Dennis the Menace Park in Monterey owes its existence to the cartoonist who created him. Hank Ketcham, a longtime Peninsula resident, oversaw the design and construction of the playground himself when it opened in 1956, and its centrepiece is an authentic 1924 Southern Pacific locomotive.

The park sits within El Estero, a 45-acre freshwater lake that was a saltwater ocean lagoon as recently as Father Serra's time in the 1770s. Today, it supports over 300 bird species alongside skateparks, baseball fields, paddle boats and a dog park.

Ketcham was part of a remarkable Peninsula circle: he rubbed shoulders at Doc Ricketts' Cannery Row lab with John Steinbeck, Salvador Dalí and Gus Arriola, creator of the Gordo comic strip.

VoiceMap's Monterey driving tour stops at the park while tracing the broader story of El Estero and Monterey's transformation from a Spanish lagoon to one of California's most visited waterfronts.