Dan Foley Park

On another visit to Vallejo, I thought that it would be nice for me and the wee one to hang out in a park while waiting for Val to finish up at the dental clinic (he had three appointments; during two of them, the wee one and I visited the Blue Rock Springs Park). Dan Foley Park was just a few miles away so the wee one and I went there to while away the potentially long dental appointment.

Looking at Lake Chabot's resident ducks

Dan Foley Park has a lot to offer. It has a cultural centre, a man-made lake (Lake Chabot was built in the late 1800s), a football pitch, and a baseball diamond. On top of these features, the park also has a children's playground and several picnic areas.

(The park had me at "man-made lake".)

When we arrived, I learned that parking was free that day (perhaps, COVID-19 restrictions made for slow days at the park). And because the park is huge, I decided to park in a lot nearest Lake Chabot. From there, the wee one and I went around the cultural centre to see the lake. Since the sun was high up in the sky, I didn't want my son to be directly exposed to it so he had to sit under the shade of his stroller while I huffed and puffed pushing the stroller (with his diaper bag and a large cooler—yes, I placed a 30-quart cooler under the stroller!)... I did get my walking steps in and my heart rate went up; so those counted into my exercise time.

Anyway, once we were under the shade of trees, we stopped to observe the resident ducks in the lake while my son was drinking a (straw) cup of milk and I was catching my breath. Because of the ducks, bird droppings peppered the trail; and so I had to make sure that my son's cup didn't fall to the ground or get thrown into the lake (we were still learning to return the cup to the stroller cupholder). The area felt very isolated though, so I opted to get us moving along after a few minutes. 

It felt safer if we were situated in places where families tended to hang out; either we visited the football pitch (there was a scrimmage going on) or the children's playground. I was so happy that we picked the children's playground because there were definitely more parent-children groups there. We stayed at a table a safe distance away from other families and the playground (thankfully, under a grove of trees).

Unfortunately, we had to cut our exploration of Dan Foley Park short because we had to go back and fetch Val from the dentist's clinic. It was a case of so-near-yet-so-far because we didn't even get to step into the playground. No biggie; any opportunity to walk outside is welcome.