I can count on one hand how many blog posts I’ve written this summer. The lack of posts doesn’t mean we haven’t been going on adventures… In fact, we’ve been very busy, with lots of travel. It is simply that my free time to write has been severely limited, especially with all three girls home with me on my days off from work. With school looming, I decided to start working through my backlog of posts by beginning with our newest adventures and working backward, so here I go!
In late July, I took my girls on their first Maryland adventure of the summer. We went to Millard Cooper Park up in Sykesville, MD, which is just off Route 32 north of I-70. While the park is very easy to locate, parking is a bit more challenging. There is a tiny lot near the park bathrooms, and a slightly larger paved lot across the street from the park. When we arrived, around 10:30 in the morning, all the spots were taken. I ended up parking on a grassy patch of ground directly next to the paved area of the larger lot. Stormy asked if I could park where I did, and I simply pointed to all of the other people doing the same thing. The street ended up being lined with cars on both sides, too. Things eased up a bit around lunchtime, and more spots opened in the lots then.
The girls were super excited about this adventure because it was both a playground, and a splash pad. I’d packed swim gear, plus a picnic lunch. Once I’d lathered all of us in a coating of sunscreen, the girls decided that we would start on the playground. As a FYI, Millard Cooper Park is built on a hill, with paved pathways connecting the various sections. For reference, the bathrooms are at the base of the hill, and, as you walk upward, you pass first the splash pad, and then reach the newer playground. There is also an older playground downhill from the new and toward the back of the park. One of the things I liked most about this park is that you could see all of it. For example, I could be at the splash pad, and see my older two playing on the playground just above us. With three kids to keep track of, I found this to be a definite bonus!
The newer playground, which is the one my kids gravitated to, has a zip-line! There was always a line of kiddos waiting for a turn on the zip-line, but, while we were there, the line moved quickly, and smoothly. Pebble needed help getting up onto the platform seat, but Stormy and Rainbow had no issues. In fact, by the end of our visit, Stormy was experimenting between sitting on the platform, and standing, and Rainbow was right behind her. This zip-line is a lot like the one in Prince George’s County at Horsepen Park. The start platform is higher up, reached by a set of steps, and the zip-line moves quickly! If you have littles that can’t grasp well, you probably will need to ride the zip-line with them, as I saw a few parents doing. All three of my girls grinned and squealed as they rocketed down the path. The zip-line was one of their favorite parts of the park.
After a few runs on the zip-line, the girls explored a neat climbing structure / obstacle course near the zipline, and then set off to see the older part of the playground. The older area is one giant playset, complete with monkey bars, slides, including an enclosed one, and plenty of things to climb. There is also a tot area over here for the littles, and a swingset. The newer playground doesn’t have a swingset, just one double swing so parents can easily swing with their littles.
After only a short time at the 2nd playground, the girls decided they wanted to try out the splash pad. They changed in the bathrooms, and we found a shady spot under the trees near the splash pad to lay out our towels. The splash pad isn’t huge, but, like the new playground, it packs a punch. There are a lot of water features to check out, from a tot-friendly water slide, to a variety of fountains, to a central structure that would dump out a giant bucket of water every few minutes. Anyone standing below the bucket got soaked! Stormy liked to lay down under the bucket and wait for the water to crash down! Pebble was happy to go down the waterslide, over and over again. Rainbow explored everything! Her favorite thing to do was get soaking wet, and then run over me to “hug” me, aka get me as wet as her, giggling like crazy the whole time!
There were a lot of littles playing in the splash pad at the same time of us, with parents keeping a watchful eye on them. Families had taken over the entire area around the splash pad, marking out their spots with towels and picnic blankets. In the morning, the trees provided a lot of welcome shade, although shady spots became fewer as the afternoon continued. Many of the kids, mine included, when they got cold from the water, would run uphill to the zipline, and newer playground to play for a bit, and warm up before returning to the splash pad once again.
My kids played for hours, and had a blast! The hands-down favorites were the zip-line and the splash pad. There was also a merry-go-round with netting to climb that my kids thoroughly enjoyed too, although I was one who had to turn the darn thing, and it was heavy to move! For a while, my girls were playing inside the netting on the merry-go-round with several other kids, running in circles as it turned, playing some kind of crazy pizza man game. It was fun to watch them have so much fun. We packed it in when Pebble decided she’d had enough, and laid down on the picnic blanket.
The splash pad is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Wednesdays through Mondays, and closed for cleaning on Tuesdays. The hours are 10am to 7pm, and there is a button that one can push to make the water features start up. Anytime the water cut off to the splash pad, a herd of kids ran to the button to start it up again. Children under 4 are required to wear swim diapers, and the water is filtered and chlorinated. There is no lifeguard. Millard Cooper Park was the perfect outing for my girls, they had a blast, and are already asking if we can go back before Labor Day when the splash pad closes for the season. We will see what happens… Happy trails!
https://www.townofsykesville.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Millard-Cooper-Park-4