Meeting with other caregivers

Since by law we're not allowed to have play dates in homes, I was just wondering if many of you meet up with other home daycare providers at parks. I've arranged to do this a couple of times, but I found the park way too busy with all the other daycares and their kids there and it's too difficult to lose track of my little ones. I don't have a van to haul the children to anything else, so I mainly stick to my own little playground in the backyard.

I do play dates and we walk to the frog pond, beach and park and usually have a picnic! It's a great way to spend the day!

We are walking distance to a zoo, so another provider and I get season's passes. We sp end a lot of days there. We also meet up in parks but keep track of where the YMCA is (they rotate parks and draw large crowds) so we can avoid the busy-ness.