Dear Long-Time Viewers,
If you have been a regular reader you will know that it has been an age, an age! Of over 5 years (January 11, 2020), since I have added a new roller rink to my list! Now, another thing you know already is that I live for a list, and if not for enumerating, inventorying, itemizing, cataloging, and tabulating I'd be in ever so much more of a dither and a pother.
Oaks Park Roller Rink makes the 40th roller rink I have visited, and the 37th I have skated in. (There are three that we did not skate in; in some ways they don't count but I count them in a parenthetical way.)
The Oaks Park Roller Rink is also the best rink I have been to- it has edged out the Sunrise Roller Rink in Citrus Heights- which maintained its preeminence for 10 or 12 years! What Oaks Park and Sunrise have that makes them the best, is a rotunda wood floor. This is where the boards are bent to follow the curve of the corner. Wood skating floors can come in two other main types: all the boards running the same direction, or with a hex pattern, with boards set at angles in the corners.
Oaks Park is probably the oldest rink I have skated. It has been there since 1905! It has a huge skating area- 20,000 square feet! And an amazing Wurlitzer that we happened to be there to hear for the Sunday organ skate session. The floor is the smoothest thing ever; there are rinks named Paradise, but Oaks Park is Skate Heaven. If you think it sounds good, it is! If you go to only one rink in your life, let it be Oaks Park. There is a little hand rail place for beginners, a space on the side of the rink for more practice, and at the back of the room, a place with wood moguls to skate! Opposite the practice and organ key board side there is a big snack bar and nice seating for folks who want to rest or watch. They have a skate shop, too, because Oaks Park Roller Rink has everything!
