Flighty Saturday

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about things to do in Atlanta with young kids. When I lived here as a single non-parent person, I seem to remember a lot of times feeling out of place being over 30 and childless. So many things designed to be “family friendly.”

Now I move back here with a toddler and suddenly find myself thinking, “Where the heck is all that family-friendly stuff when you need it?”

One of the city’s best kept secrets, as far as the recently childed are concerned, is the playground at the DeKalb Peachtree Airport.

We’ve been there a couple of times, so far, and I think it’s going to go into rotation as one of our regular morning hangouts. You’ve got a great playground, an up-close view of planes taking off and landing, plus a really neat observation platform to get a good view and take some pictures. Adults and older kids may also be interested in scheduling a bi-plane ride while the younger ones stick to the playground.

One drawback is that the playground doesn’t have a lot of shade. (The airport’s primary function being, well, an airport, and the playground being near the control tower, an abundance of trees would not be a good thing.) There is a nice shaded area with picnic tables and a covered area with more tables and restrooms, so it’s really more than accommodating as far as playgrounds go. But, with all that asphalt it does get very hot in the middle of a summer day. Some day soon, I think we’ll try an early evening picnic to see what it looks like at sunset.

This weekend we had some unseasonably cool weather (highs in the low ’80s) so when we got there in the mid-morning it was still very nice. I’m hoping the Spouse will let me add some of the (much better) photos he took to my Flickr set.

Directions to the airport can be found here. If you are wondering, as I was, the playground is accessed from the main airport entrance off Clairmont Road.