Of all the parks in Hayward, California, San Felipe park is my favorite.
Many of you know I homeschool. Homeschooling is a joy and a pain. I know I am giving my child complete freedom to learn out of genuine curiosity, I know she is free from a harsh and rigid system I disagree with fundamentally, and I know that she will have a natural love of nature and being outside because we go outside A LOT.
The pain comes with the fact that she is in my care all day long every single day of the week. Sometimes mama needs a break. That break takes its form quite often in parks.
Get the Kids Outside
Every morning since Celaya could walk we have headed out after breakfast to go explore a park. She would sit in the sand and let it sift through her fingers, drive trucks through mud, or climb on structures to test her limits. She made friends in the park, she talked to strangers in the park, and she learned that aforementioned love of nature in the park.
As a homeschooling mom, I will be eternally grateful for the Hayward park system and its ability to save me from going crazy inside all day with a growing curious child.
Hayward is a large, busy, urban city with over 150,000 people by last count. We have a thriving downtown system that has come a long way in the twenty years I’ve lived here. It is home to a community college and a state university, both of which I attended and graduated from. We have a major shopping mall, multiple fitness centers and gyms, and every major grocery store except Whole Foods (I’m looking at you Whole Foods. You’re missing out.)
And we have parks.
Hayward Parks
Hayward has such an extensive park system that I am still finding little neighborhood escapes to take my daughters to. We have the lovely, tucked away East Avenue park at the top of the trail system above Mission Blvd. You’ll find what I call “The Plunge Park” down at the bottom of that trail system, obviously next to the Hayward Plunge. There’s busy Kennedy park with a carousel, a train, and a petting zoo open on the weekends (located next to Target, that dangerous do-not-enter-unless-prepared-to-stay-forever sinfully wonderful store). Each of our parks, from the big and visible to the tiny and hidden, is unique, with its own personality and its own features to fall in love with.
But, for five years now and still going, by far my favorite park is what I consider my backyard park: San Felipe.
San Felipe
Up at the top of D street, San Felipe gives you the feeling that you are genuinely in nature, not just above a busy bustling downtown. With big wide rolling hills of green that lead down to a playground and a community center, you feel like you’re in your own backyard. There have been days when my child has barely paid any attention to the play structures because she was so busy rolling down hills, running through sprinklers, looking for mushrooms (don’t eat the mushrooms!), picking little white flowers, or hiding behind trees.
I used to take pictures with subtitles like “give her a playground, and she’ll find the dirt.” San Felipe was a big factor in those subtitles. My oldest and I have spent hours exploring those fields of green. And they do indeed stay perpetually green all year long. Now my little one can sit forever in that green grass and pick at the blades, gazing around her in wonder. This is one of those places you have to take your shoes off and soak up the chlorophyll.
When you stand in those fields while your children laugh and play, you forget for a minute that you are up in the hills, above the bay. Then you look out and you see sky for days. The horizon unfolds before you, and the water from the bay winks at you from the distance. The view from San Felipe makes you feel rich, rich in spirit, rich in soul, rich in love. You cannot spend time at San Felipe and not believe in the power of nature and its transcendent abilities.
The Playgrounds
The play structures are some of my favorite in the whole bay area. The structures sit in wood chips, which seem to be picked through by park maintenance often enough to keep them clean and plentiful. I’m not a huge fan of wood chips, but that’s just because my nature child insists on going barefoot whenever possible. This proclivity for bare feet in wood chips means her father, her uncle, and I get to pluck splinters from the soles of her feet on a regular basis.
Little Kids
There is a smaller structure that I loved for my daughter when she was just walking. It has a short ladder with chain sides for experimenting climbers, a little half rainbow climbing ladder, and two small slides. There are also steps and steering wheels and a little cove underneath for small children to “hide.” It is perfectly constructed for new walkers and toddlers. The small structure section also has two baby swings for new swingers. Both of my girls love to swing, so these little swings are perfect for a break from climbing and falling.
Big Kids
Across the wood chips is a gigantic play structure for older kids. I’m not going to lie: it scared me at first. Climbing walls and ropes lead up to a tower that seems like it reaches the top of the sky when you’re a mother of a small child desperate to try it out. I must say I played an excellent hovering helicopter parent when my daughter was still too small to climb it but so anxious to give it a go. She has fallen backward often enough for me to build up my biceps from all that baby catching.
The big kid structure has two steep fast slides that the kids all delight in climbing up, slipping down, climbing up, desperate for traction, reaching the top, then zooming back down. It also has two more mellow slides, steps, a bigger rainbow ladder, and another underneath crawl space for the bigger kids to hide from the sun and hang out.
Now, at five, she climbs those walls and ropes and slides like a pro. She races up the side of a structure and zooms down the super fast slides, screaming and squealing all the while. You see why we have to get outside? I can stand across the park while she screams her head off in delight. If she did that inside my head would explode.
Picnic
Picnic tables abound at this park, as do barbecue grills. There is an entire cement area set away from the playground and down at the bottom of the rolling hills for big parties with concrete picnic tables and barbecue grills.
The playground is also surrounded by picnic tables on all sides, including another cement area with tables in a group for another large party.
Wooden and metal tables sit under trees, set away from the busy areas, and they nestle at the bottom of hills. If you want to have a picnic in a quiet park surrounded by green grass and big leafy trees, this is the place to do it. Our homeschool group has regular meetups at this park for just that reason. Hours of fun, relaxation, and communion with nature are to be had for park goers of all ages.
Go!
San Felipe is arguably the best park in this part of the East Bay Area; it is definitely my favorite park in Hayward. It is one of those hidden gems that is great for weekend barbecues, early morning playdates, late afternoon energy burners, and all around enjoyable escapes from the busy day to day. This park forces you to become one with nature. It urges you to breathe in fresh air. And it cries out for you to come back again and again to do more of the same. Once you’ve sat with your picnic lunch, wandered the hills, and looked out from the hills to catch the sun glinting off the bay, San Felipe will become your favorite park too.
If you haven’t been, go. If you have been, go again. When you go, let me know. I’ll meet you there.
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