Lions Park is Temple's everything-at-once park

If Temple has a do-everything park, it is Lions Park, 108 acres at 4320 Lions Park Road. It is the kind of place where a family can split up for the afternoon and still be in the same park: kids on one of three playgrounds, a softball game on one of four fields, the dog at the Central Texas Bark Park, and somebody else walking the two-mile hike and bike trail.

There is more packed in: an 18-basket disc golf course, a pond, horseshoe pits, a multiuse soccer field, an amphitheater for events, and a string of picnic shelters and pavilions with grills for birthdays and reunions.

That long list is really the point. A park this varied is a quiet signal about a town, the sort of shared ground a community actually uses. Several of the shelters and fields can be reserved, so check the Temple Parks page before you count on a spot.