My girls love playgrounds (what kid doesn’t). We often go to Morton Park or King’s Park near our home in Newport. Our yard is quite small, so in taking them to the park I imagine I am giving them a larger expanse in which to run and explore. But you know what? They don’t really do much running or exploring. There are slides - they go up, they go down. There are swings - I push them back and forth, back and forth. Not much to it.
One morning this week there seemed to be a lot of discontentment at home (this is my nice way of saying the girls had been shrieking at each other all morning). It was clear that we needed to GET OUT but I was not in the mood for the playground, it wasn’t a beach day, and I feared that a trip to The Norman Bird Sanctuary or Sachuest Point (both of which I love dearly) would inevitably turn into me carrying my substantial and seemingly tired three year old on a nature hike. So, I decided to pack a picnic and take the girls somewhere new. I was in search of someplace wide open with no equipment. We went to The Glen in Portsmouth. I have lived near it practically my whole life and I think I had been there once, years ago. I wasn’t even sure exactly where the park was or exactly what it would be like. We parked the car, took a little walk and this is what we found. 
Heaven. As soon as we walked into this tree grove my five year old said,
“I feel so relaxed."
Has any child uttered those words upon entering a playground - ever? I think not! We laid down our blanket and proceeded to spend the next three hours in this beautiful place. We saw two other people, and four dogs, total. It was pristine, and though we were not far from the main road, all we heard were birdsongs and each other (and absolutely no shrieking).
What did we do? We had lunch. We played hide and seek. We played “Duck, duck, unicorn.” We played “Bees.” We had races.
The girls brought paper and markers and they pretended they were explorers. They drew pictures of flowers and bugs and brought them back to me and I made up silly names for the ones I didn’t recognize: “Oooooh, that is none other than a rare Whoozawhatsa! FANTASTIC!”
We lay on our backs and looked up at this.
The next day, they asked to go back. So we did...and we brought friends.
