Cherry Hill Park

Cherry Hill is located off of 15th Street in Coeur d' Alene, just north of the freeway. It has an eclectic mix of activities available: BMX bike course, Ultimate Frisbee course, tennis courts, a basketball court, the Fallen Heroes Plaza, a sledding hill and a small playground.





There are three separate parking areas, each with accessible spots and there are paved paths leading to the playground, the BMX course and the Plaza. This park is located at the base of a hill and forest area so not all of the paths are level.



There are two bathrooms at Cherry Hill - one is a full restroom located at the base of the sledding hill and there are porta-potties located by the playground and the BMX course. One of the porta-potties is accessible. There are a couple of water fountains located throughout the park.



This park has a few picnic tables available - they are mostly located under mature trees which offers a nice respite from the sun. There is one table by the BMX course that is "permanent" but it is not accessible from the paved trail. The other picnic tables get moved around a bit so it's not possible to anticipate their accessibility on any given day.

The playground is mostly geared towards toddlers and younger children. There is a fireman's hat structure which is unique to this area. Children climb the stairs to get "inside" the hat where there is lots of room to run, play, be loud etc. There is a covered slide at one end of the hat and a fireman's pole at the other. There are no ramps to access the structure so a child must be able to climb the 10 stairs or be carried up the stairs in order to get to the slide. The structure itself is large enough to accommodate adults.

The other play structures in the playground area are more "old fashioned" - cars, trucks and motorcycles on springs where kids get to pretend to drive and bounce around. There is a larger structure with climbing ropes and a platform but it is still quite small. Again, this playground is geared for the toddler/preschooler.

The playground area itself is fenced and covered in wood chips. There is one entrance and a few benches located within the perimeter. There is also one picnic table within the perimeter of the playground. There is some shade available under the hat structure but nothing shading the benches or picnic table. On many occasions, I've seen parents/grandparents sitting on the grass under a tree outside of the playground area as they are still able to watch the kids from there.





The sledding hill in the winter is quite busy. It looks pretty steep so I imagine sledding there can get quite exciting! My kiddo hates to sled so we haven't tried it out personally. It does look exhausting from a parental perspective - all that trudging up a steep hill for a few seconds of speed.....

There is a fire station located by the tennis courts so for kids with sound sensitivity, this may be an issue. For more information and pictures, you can visit the Coeur d' Alene Parks Cherry Hill page.

Is Cherry Hill one of your "go-to" parks? Let us know what you think!

Julyamsh Update

We were as prepared as we were going to be for experiencing Julyamsh. As we drove up to the Event Center I realized quickly there was one thing we were absolutely not prepared for. Bounce Houses. With water.

The kiddo saw the Houses immediately and of course perseverated on them until we could get there. Not only was it rather spendy for him to bounce (they were charging per house and you only got 5 minutes on the thing until you had to pay more), but we didn't have a towel with us.

Those dealing with Sensory Integration issues understand this predicament immediately. Wet clothing can be a VERY difficult thing to manage. My kiddo was trying to negotiate in the beginning: "Swimtrunks?" - no honey, you have to just wear your clothes. "Take your shorts (off)?" - no honey, you have to just wear your clothes. Once he got going, he had a ball. He did not however, take to the whole five minute limit rule (or even the 'you have to just stay on this one' rule).

I would like to say that after our time at the bounce house corner, we were able to walk around and look at all the art work and crafts, sit down in the shade and watch the dancers, get a bit of food and something to drink but we needed to head back home because nothing beyond the bounce house was going to happen today.

To Julyamsh or Not to Julyamsh, That is the Question

Julyamsh is the annual Pow-Wow of the Coeur d' Alene Tribe. I've never been to this event although I've always wanted to go and this year I'm thinking about taking the kiddo.

Here are the Pros:
New experience with lots to see like the horse parade, dancing and drumming.

An opportunity to practice our "out in public" social skills.

Exposure to another culture (and not of the fungal variety).

It's free! Frequently with new places, kiddo stays about 30 minutes and then wants to go home so free is always good!

