I have been coming to Tradewinds Park for the past few months with my son and we both think it's a great park.

My son will be 3 years old in 4 months and refuses to even consider wearing a mask so we have been doing a lot of nature based outdoor activity this year. This park is large enough and there are few enough people (weekdays is when we go) that keeping our distance and limiting contact to distantly passing by other people on the path is very easy.

There are actually 2 sides to the park. Sample Road splits it so you either turn into the park to the South where there is a disc golf course, some nice paved paths for walking, cycling or my personal favorite: wagon rides... There's also a playground which is closed and roped off with so much orange fencing and rope that even my headstrong daredevil toddler doesn't try to breach the perimeter. Butterfly World also takes up a small plotbof land in the park, probably why there is such an abundance of butterflies in the surrounding meadows (nothing fancy, just little guys).

I'm pretty sure the bathrooms are all closed, but we haven't reached that magical milestone yet and I would rather give myself a kidney stone than use a public restroom right now, so we haven't officially checked that out. The water fountains are definitely covered over with plastic but all the garbage cans seem to be in use and regularly serviced.

The North side of the park is where the stables are located and where they do the holiday light drive thru every year. My son was beyond delighted to go on a "Christmas Adventure" to see the lights one night last week and I have to admit the display is impressive, $20 well spent.

Of course had I known how excited he'd be to walk up to the displays in the daytime when they aren't even lit up, I would have saved the $20. Well, no I wouldn't have, but the fact remains that my son loved going for a walk thru the unlit displays so much that we went twice this week, spending a whole morning walking around a different area each day.

Today when we went the entire pasture by the stables was full of horses and ponies, a few dozen I'd estimate. While we knew there were stables and a farm here we'd never actually checked any of that out so it was a nice little surprise for both of us.

Further back there is a general store (closed for COVID) and a small farm that apparently allowed kids to come in and pet the animals pre-COVID with chickens, goats and bulls. My son was over the moon to "discover" this little farm. He talked to the goats and chickens, he said hello to the "mooses" which after much debate we agreed had horns not antlers and so they had to be bulls, not "mooses". They alsobhad a sign for pony rides, also closed and a closed playground. I can't wait to come back post-COVID when everything reopens.

Then there's this little railroad that we actually parked by. The schedules says it only runs one weekend a month, but another sign says open weekends. Either way it was closed today, Friday, and that was great because the walk along the tracks was lovely and easy for my little guy to navigate.

One and only drawback...FIREANTS!!!! The hills are everywhere. My son stepped in several until he saw the ants boiling out of the mound. We bring a picinic blanket to lay out for lunch or snacks and we are super careful where we set it.