Nanny Donna Campbell and her four young charges explore a lot of neighborhood parks near their Littleton home.
But City Park, the sprawling swath of green that rolls west from the edge of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, is the one she says is worth a crosstown drive.
“We can take a little walk, and the kids love all the different playground equipment,” she said one sunny morning as she watched a 1-year-old boy crawl down rubberized paths at the Community Built Playground, while the 2-year-old and two 3-year-olds also in her care dangled from climbing rings and flew down wide slides. “We have passes to the zoo and the museum, and sometimes we have a picnic.”
Officially the city’s third-oldest park – Curtis and Fuller came first – City Park was Denver’s first developed green space.
Now anchored on the north side by City Park Golf Course, The Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Denver Zoo, City Park looks from its boundaries to be a grand collection of formal gardens and classic statuary dating to the late 1800s, and places to promenade in your Sunday best.
And that it is. But Denver’s front lawn also holds a lot of big fun for little kids.
There are tennis courts and ballfields, playgrounds and picnic areas. Up on the hill, just out the back door of the museum, is the amazing H-2-Odyssey fountain, a huge span of leaping water jets that beckons babes in bathing suits the minute the mercury starts to rise.
“It’s more fun than a pool, I think,” says City Park administrator Helen Kuykendall.
There are paddle boats shaped like animals, and places to toss a line in and maybe catch a fish. There are spots to spy on nesting birds and cannons to climb around on.
There’s also a box-canyon replica that works as a fun climbing area in winter and is a place to splash around in when it’s warm out.
When the water comes on this summer, you can follow the little stream out of the canyon to the banks of the old-timey Lily Pond, where goldfish mingle with fairy-tale-style lilypads.
Lots of the park is made up of vast manicured meadows, perfect for tossing the ball around or playing Frisbee, or just running until your legs give out.
And as you speed across the meadows on the east side of the park, you can brag that you’ve crossed the famed “5280 contour,” the altitude line that gives Denver its Mile High City nickname.
But best of all, you can feel like the city’s biggest slice of the great outdoors is yours alone.
“City Park has lots of interesting areas, and it’s sort of a secret,” Kuykendall says. “You can walk and feel like you have it all to yourself.”
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Celebrate spring break with Kids Week in The Denver Post. Coming this week:
MONDAY: Family activities for each
day of the break – or whenever you have time – in Fitness.
TUESDAY: Six new board games and five standout kids’ TV shows for rainy-day fun in Play.
WEDNESDAY: See who won the kids cooking contest and get recipes for kid-friendly cuisine in Food.
THURSDAY: Clean your room with tips for keeping kids’ space spick-and-span in Room.
FRIDAY: Learn about some of the best kid-friendly arts activities in 7 Days.
