After Oliver’s nap we decided to try and find a park to let The Kid run free and burn off some excess energy. It was way too hot today to go to our usual Valley hangouts so we decided to hit a West Side park. After consulting our “City Baby L.A.” guide we settled on Coldwater Canyon Park.

Coldwater Canyon Park is located at 1100 North Beverly Drive-- on Beverly, north of Sunset. In the guide it is described as a “favorite of toddlers”. The part that stuck out to us was that it mentions a “running stream that kids love to play in on hot days”. We were very excited to visit it since it was in the 90’s and we could really use a “running stream”.

I’ve been known to be a bit of a Debbie Downer at times, but let me start off by saying that the “running stream” is actually a trickle of mostly stagnate water—what little water exists is filled with green algae and probably hosting large quantities of mosquito eggs. If I truly were in a Debbie Downer spiral I would mention West Nile Virus. But I won’t for fear that I will live up to my Ms. Debbie reputation.

Moving on past the murky stream, you walk along two of Los Angeles’ more busy side streets which border the park (Coldwater and Beverly Blvds). Once you have dodged Porches, the Luxury SUVs and the Porsche Luxury SUVs, you come to the toddler playground. The playground is your typical toddler set up with all the requisite bridges, slides, ladders, swings, etc., and it’s surrounded in sand and soft-sided rubber floors. While crossing the sand, sand fleas attacked our ankles, however, they didn’t seem to bother Oliver one bit. We decided to swing for a bit before doing a couple of laps around the park. On our way out we thought we would just play in the large grassy area (taking care to keep The Kid out of traffic).

The park was busy—not too busy—and there were a few people who set up a picnic on the lawn. There were lots of little dogs, some that bit and some that didn’t, but all of whom left little brown packages throughout the lawn and the owners didn’t seem to have any bags with them. Oliver eventually stepped in a slider that stuck to the sides of his shoes. We cleaned him up and got out of there pretty quick.

This park, while it may have been fun at some point in the past, is no longer the hot spot it once was. It sounded good on paper, and looked good from afar, however up close it’s a big mess. We’d give it one star out of four. We won’t be returning for a while.