Wheaton Regional Park (Wheaton, MD)

Here's another fun outing for those local to Maryland or planning a trip to the Washington, DC region...

Wheaton Regional Park, located in the suburbs of Washington DC, has a few different areas.  I already shared about the fun we had at seeing the Butterflies at Brookside Gardens, but wanted to also share the fun we had in the Shorefield area of the park.  You can either walk from one area to the other (it's a fairly long walk, but pretty) or go back out the main roads and enter through another entrance.

I'd heard other people talk about the fun miniature train and carousel, but we didn't have a chance to see them on our other visits to Brookside Gardens.  I'm so glad we ventured over to that area on our latest visit.

The kids LOVED the miniature train ride.  Tickets were just $1.75 a piece and it was a fairly long ride through the woods.  We were even lucky enough to see a few deer while on our ride.  (NOTE: the train does not operate if the tracks are wet at all, so check their Facebook page before you go if there's been any rain recently)

Waiting to leave the station

Heading through the open field

Then going through the woods

The carousel was a hit too (and also $1.75 a ticket).  It was built in 1915 and spent many years on the National Mall in DC.

There's also a stocked pond at the park.  My son declared that he definitely wants to come back and go fishing after we saw lots of little fish swimming around.

We were really lucky to see this beautiful buck just off the path we were walking along.

They are replacing the older playground at the park with a brand new Adventure Playground.  It was still under construction (slated to reopen this Fall 2011), but looks incredible so far.  We'll definitely be making a trip down in a few months to test out those huge slides!!

Between our time at Brookside Gardens and then the Train and Carousel area of the park, we spent almost 5 hours enjoying a nice, Summer day!