Everyone with a child between the ages of 7 and 14 knows about Pojos. What you might not know about is Florence Park, a small two-acre neighborhood park at the end of Owens St. right across Fairview Avenue from Pojos.

Florence Park is not a large park, but it provides ample free space to run about and the playground is fairly new, with a large toy set including a twisty slide and lots of things to climb on. Unfortunately, there are no swings. Personally, I believe no park is complete without a swing set (two acres and they couldn't fit in a swing set? Really?!?). Kids LOVE swings. Heck, I'm a full-grown adult and I love swings. (Cue Tom Petty, Freefallin' now).

The playground was put together on July 17, 2003. The Home Depot and the City of Boise together sent a team of 150 volunteers to build the new neighborhood bling. One interesting note about the park: it was designed by the children of the Florence Park neighborhood. That's pretty cool, but it kind of reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where Homer's brother lets him design his idea of the perfect car. Funny, but really scary in its own way.

Florence Park's playground is an example of what happens when people play nice in the same sandbox. The Home Depot and project KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization, continue to team up and build playgrounds for kids and neighborhoods that need them.

According to the Parks & Rec Web site, the Home Depot is a national sponsor of KaBOOM! and "provided $35,000 and 75 volunteers for the project. The Boise Parks & Recreation Department contributed $15,000 and additional labor."

To me, the most interesting part of the park is the little toy pictured below. Stand on it and bounce and you get to know firsthand what extreme seasickness feels like. Given kid's natural tendency to spew, this seems like a parent's best friend.

One other thing I noticed about this park is that it seems to be the preferred place for old folks living nearby to walk their yapping rat-dogs. Seriously, sitting in this park around three or four o'clock, you're going to see what looks a lot like a bingo reunion tour, complete with annoying rat-dogs. At least some of the septuagenarians carry baggies with them. Whether the baggies are for the dogs or them, I don't know.

Two rat-dogs and no baggies to be seen...