This is a view of the very top of the Staring Lake Park slide. You see a beautiful blue sky and Staring Lake in the distance. As you can see, the slide is under construction. This is the slide that was destroyed by arsonist vandals last year.
We have blocked the top of the slide for two reasons. The biggest reason is that it's under construction and not ready for use. We don't want anyone to get hurt. The other reason is that we have reserved the first ride down this slide for a young man named Tucker Zhangs. I've written about Tucker in this blog before. He is a young Eden Prairie kid who raised over $1,500 for the City to replace the slide after it was destroyed. We wanted to show our appreciation to Tucker for his efforts, so we decided that he could have the first ride at the dedication ceremony for the new slide.
Given new playground safety standards, we weren't sure that we'd be able to replace the former slide with one that was as tall, fast and fun. This is a view from the top of the slide to its bottom at the base of the playground. It's going to be a fun ride.
We're looking forward to dedicating this new slide later this month and giving little Tucker his well deserved first ride.
