50) Clemyjontri Playground

The Spring weather has us back on the Playground Tour again! After visiting 23 playgrounds last fall (you can check out the full list here) we took the winter off. However there are still a few playgrounds that we didn't make it to in the fall, so this week we started taking advantage of the warm days to go check some out. If you recently started reading the blog, the Playground Tour was an idea I had last Fall, when I started the blog, for us to visit as many local area playgrounds as possible. The idea really started as a way for us to spend time outside and keep everyone entertained. What I quickly realized was that what started as a few simple trips to the playground quickly became so much more. We not only got to spend our afternoons playing outside but we also met lots of new people, learned about new places, discovered neighborhoods and areas in our own city that we probably wouldn't have visited before and become super knowledgeable about playground equipment. So all that said last week I was looking online and came across this article on Yahoo "The 5 Coolest Playgrounds in the U.S." To my surprise the first playground on their list is a little less then an hour away from our house. So this week, while the Bee is on her pre-school spring break, we took a little field trip to check it out. The Clemyjontri Playground is located in Virginia just off of 495 (right past Great Falls) so from Baltimore it took us about an hour to get there with traffic, less to come home. However we spent almost 2 hours playing at this playground so it made the drive well worth it. All three of us gasped when we pulled up, this playground is huge! The whole play area is centered around a carousel that was actually not running the day we went, but with so much other stuff to do we didn't miss it. There are public bathrooms and vending machines at the entrance as well as a few picnic tables. The playground was sort of divided up into a few sections but each area easily blended into the next. This is a great playground for little kids, especially the 5 and under group. The ground is covered in a nice soft rubber covering, the space is very wide and open so it is easy to keep and eye on everyone and there are lots of different cars, climbers, swings, mazes, instruments, airplanes and games to keep everyone busy. A few things to note, the playground was pretty quiet on the day we went, but from what I have read it can get pretty crowded. Parking can be a limited but the do have an overflow lot 1/4 mile away. There also isn't a lot of shade over the play area. We went on a slightly overcast day, so this wasn't a problem but I could see where this playground could be brutal in August. Although they have done a nice job providing pavilions and other covered structure if you needed to get out of the sun. Overall this playground was so much fun and with so much cool stuff to do it is definitely worth a little trip!

For a full list of Baltimore Playgrounds checkout our Playground tour 2011-2012