Niece-com-poops,  out out out of the house!

Mud Park!

Adventure Playground!

We had a great big fat blastola of fun today at the Huntington Beach Adventure Park. Have you ever been? If you’re local you might have heard of it. It’s only open three months out of the year so it’s easy to miss. It’s also nestled back in the trees behind the Huntington Beach library. I’ve been to that library many times (which is excellent by the way) but I’d never heard of this mud park until Toby took Bug there a week ago for their weekly father-daughter bonding time.

Since the nieces were in town we thought this would be just the thing to complete their summer.

pick some shoes, any shoes

You have to wear closed-toe shoes but if you happen to forget yours you can borrow some. Sharing shoes is kinda gross but considering you’ll be sloshing around in mud anyway it’s not really an issue. You pretty much check your germ phobias at the gate.

spider bug serious tread

It’s not a huge park. It’s not like Disneyland where you need to schedule a whole day to conquer it but for three bucks it’s easily at least an hour’s worth of good old-fashioned Tom Sawyer and Huck Fin kind of fun.

brave

There’s a rope bridge to cross.

pretending it's a balance beam

The Littles

There is also a small pond to raft on. There are a lot of rules like no jumping off the raft and just sitting around in the mud and no throwing things but it’s amazing that this place is even open in this day and age.

cooperating

Technically it’s geared for kids aged 6-12 but Rapunzel managed to have plenty of fun, even if she and her friend did sink their raft more often than they floated it. It was a great exercise in cooperation.

The Littles

Bug and Superchick didn’t seem to have any trouble.

mudslide animated gif

The best part was the mudslide. There’s a big hill in the middle of the park with a plastic tarp running down one side. A girl stands at the top and sprinkles a hose overhead while kids slide down the tarp into a giant mud puddle. It’s your childhood dream come true. I think my brother and I even tried to make something like this in our backyard once but we just didn’t have the space to do it right. So if you ever dreamed of making a giant mudslide you might want to take a look at this place.

Of course I stayed at the bottom and took pictures and didn’t get wet at all but quite a few adults did take the plunge.

wet sneaks

Then the kids hosed off in a little outdoor shower, changed into dry clothes and we went home in time for lunch!

14 Comments

  • cc

    I love that Suki went down nice and slow with a small splash, landing on her feet and Amber just went for it. I can hear Amber’s laughter in the photos.

    Thanks for the photos. I needed them.

  • Jen

    What a fun place! The whole time I was reading I was thinking, “I’ll have to check this place out!” Then I remembered, it’s kind of far from me now, hahaha. DUH! Love all the pictures.

  • Susan:)

    That’s cool! One of my fondest memories of summer camp was the time we made a mudslide. Basically we were playing on a slip and slide, but one girl kept going right off into the dirt, so then it became the thing to see how far off the slide we could go! Such fun. I didn’t think that kind of thing was around much anymore. It’s refreshing to see a place where kids can have good ole fashioned messy fun!

  • Susan:)

    Also, that slide looks very much like the slip and slide my brother made for us in our backyard when we were young! Garbage bags and a hose!

  • Sarah

    I love the slide gif – that mud slide, in fact the whole place, looks like so much fun. Nice that there’s still entertainment to be had from a bit of water and mud.

  • bethany actually

    CC, I thought the exact same thing about Amber and Suki’s styles going down the slide! Those photos in the animated GIF are so great.

    We are definitely going there…if it’s still open when we get there!

  • natalie

    “it’s amazing that this place is even open in this day and age.”

    I thought the same thing! A few times I looked at my sister and said “how is this open? We didn’t even have to sign a waiver!”

  • Kuky

    Looks like fun and not muddy, just like dark water. If we were close by and I told Isabelle it was a mud park she would say eeeeeww! But I betcha if she looked at the pictures without me mentioning the mud part she would say, can we go?

  • Raquel

    Thanks so much for sharing this outing :) And including the links!
    Such a cool place. I took my kiddos this week and they had a blast both in the mud and with the tools(!!) How is this place open indeed!