palo alto Archives

It’s rare to find a place where everyone, regardless of age or ability, can come together and play. And that is why Magical Bridge Playground is such a special place. It’s designed to be inclusive of the 1-in-4 people amongst us who have physical / cognitive disabilities, autism, visual / hearing impairments, medically fragile, or are part of the aging population.

The Story

The founder Olenka Villarreal wanted a playground where her disabled and non-disabled daughters could play with their friends. They had very different needs and she found that the existing playgrounds didn’t cater to these needs well. She gathered a team of volunteers together, created the vision together, fundraised, and made this a reality over the course of 7 years. The playground opened up in 2015 in Palo Alto, CA as a socially inclusive playground, where all are welcome. Now it has over 25k visitors a month!! Wow!

Olenka and her friend Jill Asher went on to create the Magical Bridge foundation, and Santa Clara County has allocated $10M in funds for more playgrounds like this!

My Visit to the Playground

Here are some snapshots from my first visit to Magical Bridge Playground. Hint: If you go early in the morning, no one else is there and it’s having a whole playground to yourself!!

I love how colorful everything is and how many different play structures there are!

I had never seen these before!!

They have little descriptions on what the different play zones are, who it’s for, and the science behind them. Neat!

They have a bunch of different slides too. Slides are my favorite – so much fun to go down!

Omg the baby slide in the tot zone is too cute!!

Alright, that wraps up the photos that I took at the Magical Bridge Playground. All I can say is how impressed I am with this place. They put a lot of thought into making this a place for everyone. They collaborated with play experts, educators, therapists, families living with different disabilities, and landscape architects. They’re very conscious of the health and wellness benefits of play as well. It’s a magical place!

They also have other local authors and concerts this summer in the playground. Check out their Facebook page for the event line-up.

The success of this playground has led to even more of these Magical Bridge playgrounds being planned for around the Bay Area – with locations planned for Mountain View, Morgan Hill, Redwood City, and Sunnyvale.

But there is still a $1M funding shortfall to kick off construction of the Mountain View playground. So please consider donating to this nonprofit if you want to see this playground come to your city. I already made my contribution! You can donate here: http://magicalbridge.org/mtnview/

Storytime Event

Also, I’ll be doing a storytime for my book Use Your Voice at Magical Bridge Playground in Palo Alto on Sunday, June 2, 2019 from 3-5pm. Check out the Facebook events page for more details and to RSVP!

Thank you for reading! Hope you have a chance to check out this place and get to experience it for yourself! The pictures do it no justice.

Apparently this place has been around for a long time, but this was our first time trying it! Their sandwiches are really good! It’s a bit hard to notice, but it’s next to the Creekside Inn on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, CA. Read on for a peek inside and to see what we ordered.

This is what you see when you walk in.

The staff is very friendly! And very patient while you try to choose among the many, many sandwich options lol. How to choose?!?

They said their most popular sandwiches are: #16 California Club, #29 Heaven on Earth, #23 Kevin’s, and #18 Turkey Pesto. They also do half sandwiches if you want to try different kinds.

Your meal’s not complete without a satisfying bag of chips! And boy, do they have chip options. Again, a very difficult decision lol.

Or if you have multiple people, you can opt for the bigger bags of chips and split it, which is what we decided to do.

If you need a drink or candy bar, they’ve got you covered.

After you’ve got all your food, you can sit at their cute little tables inside or outside. This guy had to get 2 sandwiches…

Ok here are the close up Instagram shots of the sandwiches you’ve been waiting for:

All of them were really good!!! My favorite was “The Customer’s Favorite!” That’s literally the name of it. They used to have it as the daily special, for a really long time (several months), and then they took it away, and customers kept asking for it, so they brought it back! It’s so good!!! *drool*

Other people in the community also agree that these sandwiches are the bomb.

We were SO stuffed from 3 sandwiches. I recommend going with 1 sandwich for each person, haha. Before I forget, they also have a cute coffee bar if you want that type of drink!

By the way, that’s Roberto in the picture. He’s a nice guy. Say hi to him if you see him there. He’s worked at the deli for 19 years! The owner of the shop is Steve, and he’s also around and friendly to talk to as well. Steve is in the video on the Yelp business page, which I watched before we walked in, so I recognized him, haha.

Anyways, back to the coffee bar. Here’s the menu of drinks available. And yes, they have ice cream too! From Dreyer’s.

Not done yet! They have breakfast sandwiches and salads too. I believe they have gluten-free options for bread as well. So there you go, they have everything!

This place has got a homey small-town feel to it, where they recognize the frequent customers by name. I like those types of places in the community. Sadly, they’re becoming rarer and rarer. So if you’re in the Palo Alto area near El Camino, stop by this place to support a small business!

Before we even finished our food, Vince said, “Let’s come back 38 more times!” Because we have 38 more specials on their board to try. LOL wow.

palo alto

Magical Bridge Playground: A Place for Everyone to Play

The Story

My Visit to the Playground

Storytime Event

New Favorite Sandwich Place in Palo Alto – Driftwood Deli