park of america

A friend who knows our love for parks asked us to meet them for a play date at Woodridge Park (9000 90 Street South) in Cottage Grove this week. Between wife, mom, and student life, I didn't get around to looking it up until the night before.

And I was blown away.

Honestly: I showed my kids the pictures of the park and I can't tell you who was more excited, me or them. We couldn't wait for our play date.


Here's what you need to know:
Parking: Lot
Age range (playground): 1+
Sidewalks: Paved to park amenities and throughout park grounds
Seating: Ample seating throughout play area
Bathrooms: Located in warming house
Picnic tables: Enough to seat around 50 in a picnic shelter to one side of the play area
Grills: NA
Sports field: See website for a complete list


Because of my honesty policy, I'm not one to exaggerate. That being said, take my word for it: This park has pretty much everything.

Climbing walls, ladders, nets, and domes; tall slides, short slides, bumpy slides, and curvy slides; bridges; tunnels; weather-resistant instruments; stairs; steps; seesaws; monkey bars--

(Insert breath)


Sand play area; hammock; ramps; seated merry-go-rounds; high back swings, baby swings, and regular swings; regular zip lines and seated zip lines; and a bunch of stuff I can't even identify.

It offers more shade than the average playground and it's got synthetic flooring. Did I mentioned there are also real, flushable toilets inside a clean facility?


I might build myself a house in the woods nearby just so I'm local.

Woodridge Park is a dream. It's like the Mall of America of parks: Every type of playground equipment you could want is here. You could spend the whole day here and see only half of it. And, of course, it's ginormous.


It's so big, in fact, that I didn't even realize how busy it was until we returned to the parking lot on our way out and almost half of it (ginormous parking lot for a park, as well) was full of cars.

There are several playgrounds scattered in the play area accommodating ages from walkers to jumpers. All of my kids had a blast running around trying a little bit of everything.


One of their favorite parts was the roller slide. I think they spent a quarter of our trip riding it over and over again. They also loved playing the xylophones and scaling the outside of the huge tunnel.

We could have easily killed half a day at this park if it weren't for the merciless sun and humidity.


The park opened just this past fall and is in wonderful condition. It's definitely beloved and received plenty of traffic during our visit. At the same time, the spread of the play area keeps even busy times from feeling overwhelming

If you're looking to host a party or keep your kids entertained for a few hours, pack a hefty lunch, plenty of water, and head over to Woodridge Park. It'll do the trick.