The many wonderful little towns in Colorado that we visited

There is so much to see in Colorado and so many little towns to visit.  We didn't have time to visit half the places that we wanted to see because of the many distractions we ran into this summer... all the more reason to return often... But here are a collection of photos from some of the places we visited...

This beautiful sculpture is at the Old Town Littleton Library.... One of our favorite little towns that remind us of where we lived in Newburyport (without the ocean of course)...

Lots of great restaurants in Old Town with great tasty beverages.

Another little town we enjoyed was Parker - here's a closeup of one of the sculptures that they have in the park in the center of town.

This is the entire sculpture - which has art on all 4 sides depicting the history of Parker and it's early inhabitants.

This plaque was on the first house built in Parker - called the 20mile house - it was built on the Smokey Hill Trail and from this point it was 20 miles to Denver.  The trail was dotted with unmarked graves of the pioneers that died at the hands of the Indian attacks on this trail.  The area was at the junction of Smokey Hill and Sante Fe Stage Lines.

This plaque was beside the sculpture of Dr. Heath below which was Parker's first Doctor who made house calls right up untill he died....I just love that.

Here is the sculpture of Dr Heath and his young patient - I am told it is a very good likeness of both.

Blanche & Lucy loved the little town of Parker - there are lots of beautiful bronze sculptures in town and lots of great shops and restaurants too.

You have to love the name of this salon... says it all ....

My grandaughter Tyler and I love these little Pottery shops where you create and paint your own pottery - my favorite "functional art"...

Another town we absolutely fell in love with and would move here in a heartbeat if the right house came along... is Arvada - this old water tower in the distance can be seen from anywhere in town and is a landmark for all the new construction that is going on here.

We had a great lunch here at Udi's Pizza Cafe Bar where they welcomed Blanche and Lucy (another reason we loved Arvada).

We spent one very hot Sunday at the Cherry Creek Art Festival - where they had lots of food and drink as well as art - here we tasted samples of Adams Peanut Butter - all natural and yummy!

I will say that Cherry Creek had the most unusual and beautiful - and pricey - art of all the art festivals that we have attended....

One entire block was dedicated to outdoor eating booths - and they all looked great - these drumsticks were the biggest we've seen.

And on a hot day - there is nothing like a free tasting of cold Heineken samples

One day we spent hiking with our friend Annie at Waterton Canyon - just down the street from where we were camping at Chatfield State Park.

This is a beautiful area to hike in with lots of wildlife and a great stream that we hiked alongside of.

Here are all the activities that you can do here at Waterton - hike; bike (which we saw a few bicyclists some with kids in tow); horseback riding; and fishing.

This was one part of the map that Cheryl paid close attention to...

And this one too... happily we didn't see either...

Here's Cheryl and our hiking buddy Annie - we had a great day together.