Yesterday I was feeling a bit bored with the usual parks and places we go to, so I decided to take a look at the City of Everett Parks and Recreation website and wandered over to their parks page. I was amazed at how many parks there are that I’d never heard of.  The city’s website gives some basic information, but as I looked through them I realized I’d really need to go to each park to check them out, because the information is pretty generic. We love all parks, but with two dogs and a toddler, we definitely look for certain characteristics in the parks we frequent. So I booked marked a few and will be checking out as many as we can over the next few weeks and hopefully snapping some good photos so others can get s better idea of where they’re headed.

Today we went to Lowell Park in Everett. There are two Lowell Parks, one on the river and one just up from it in a neighborhood. We went to the neighborhood one. The website said it is 10 acres with a off leash dog park, trails, playground, picnic shelter/ tables and bathrooms. It does have all these (it seemed smaller than 10 acres to my husband and me, so we may have missed something).

The park was messy with garbage when we arrived around 9:15 am but a crew soon arrived and seemed to be thoroughly cleaning.

The playground had many slides, lots to climb and both toddler and big kid swings. The playground equipment was all in good repair as were the tables. The best part for my 18 month old was the swings and slides. There are several slides and she was able to climb (with our help) and go down all of them. We’ve found that slides are to steep, bumpy or curvy for little ones to go down at many playgrounds and of course little ones love slides (well mine does anyway). So I’m constantly scoping out slides now and it often is the deciding factor on which parks I go back to (this won’t always be the case, but right now swings and slides are about all she can do unless there is an awesome toddler area, which a few parks do have).

The rest of the park was so so. I was looking forward to walking those ten acres of trails, but unless we missed something the trails just go around part of the park and in many spots are in great need of repair.

The off leash dog park is a small fenced area perfect for neighborhood folk to bring their dogs, but nothing I’d drive for. There is a large grassy area at the south end of the park which would be great for playing ball etc. but it is not an off leash area and is not fenced. (Sorry I did not photograph this area). This would be a lovely gathering space for a party or picnic however.  If you do plan a picnic bring your insect repellent as the mosquitos and flies were thick.

Bottom line, I’d love to live by this park as a place to walk to and enjoy the green space, but it’s not a park I’ll frequent. A perfect neighborhood park for local residents.