Wednesday Wanderings -- McFarland Park

With summer approaching, I am going to start covering some of the best places to go in and around Central Iowa.  If you want more information about a particular place, you can contact me through the comments here and place a request.  If you have more information to share about a particular place, let me know and I will get it added.  Look for a new post every Wednesday, unless I get too busy or forget.

McFarland Park is a great park located northeast of Ames, with a lot of fun opportunities.  It's a new experience every time you go, with different plants and trees and animals to see.  There are hiking trails (easy ones) around a beautiful lake:

a huge area of prairie grasses

and woodland forests.  

 

My kids love the playground.  

There is also a nature center, a butterfly garden, and even a stargazing observatory.

I have posted a few times about their different activities for children and adults, and they feature prominently on my free fun activities calendar on the right.  Here is the post I made about their online (free!) educational resources.  Here is a post that I did on how to extend the fun anywhere you go.

Focus one time on plant life, once on animal life, have a scavenger hunt, or just go out and enjoy the beauty of nature.

Look for events starting back up soon.  I just looked at my calendar and saw two events toward the end of May.  There's a star party on May 21st, and a prairie walk on the 26th.  June 17th is the first Naturalist's Lunchbox, which is a story time and picnic lunch.

Here's an interesting map of all the parks in Story County.  I think we've visitied most of them, but I found a couple we've missed.  It looks like this map might work for looking up county parks wherever you live in Iowa.