The Loop — Attraction in Arlington

The loop is becoming very nice for adults, minus the newly designed playground deathtrap. It’s hard to imagine a worse design for a playground. The only brainchild for this so called children’s play area my mind can fathom is a disgruntled, childless sewage worker looking to repurpose empty sewage pipe they could not use underground. Only then could the design of this child-maiming attraction make sense.

The central tunnel is a Padding-less, small diameter concrete pipe which the kids can crawl through. Those children lucky enough to make it through intact are often awarded with bloodied knees and post concussive symptoms when their head smacks the exit ring.

This is not to be topped by the astroturf layed over the top of the pipe (apparently to approximate some sort of slide like contraption) that the kids can slide down. The bottom of this “slide” sits just 2 feet away from the metal gate surrounding the park. but do not fret parents. A blue pad was duct taped to the gate for your child’s added protection.

In addition there is a cool looking multilevel climbing contraption your child can enter, though it seems more appropriate for a seasoned cirque du soleil gymnast, not an uncoordinated toddler. It’s narrow width ensures frequent toddler pile ups, trips and cries.

So to summarize it’s a great area for adults. And...

A fairly peaceful place to sit and people watch, wait for an Uber or just rest in the somewhat fresh air. You occasionally see the strangest things. One time I was chilling here and the background music played like 2 or 3 different songs about ruling the world, Everybody Wants to Rule the World By Tears For Fears and Viva La Vida by Coldplay, back to back, IN THAT ORDER, and nobody else seemed to look even somewhat amused by this serendipity aside from me. Another time there was this guy hanging out with his girlfriend while watching his friend’s livestream on his phone with the sound on and laughing after telling them they were watching in a public place after the shark VTuber said “Hear me out” about Xenomorphs… ok yeah that one was me, but that just proves my point that this is a fun little gathering place to sit, relax and just observe an intriguing cross-section...