I have to confess, I was looking for food. Before we left for our quick weekend trip to the Allentown KOA I went on to the RV.NET forum and asked for family-friendly restaurant recommendations near the campground. I got a few responses, but more importantly, a friendly member from Cape May “HIGHLY” recommended the Cedar Beach Playground in Allentown. They said that it was “an absolutely great park” that their grandchildren had enjoyed for hours. So I put on my Captain Internet costume and used the Google to find some pictures and reviews. Do people actually review playgrounds online? When the playground is as epic as Cedar Beach, apparently they do. Here are some excerpts from the reviews on yelp:
“Wow, this park is huge! We stopped here while we were in the area and I wish we lived closer so we could go back often. So many different contraptions for the kids to play on.”
“I love this park, my kids love this park, the little canal or whatever u want to call it is beautiful. Perfect for skipping rocks and geese watching lol.”
“The largest playground I have ever seen (and I have lived in 3 countries and 4 states!) The surrounding park has so much for little ones to free play on if you get tired of the overwhelming playground.”
“I’d like to know the story behind this place. In my imagination, Allentown got a grant to build a playground, but the check accidentally got printed with two extra zero’s. So, the town fathers picked up the playground catalog and ordered one of EVERYTHING. The place is spastic.”
Huge? Overwhelming? Spastic? Filled with “Contraptions?” The gauntlet had been thrown down. The Lively Little Campers would go and go big!
And go big they did. The boys tested the slides…
Climbed the rock walls…
Challenged their dexterity on the “contraptions…”
Then triumphantly leaped off said “contraptions”…
They also rocked out some funky new electro-magnetic hairdo’s…
And ate a picnic lunch from Panera (who forgot to pack Theo’s bagel and cream cheese, grrrrr!)….
The boys rode the slides again and again and again, then climbed back up them….
And our whole family just enjoyed the bigness and grandness of this unexpected place.
Thanks to my RV buddy from Cape May for recommending Cedar Beach. I never would have found it otherwise. And thanks to the quixotic town fathers of Allentown for dreaming up, and actually building this place. Stephanie and I drove home talking about how we wished we had a playground like this in our hometown at the Jersey Shore.
Is it time to run for town council on the “crazy, spastic playground platform?”
