CLIPBOARD : TWIN LAKES FREEDOM PARK

Leticia Rodriguez gently sat her 15-month-old daughter, Felicita, in the seat of the toddler swing at Twin Lakes Freedom Park.

“OK, ‘Cita, ready for takeoff?” she said.

Felicita’s tiny fingers tightly grasped the two thick metal chains on either side of the plastic seat with its back support and leg holes. Her facial expression set deep in concentration, the toddler gave Leticia Rodriguez a serious nod. Her mother responded with a thumbs up sign.

Leticia grinned, pulled the swing back a few inches and let go. “This is only our fourth time on the swing,” she said. “We drove to five parks before we found a swing with a toddler seat. It’s the only safe way for her to play on one right now.”

Although Felicita looked as serious and determined as a pilot preparing to fly a sortie over enemy territory, her mother explained that the youngster was really having the absolute time of her life.

“She’s a very intense child,” Rodriguez said. “That’s why we come here as often as possible. Nature loosens her up. Doesn’t it, ‘Cita?”

Felicita never took her eyes, nor her concentration, off the white sandy earth beneath the swing.

“After 10 minutes, she’ll get bored,” Felicita’s mother said. “Then we walk to the lake and feed bread crusts to the ducks.”

Following a sidewalk past a children’s play area and several picnic tables, the 21-acre park unfolds as an oasis in the eastern section of Garden Grove. A chain-link fence and gate cordon off the low-lying lakes. Although effects of the current drought are evident in the diminishing water level, and grass-covered hills around the basin are dry, the park offers an alternative to spending temperate summer afternoons indoors.

Twin Lakes is owned by the County Flood Control District, according to Cal Rietzel, manager of community services in Garden Grove. The city, however, maintains the park property outside the defined lake area.

The lake facility is what Rietzel refers to as a “percolation basin.” Runoff from watering the grass at the park, or rainfall, is collected in the two adjoining lakes. The water then has months to “percolate” into the earth and provide thirst-quenching moisture to a parched land.

Originally called Twin Lakes Park, it had the word Freedom added by county officials to mark the nation’s bicentennial in 1976.

Over the last 16 years, children have been free to run along the shores and many a morning is spent casting bobber-weighted lines into the lake’s still waters. The spacious lakeside park is also ideal for picnics and parties.

Tables are spaced to ensure that people are not tripping over each other, and there is plenty of room to toss a Frisbee, softball or football.

For an afternoon getaway, or a family get-together, Twin Lakes Freedom Park offers a pleasant break for adults and children alike.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily

Address: Lampson Avenue and Haster Street, Garden Grove