Parents of small children will be happy to hear that rather than sand, gravel, or wood chips, the play area is covered in rubber surfacing.

Why rubber? I remember way back in the day they changed the surfaces a couple times, but we always preferred gravel. Sand we never had, but wood chips had splinters and rubber got really hot in the summer and gave us more burns or scrapes when we fell. Gravel was dusty but cushioned our falls better.

That took some figuring on my part of where they put it — it’s right on top of the old playground, beside the commemorative plaque, between the end of the parking lot and the ponds.

This isn’t the park’s first foray into rubber; they already put in an outdoor fitness facility slightly downriver when the park was newer, using the same surface material.

It looks like to be named the “tallest play structure” they cheated and put a cone on top — I was trying to figure out how it was taller than tha Terra Nova Rural Farm Playground in Richmond — the height seems the same (same slide) but the Richmond structure doesn’t have the cone on top.

I can’t help but to wonder if they’ve secured it enough such that children do not climb the exterior… 12M is not a short drop and even with rubber flooring, a fall from that height can really injure the kids (whom incidentally are also made of rubber).