Odessa Park, Maryland

We went to Ikea to look at some furniture and wound up finding some geocaches. Two caches are stashed in the parking lot. The kids had fun exploring for them. We parents weren't too worried since the caches are in the back parking lot, far from the customers' eyes. We checked for other local caches and discovered one in a nearby park, Odessa Park. The park is also known as Sunnyside Neighborhood Park and has a skate park, handball court, and playground. Naturally, we had to try out the playground after making our 396th find.

Playground at Odessa Park

We made our own line for the tall slide. At first our prescholar climbed to the top and was too afraid to go down the slide. Mom climbed up with him and helped him go down the first time. After that, he was ready to slide by himself again and again. And again and again and again.

Sliding down the slide

That last patch of leftover snow made for an extra-soft landing.

Big brother sliding

The park has some other fun climbing equipment, including plastic rock arches. Our older son was able to climb up easily but wasn't immediately sure how to get back down. After a little thinking and repositioning, he was able to get his feet back on the ground.

King of the arch

One spinner was fun for my daughter, though the circular motion was never quite smooth enough. She had me spin her which was a little tricky with a camera in one hand.

She spins! She scores!

The more minimalist seat-spinners were also popular with the older kids. They had fun spinning and then trying to walk in a straight line while still slightly dizzy.

Spin master

The park also has little rocking animals that are really too small for my bigger kids. The prescholar was too invested in the big slide to even try.

Too old for a rocking horse?

Realizing we are so close to discovering geocache #400, we will probably make a bigger effort to find more in the near future. Plus, there was a CD in the cache that asked to be moved on to another cache, so we will listen and send it on its way.