Rocket Park

Back in the day, THE place for playground fun was Rocket Park. That wasn't it's official name, but that's what everyone called it. If you were good in the grocery store or kept your cool the entire time at some boring great-aunt's house, a trip to Rocket Park was the big reward.

Of course we called it Rocket Park because of the rocket. After you made it across the swinging bridge and got over the planking you could enter the rocket itself. It had three levels that you reached by ladder. The middle level had a shiny slide for an emergency exit. The top level was the nose of the rocket and was so small only two or three kids could fit at the time.

Somewhere along the line, they tore out the amazing rocket and installed safe playground equipment. (I should mention that most moms hated Rocket Park because the whole thing was a serious, and possibly deadly, accident waiting to happen. The moms would sit together on the benches watching in horror as their kids would climb, almost slip and then climb again.)

I'm telling you all this because I think I found the rocket yesterday!

The Boy and I were out on the back roads on our way to the Girl's cross country meet. The team is forced to ride the bus to get to all its meets, so family members have to get their on their own. Luckily when the meet is over, you are allowed to take your kid with you so they don't have to ride home on the bus. Anyway, yesterday's meet was way the hell out in Sullivan. That's pretty big time Amish country and we passed plenty of buggies on the way. One of the towns we had to creep through was Spencer and right there on the road was a little community park with a rocket. The boy posed by it so you can get an idea of it's size.

If this isn't the exact same rocket that was in our park when I was a kid, then it is definitely it's twin.

These opening for the ladders are a bit smaller than I remember them being. I wish that graffiti wasn't so hidden. It said, "Becky is a wannabe redneck". Whoa! Those small town kids are scary!

This slide could use a coat of wax. If you had to actually escape from an exploding rocket, you'd only get halfway down before you'd have to push yourself along. Burnt for sure!

Way up in the nosecone, Commander J, spies the alien life form on the planet.

The alien has taken control of the rocket and is taunting me from the control room!

Back on Earth, I got to be the mommy sitting on the bench gasping as I watched my kid almost slip down the ladder. Not fun at all.

Not only did this park have the rocket, but look at the size of this swing set! And you know that I got it up there and I was looking over the top bar before I was done. The Boy was mighty impressed.

He wasn't so impressed with the thing that spins you until you barf.

There was also a spiral slide that was actually slippery, some real teeter-totters that we tried out and this little crane that you can sit on and dig up sand. The Boy really liked playing with that even though he was way too big for it.

Oh yeah, we made it to the Girl's meet with plenty of time to spare. She came in 31st with a time of 18:49. Considering how hot it was and that they had to run up and down hills instead of just a flat course, I think she did wonderful.

Now she wants to go to Rocket Park since she's seen the pictures. Another road trip is surely in our future!