I had spare clothes in the car! We saw bathrooms over near some of the fields, but the only thing close to this playground was a port-a-potty, which I used, and discovered the lock didn’t really lock, nor was there toilet paper. Maybe next time I’ll take Pebble’s portable behind a tree instead!
We didn’t stay at the park long, but we had fun while we were there. Pebble and I had a contest to see who could swing the highest, she won. She also tested her arm strength on one of the nearby stations for the fitness trail that circles the park. Pebble proved she could hang from a low bar for 25 seconds. Next to the playground was a soccer field that we circled. As we circled it, we sang the Kiboomer’s song, “Walking, Walking, Hop, Hop, Hop,” and Pebble had fun thinking of new lyrics. We ran, we skipped, we flew, we jumped, even walked backwards! It was fun morning excursion, and we are glad we checked the place out. Will we return? Ehh, this playground is really too basic for my crew, but seeing the fall leaves and spending time with Pebble exploring made our morning priceless. Happy trails!
https://www.aacounty.org/locations-and-directions/davidsonville-park
