Oak Grove Lake Park

I haven't given a park review in quite awhile and since today's weather was so lovely I knew we had to check out Oak Grove Lake Park . We've been to this park before when Charlotte was little and really enjoyed it but we don't go around the Greenbrier area very often so it's not a park that's high on our go to list but it actually might make it's way up there. 

If you keep going down the road that Home Depot and Lowe's are on it takes you back into a commercial area but somehow a park is squished in the middle which kind of makes it like finding hidden treasure. There isn't much parking at the actual park entrance but there is overflow parking across the street and I've also seen people parking along the sides of the road. 

When you first get there it doesn't look like much you have to take a little walk and then it opens up to a nice playground and a huge lake, you may have actually seen this lake driving on Route 168 toward Norfolk, there's a nice wooden fish statue there.

Directly on your right is the playground, in front of you is the lake and a shelter and portapotties and then around the whole lake is a trail (1.5 mile circle).

The playground is nice, newer equipment, no graffiti or gum or nastiness (only on one of the little plastic globe things some teen, I'm sure, decided to burn it a bit). There are two different pieces of equipment, a bigger and smaller one. Plenty of swings, my only gripe about the equipment is that the big swings and baby swings aren't close enough that I could push them both at the same time.

The whole thing has mulch as the ground cover which I really dislike, it's dirty, it's dusty, it's pokey and gets all matted down and hard, ugh! Not to mention it's also hard to walk on, Lexi was falling all over the place. I would definitely suggest they upgrade it to something else.

Charlotte was really happy because there was a steady stream of kids coming through which is one of the reasons I would consider going there more, the park we usually frequent is always dead and that's no fun for her.

The lake is a pretty good distance away from the playground so even if a little person got loose and adult would be able to catch them before they got to the lake. There is no fence around the lake.

We didn't do the trail this time because we didn't realize we had the stroller with us but we have done the trail before with a wagon and it was pretty easy. It's not a paved trail but it's cleared out and smooth enough for strollers and wagons. 

Overall I would recommend this park to people, I would only recommend bringing your own potty seat  because the portapotties are all that's there.

Here are the girls enjoying the park (and don't let the pictures fool you, it was quite busy, I just try to avoid getting other people in our pictures):