Rotary PlayGarden — Attraction in San Jose

I loved this park as a kid. It's a good break from your run-of-the-mill playground, with fun swings, a spinning "Christmas tree" feature which kids can climb on, a small "trampoline" for toddlers, and a rope play structure. Up on the hill, there are two sets of slides - one for older children which goes down the entire hill, and another for toddlers/younger kids which is half that length. On the other side of the bridge from the slides are a couple of tall metal bird and dragonfly structures, which children can move the wings of down on the ground. There is a lot of grass here, and there are picnic benches under shade.

There is a spiraling water feature near the entrance; however, it is most likely turned off due to drought.

The ground around the play structures is rubber, like the rubber pellets you find in turf fields, and slightly springy. Very good for children. The park is well-kept and clean. It's also very close to the airport, so you can wow your kids with the low-flying planes.

There is a blessing and curse about this park, and that is the nearby Guadalupe River Trail. You can bike the trail to the park, but it runs right next to an infamous homeless encampment. If this is offputting, be assured that the encampment is a good way from the park, and there is a fence that surrounds...

The playground quality overall is very good; shade is kinda sparse, but strong features. However, the hours are prohibitive compared to most parks.

It's pretty obvious that the hours are only due to the staff member at the entrance, who almost wouldn't be necessary if there weren't a locked gate and a giant fence around the whole place. All of this security for a children's playground would seem absurd, except for the location at Guadalupe park. The security is in place to keep out homeless people.

The cognitive dissonance required to create an "all-inclusive" playground that is exclusionary to homeless people is simultaneously disheartening and predictable.

There are plenty of open playgrounds in San Jose and Santa Clara County that do just fine without security. The fact that this "inclusive-but-only-for-the-right-people" policy restricts the facility's operating hours (and thereby inhibits its functional effectiveness) shows how far the developers were willing to go to make this seem like a success.

Sure, my 3-year-old doesn't notice and she has a great time. But when we're there all I see is another example of San Jose wealth inequality and anti-homeless policies. I'd rather not...

Have you ever went so high on the swings that the chains go over the bars? Rotary play garden is a great park for you kids But I like to call it the crazy park. And it has a secret pomelo tree that is magic! But if you do not know what a pomelo is it's a hybrid of orange, lemon, and grapefruit. A hybrid is a mix of something. One time, be and my brother and my mom was exploring and se found a pomelo tree!

At the crazy park, there is a obstacle course! So first, you go on thing that looks like a triangle. Then you go to the bumpy thing, then you go on the tiny triangles, then you go to the net, then you go to the higher net. So basically what I told you wan the order of which way you go on the obstacle course like this. 12345.

This is the last page and the thing I am going to tell you and it's super duper weird. I spotted it out and it's very unique so let me tell you the story. I was walking all around the crazy park when I found a very tiny tree that was turning orange. It was so weird I told my mom and my brother it was so cool and I like could not...