Night Park

Let’s face it, it is horribly hot. Outdoor activities can be challenging at best during the daytime right now or even feel downright impossible, especially on the many days lately when extreme heat alerts have been issued. The local parks are looking quite abandoned most of the time.

Instead of visiting the park during the day, therefore, one of our solutions is to instead visit the park at night.

To be clear, I don’t mean we’re heading out at midnight or anything like that. We usually set off at about 7:30 on or so and we head back by about 8pm or shortly thereafter. It’s late enough that the sun has set and we have missed the worst of the heat, but early enough that it feels fairly safe with people are still coming home for the day and plenty of joggers and dog walkers also about. It’s also early enough in the evening that any noises of playing are unlikely to trouble anyone nearby too greatly, though I discourage my kids from getting too carried away.

Lately, it’s hot enough even with the sun gone for the day that I enforce time limits on how long we can play, and it’s not quite the unrestrained play that my kids are accustomed to in milder weather with their friends. But it does them good to get out and active outdoors, whether it is through a quick turn on the swings, playing on the slide or, as unappealing as I personally find it, running around to play tag. We even get to enjoy looking up at the sky and checking out the planes using the Flight Radar app on my phone. While we may spend only for 15 or 20 minutes at the park playing, “night park” has rapidly become one of our summer traditions.