55The Rocket You Are Allowed to Climb

Everywhere else on these trails, the rule is look, don't touch. Here it is the opposite. Beside the STEAM center stands a thirty-foot rocket with a crew capsule on top, a tunnel slide corkscrewing out of its flank, and a launch-flame burst painted into the rubber at its feet — and the whole thing exists to be climbed.

It was built by the Danish playground makers KOMPAN, and the interactive section beside it, which they call The Orbit, was — they say — the first of its kind installed in the United States. Sensors read where players are and turn running around into a game. The rest of the park is climbing domes, boulders, and shade sails, and it is designed so that children who use wheelchairs get up into it too.

We are counting it as a stop for one honest reason: if you have brought children on this walk, they have just seen a real spacecraft and they are not going to accept a lecture about murals until they have burned some of that off. Let them. The murals will still be there in twenty minutes.