Century Park-Greer, SC

In our latest outing my wife Meredith and I coaxed Liv into the car (with promises of swings and bouncing) and we headed out to Century Park in Greer.  It's not too far from our house, about a 15 minute drive, which Liv will tolerate as long as we sing to her and keep her supplied with juice and snacks. I had never been and am always interested in adding another park to the rotation. 

When you pull in to Century Park the first thing that you notice is the absolute crap-load of playground equipment. I know that may not be the most eloquent way to describe it, but when we pulled up I actually said "Man that's a crap-load of equipment," so there you go.  There are two parts to the playground area, as well as baseball fields and a disc golf course.  The first part that you walk into has some of the coolest playground toys around, including an 8-foot xylophone, giant sand pit, and train the size of a school bus. We got there earlier than most people, but it wasn't long before we realized that this was a very popular park. Church groups and home school co-ops seemed to pour in pretty quickly, which is understandable because there seems to be something for everyone to do.

Small portion of the playground equipment

So, with all of these amazing things, where did Liv go first? The spring rider in the shape of a turtle, of course. In fact, she spent 20 minutes just rocking back and forth with a huge smile on her face. Naturally I tried to show her some of the other things, but every time she came back with a "no Dada." The only time she willingly got off the spring turtle was to get onto a spring motorcycle that another little girl had recently vacated. (She is a 2 year old who knows what she likes and has been know to spend entire park trips being pushed on the swings.)


We did eventually convince her that there was more to the park and we made our way over to the second part.  Here is where the park loses some points in my mind.  The area is dominated by giant wooden structures- giant castles, boats, and more. This is cool, but the equipment is just too crowded for my liking.  There is not a great line of sight and losing track of your little ones seems really easy, judging by all the names being called out by parents. It's not really a problem for us because you would have to first get Liv's hand out of Meredith's or mine before we could lose track of her (people who know her know what I am talking about).  All of this clutter didn't stop Liv from finding something to do there - she walked back and forth on a rope bridge until lunch time. But if you go just be aware that the close quarters can make it a little claustrophobic and difficult to track the little ones. (Sometimes I have to remind myself that busy is good, it means that kids are outside playing instead of inside watching TV.) I don't mean to discourage people from going, I just want you to know what you can expect when you do go there.  It was built to be accessible by wheelchair most everywhere that the kids can go and put together by volunteers, which is unique.  Century Park is a large, greatly equipped park that has a multitude of things for all children (and adults) to do.  I hope that you go, bring your little ones, and set them loose on the park. Maybe I'll see you there.