About Texas Playground Review

While suffering through a four-hour sentence of routine auto maintenance at the Uber Wal-Mart in Plano, I came across the current issue of Texas Monthly, featuring 68 (sixty-eight?) Awesome Things To Do With Your Kids.

As the father of a two boys, aged 2 and 3, and the husband of a teacher, we are always looking for something awesome to do during the summer, so they hooked me. Not that I bought the magazine, of course, but I did commit two minutes to thumbing through the issue, and therefore, subject myself to 14 dozen ads for luxury resorts, plastic surgeons, and Texas-style distressed furniture shops.

One of the 68 elements of awesomeness that immediately caught my attention was the Creative Playscape in Georgetown. My wife, Amy and I met in Georgetown, at Southwestern University, specifically, at an Alpha Phi Omega (The National Co-Ed Service Fraternity) rush event. According to chapter lore, the Alpha Gamma Kappa Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega played a key role in building the Playscape, a few years before Amy and I arrived at SU.

The feature actually called the Georgetown Playscape the best playground in the state. While I was proud that the efforts of my APO brothers was recognized, it made me think of some of the other playgrounds in the state that we have enjoyed over the last few years -- like the Kids Kingdom in San Angelo, and the Heights Playground, near our old DINK house, in Houston.

The Playscape is great, and I can't say that it's not the best playground in Texas, but I don't think it's the slam dunk that TM makes it out to be. There are a lot of great playgrounds in Texas. For that matter, there are a lot of average playgrounds, and a lot of unique playgrounds, there are a lot of terrible playgrounds and there are more than a couple of playgrounds that time forgot -- where real, wooden teeter-totters and steel merry-go-rounds still squeak and unsuspecting kids tempt fate on every sunny afternoon.

So, inspiration stuck in the Uber Wal-Mart in Plano, 200+ miles from our home in Houston, and the Texas Playground Review was born.

So many times, we've been on the road, needing a place to stop and run the boys, and through trial and error, we've learned a lot over the last 3 years. So, we're going to try to document some of what we've learned so that others can avoid the error part.

We're going to review some of our favorite playgrounds, some of the worst and some very average set-ups. Sometimes you just need a place to keep your rugrats busy for a while, and we'll document those here too.

We're also inviting you to do the same. We welcome your comments, and we welcome your posts. Email us your thoughts on great playgrounds -- or terrible ones -- and you too can enjoy all of the glory that comes along with playground blogging.

So welcome to Texas Playground Review. Let's have fun, and play safe. First round of juice boxes on me.

-J