It's an activity for us to do as a family on the weekend. Weekends can be tough around here because there is less structure than school.

Now the Cons:
It's a new experience with lots to see like the horse parade, dancing and drumming. There's a good chance that kiddo might be overwhelmed by the activity and sounds. There's also a good chance that he'll have zero interest in the parade, dancing and drumming and will find a pile of dirt that he'd rather throw into the air. I should mention that kiddo will be 8 this October so the dirt throwing activity garners a bit of unwanted attention.

I was reading the Julyamsh web-site about how people need to be respectful of the tribal traditions and outfits. No taking pictures without permission, no touching the outfits etc. So if kiddo IS interested in the dancers and drummers, he's going to want to fully experience it by touching the beautiful beads, feathers, drums etc. When I move to block him from grabbing someone's sacred necklace, he's going to react very loudly and then I'll feel obligated to launch into the "autism elevator speech".

There's going to be a lot of me saying "stay over here", "no touching", "inside voice", "no eating", "not a choice", "no screaming", "bubble space", "it's OK", "we'll watch Jeopardy when we're done". I'm usually pretty exhausted at the end of one of these excursions regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad or somewhere in between.

I have not been to the Post Falls Event center before so I'm flying blind in regards to what things might be there that could be potential problems for us.

So, we'll plan on going and hope for the best because staying at home, isolated because things might not go as well as I would like is not an option. A 30 minute trip will take about 2 hours to prepare for because I'm going to have to create a social story for the kiddo and that takes some time finding pictures a la Google and putting the story together in Powerpoint.

My mantra for tomorrow - breathe deeply and remember to have a good time.

Bluegrass Park

Bluegrass Park, located in the Coeur d' Alene Place neighborhood at 6071 N Courcelles Parkway is one of our favorite parks. It has a lot of green space, a large playground, ultimate frisbee course, basketball courts and a splash pad. It's a newer park so there's not much shade but the equipment is still in pretty good shape.

In regards to accessibility, there is a large parking lot with two accessible spots. There is a wide paved path around the entire park that is .33 miles in length. The paved path leads to the playground, but the playground is covered in wood chips so one using mobility assistance would most likely find it difficult to access the playground area.

There are "real" bathrooms (yeah!) at Bluegrass and the only water fountains for the park are located on the outside of the restroom building. There is one accessible stall in each bathroom and at this writing, they both have doors.

There are no steps to negotiate at Bluegrass however there are a few rolling hills within the perimeter of the park. There is one pavillion with picnic tables that is available for people to reserve (contact the City's Parks Department). Shade is pretty scarce at Bluegrass because the trees are still young and I often see people bringing their own pop-up pavillion tents or large umbrellas to keep the sun at bay.

One of the most popular features at Bluegrass is the splash pad. It is not a large pad so keeping track of your kid even when it's busy isn't too hard to do. The cement on the pad doesn't seem to be too slippery and kids are running on the wet cement all day. The splash pad is open from 11 am to 7 pm (Memorial Day through Labor Day). The water is on a timer so if you have a perseverator, it's good to go around 6 pm and have the water completely turned off as a sign it's time to go. If you use a chair for mobility, the path leads directly onto the pad; if you don't want to get wet, you may have to stay on the path (and in the sun) because the water does 'over-spray' the splash pad.



The playground area is a good size - large enough to be interesting but not so large that keeping track of the kiddo is difficult. There are three entrances to the fenced playground area and benches located within the perimeter. There is no shade other than that provided by the play structure itself. There's not a lot of tactile stimulation at this playground so kiddos needing that sort of sensory input may find the wood chips more interesting than the slides. There are two toddler swings and two 'big kid' swings as well as a sand box. The structure itself is made of treated wood and the slides are plastic.









Bluegrass gets a lot of use but it never seems to be overly-crowded. Most of the users are from the neighborhood so people come and go often. Parents are involved in watching their kids and participating in activities. The attitude is relaxed. My kiddo has had his share of melt-downs there but no one has ever said anything to me or made me feel uncomfortable there.

Do you have any feedback about Bluegrass Park? Please comment and let us know your experiences!