Helpful Mom

Today I went with a friend to the beach on Canandaigua Lake, or better know as Kershaw Park.  I’ve never been there before so thought it would be fun to explore a new spot.  It was a beautiful day at a beautiful park.  From Rochester I took the thruway to the Canandaigua exit and followed 332 all the way thru town, straight ahead is the park where there is plenty of free parking.  Kershaw Park is actually 9 acres of park land along the north shore of the lake that offers picnic pavilions, an open air gazebo,  playground, and a bathhouse with changing rooms and restrooms.  There is also a man-made  beach area that is fenced in so that it can be lifeguarded and is the only area in the park that swimming is allowed.  The parks hours are 6am-11pm year round. The beach area at Kershaw Park is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day from 10am-9pm.

Daily admission to the beach area for non-residents of Canandiagua is $3 per adult, $2 per child ages 6-18 and no charge for children under 6.  Non-resident season passes cost $60 per adult and $40 per child.  City of Canandaigua residents may obtain resident tags for a service charge of $1 per person at the park by showing proof of residency.

Visitors to the beach may bring U.S. Coast Guard-approved floatation devices only(they do have a few you can borrow though).  No water wings — otherwise known as “arm floaties” — or foam noodles are permitted. In fact, no inflatable floatation devices of any kind are allowed, because they could deflate while the child is in the water.

Food and drink are also prohibited on the beach, but visitors may take a picnic-style lunch to eat on the grass side of the park, as long as they don’t have any alcoholic beverages. Also, no pets are allowed on the beach or in the public bath house.

Today we went exploring.  I told the girls I’d heard about this splash park but the directions I had weren’t specific so we’d drive up and down the road it was on in hopes of finding it.  The adventure was on.  It ended up being relatively easy to find, less than 2 miles from our favorite farm to visit, Springdale Farm in Spencerport.

I have heard tell of the spraygrounds in Geneva, NY but have not yet taken the girls what with the mix of my kids having some fear of the water, which this summer they are finally getting over, and the hour long drive to and from that park.  But when I read about a few closer to home on the Kids out and about website I thought I’d look into those since they are free so if they don’t like it nothing lost.  So today being a beautiful day and having all day to do whatever thought we’d go explore and see what gem we might discover.

Since I wasn’t sure if the girls would like the water or not we started by going to Springdale Farm for the morning and then going in search of Pineway Ponds Park in Ogden(Spencerport), NY.  It’s a public town park so it’s completely free.  If you take 531W from Rochester to the Spencerport exit Rte 259, go north on 259 about a mile, it’s just past the town center on the left.  They have a spray ground that is awesome.  There are all kinds of fixtures that spray in different ways as well as jets of water that shoot straight out of the ground.  The park also has a very large playground right next to the water so if you have kids with different interests you can keep an eye of all of them.  My girls enjoyed it immensely and want to go back tomorrow.  Well we most likely won’t go there tomorrow, but we might go check out the one in Webster…

It’s been a fun week so far with a couple more days to go.  On Tuesday we tried out a different beach with the girls.  We went to Ontario Beach Park in Charlotte, NY.  This beach is Free and there’s lots of convenient parking close by.  The beach itself was huge and a bit busier than the one at Hamlin we went to recently, but not crowded.  The sand was very fine and clung to everything, but it was clean and the kids had a blast digging through it, even finding a few tiny shells.  But where the water met the sand was kindof gross, you know the stuff that washing up on shore and such, just kind of mucky.  But since the kids don’t care too much about the water anyways it didn’t affect our goodtimes.  After a while Katrina decided she wanted to walk out to see the “lighthouse”, so we all packed up and walked all the way down

Ontario Park Beach Playground

the pier.  As we went they chased seagulls and spotted “ships”, and even saw a couple of fish jumping out of the water.  When we reached the end of the pier there was a very friendly older gentleman fishing who the girls really took to.  Katrina has been telling us for a while that she wants to go fishing so she was fascinated and full of questions, and he was more than willing to explain everything.  Finally we told her it was almost time to leave and if she wanted to play on the playground we needed to get going.  Which worked well and both girls really enjoyed the very large playground.  It’s very central and is made up of 4 different playground structures plus a couple swingsets.  It was the busiest playground I’ve been to in a while but it is very new and shaded.  Shaded is always nice because the slides and things aren’t to hot to play on.    Also FYI there are a number of public bathrooms that are free and open to use during the park hours.  And there are faucets where you can wash all that sand off before getting back in your car ;P

Ontario Beach Park has many different water activities, swimming is allowed daily 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. during the summer, for water conditions call 585 753-5887. There is also a boat launch off of Ferry Street, for season passes call 585 753-PARK (7275).

Fishing is allowed in Lake Ontario as long as those fishing are age 16 or over and have a fishing license. For fish regulations (size and season) please contact the County Clerks Office.

Monroe County’s historic Dentzel Menagerie Carousel at Ontario Beach Park in Charlotte is open for the 2008 Season. This year is the carousel’s 103rd continuous season at the Park, where it first opened in 1905.

Ontario Park Beach Carousel

The Carousel’s 2008 Hours of Operation are: Noon to 9:00 p.m.

The Carousel’s 2008 Price Schedule is, as follows:

• Single Ride — $1.00
• Punch Card (12 rides for the cost of 10) — $10.00 **Valid Any Time**
• Wrist Band (Ride All Day) — $5.00 **New in 2008**

There are also free Concerts by the Beach that are held every Wednesday night throughout the summer.

For more info and directions check out their website.