In the Inkwatu Lassing Park post, I gave the following statistics:
There are more than 2,300 acres of parks within the city limits of St. Petersburg, Florida. There’s an astounding list of all these parks (complete with addresses) at the parks page on the St. Petersburg city site. I count 126 named city parks dedicated for public use plus an additional 11 that are shared with public schools. And that’s just within the city limits!
Pinellas county, within which St. Pete is located, lists an additional 24 county parks on their parks page. If you enjoy outdoor activities, those are two links I would recommend bookmarking. The Pinellas County parks page includes information on parks that permit camping (such as my favorite, Ft. De Soto) and beaches and nature preserves. This Coastal Travel Guide listing for Pinellas County shows an accumulative 321 parks within the county.
There’s an additional two pages of park listings for the greater Pinellas county area at this Florida’s Beaches website. One of the parks listed there, Fort Desoto Park, will be featured in an Inkwatu post soon. Most of the research is done; I just need to take the photos.
In addition to the Lassing Park post quoted above, there’s another St. Pete park featured by Inkwatu: Lake Maggiore Park. Be sure to check that post for information on fishing in Lake Maggiore.
The focus of today’s post is another of St. Petersburg’s 126 named parks, Lake Vista Park (1401 62nd Ave. S., St Petersburg, FL 33705-5653; 727-893-7744; map). Lake Vista–properly, the Lake Vista Recreation Center–has a number of facilities that justify its designation as a neighborhood recreation center: a dog park, a swimming pool, a duck pond, and an exercise trail with exercise stations.
If you have a dog, you know how much fun a dog park can be for your pet and yourself. St. Petersburg has six dog parks (see the Parks department’s dog park page): North Shore Dog Park, Lake Vista Dog Park, Walter Fuller Dog Park, Crescent Lake Dog Park, Coquina key Dog Park, and Kenwood Dog Park. See the link above for addresses and dog park rules.
In addition to the exercise course for us old folks, Lake Vista also sports a free public skateboard park for the youngsters. Here’s a couple details from SkateBoardPark.com
“Crashup Derby Factor: 4
Do you have to wear pads?: none required
Does it cost money to skate?: no
Description
Street plaza, built by team pain. 3 flat 3 hand rail. Perfect hubas, nice gap step up and hip. Curved ledge, two two stairs. Wall ride and dipped manual pad.”
A user review by “sk8ehard” is typical of the comments about Lake Vista’s skateboard park found at SkateBoardPark.com:
“sk8tehard – I have to say we went this weekend to this park.
This park rocks, it was a chillin shreding session. I loved the fact that it was a street course. You don’t see that very often, so it was cool time. Plus, the rec center has two 2 stairs off to the side and a three stair in the front with two ledges. The park is located in South St.Pete it’s definitely a must return.”
Be sure to check out that site for many more user comments. A link is also given to skateparkoftampa.com which gives this synopsis by Rob Meronek (with photos by Tito Porada):
“Finally, a public park around here that doesn’t suck. No repeat of 100 foot deep bowls catering to 40-year-old skaters, free, no supervision, no waivers, no fence, and no pads. Team Pain designed and built this park in St. Pete that’s going to be completed and open in a few weeks.”
That’s quintessential youth syntax and vocabulary; that’s why I’m quoting it so extensively. There’s no way, at my age, I could ever communicate so appropriately on that subject matter. (I know what a skateboard is…that’s all.)
Lake Vista finds its way to my heart, though, in its duck pond. In the Inkwatu post, Feeding the Ducks, I talk about visiting a duck pond in Atlanta with my son. That’s one of my favorite posts, primarily because of the duck pictures and the quote from the old Mitch Miller TV show song sung before the final credit roll. There’s also some important information in that post about what to feed ducks and what not to feed ducks! Bread is not a good thing for ducks.
But, walking along the pond shore as the ducks come quacking to your feet expecting a treat, it’s tough not to give them something. The oboe duck theme from Prokofiev’s famous Peter and the Wolf is waddling around inside my mind. I’m going to listen to the whole piece, right now!
You can buy the MP3 “album” (all the movements of the piece) at this AmazonMP3
(Note: Although images in Inkwatu usually link to larger images of themselves, that is not true in this particular post, so ignore the automatic footer immediately below.)
Most images link to larger images.
click on larger image for closeup
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Okay does someone know the pool hours of Lake Vista Pool?