Magical Days with the Mouse: Pioneer Road Park

I'm always trying to find new things to do with my son. Right now he is really into playing with water. He has one of those water tables you can find at any Target or Toys R Us that you fill with water and they splash around in, and we visit Disney California Adventure at least once a week to play in the splash area over in A Bug's Land. The other night I was browsing through Yelp.com, and I typed in water park. Pioneer Road Park in Tustin came up, and I decided to take a look since it's not too far from where we live. There were no pictures, but the reviews that were on there said that the park had a water area that is free. Okay, water and free? This I had to check out.

So we headed over on Monday afternoon to not only find a splash area, but also a really neat and unique park.

This place is right down the street from Peter's Canyon, a place I have been to many times. How did I not know about this park?

The parking lot is quite small, but there is an upper lot with a short climb down stairs to the back side of the park.

Right away you walk through this arch with a silhouette of a riding cowboy, and are instantly greeted with three chuck wagons. Each wagon is made to climb and play on with different aspects to it. At first glance they look the same, but they are not because there is a different activity on each one. Only one has a slide attached to it.

Then off to the left is a separate play area with your typical park playground. I do think that maybe the slide is longer than most parks though. My son is too young for the really big slides, so we skipped it, but part of me did wish I could go down it. It just looked like fun.

Then around the corner you will find a small basketball court, which is really just a half court. This is where you can find the water area. A little path along the court takes you right to the water.

The water area is really simple, yet lots of fun.

There are three stick horse fountains that shoot out water, that you can move and aim at your friends or foes. My son, who is 17 months old, was too short to actually move them around, so this part is geared towards older kids.

Then there are little fountains all over that shoot water up into the air, some higher than others, and water shooting out the side of the wall. Here is the thing that is kind of neat, they don't all go off at once. It's a nice way to conserve water, but still have a working water park. So one minute you are shooting water from the stick horse, then that goes off, and you move to the water coming from the wall.