Loveland, Co

We were going to pass Loveland, Colorado because the Passport America park we wanted to stay in had been closed because the Big Thompson River flooded last September and ruined the park. It also destroyed houses in the canyon between Estes Park and Loveland.

A few days before we were to pass through Loveland on the way to Idaho I called to see when they would be re-opening. It turns out they had redone many of their sites and had limited sites available. This picture is looking out our back window of the 5th wheel. As you can see, we are RIGHT on the river!

Riverview RV Park

The park only honors Passport America's half price discount Sunday through Thursday and not on Weekends, and since we had not scheduled to be there we were going to stay just Wednesday and Thursday night. We liked the area so much, as well as our campsite I asked them if they would honor the discount Friday and Saturday night also. If so we would stay through Monday.

We have a friend named Sandy who was a camp host with us at Emma Wood in Ventura who is now hosting in Estes Park. If we stayed through the weekend it would give us a chance to drive to Estes and see her.

They agreed to give us the discount until Monday so we changed our plans and stayed. That is the great thing about being retired, you can make changes if you want to!

We read there are several "Sculpture Parks" in Loveland. We first went to the Benson Sculpture Garden. Every year Loveland holds a world class Bronze Sculpture festival in this park. The proceeds of the festival are used to purchase new bronze sculptures for the park.

Benson Sculpture Garden

We were not prepared for how large the park was! I think I remember reading there are over 80 bronze sculptures in this park! The park is over 5 blocks is size.

Patty with her new friend

You keep walking and they are all over. Some are pretty funny, some are historical works of art, but most are pretty good. The amazing thing is this town is pretty small and the park is free to  visit.

Loveland Park

All the statures are bronze, even this bench that you can sit on.

Brian and his new friend

You just keep walking and there are more bronzes and more walking paths. If you are ever near Loveland this is a destination worth coming to!

Miles of walking trails

There is a small lake in the park. In the lake there are some bronze seals and this polar bear bronze.

Polar Bear

The next day we went to Estes Park. The drive from our campground was about 25 miles. The river you see next to the road is the Big Thompson River.

Road to Estes Park

Earlier I mentioned that the campground had been ruined and many houses had been destroyed by the river. Here are a couple houses right beside the river. They are a little out of focus because Patty took them while I was driving, but you can see the floor is completely out of the house on the right! We saw dozens of houses that were destroyed on our drive to Estes.

Big Thompson House

We arrived in Estes Park. It is a beautiful place! I can see why so many people vacation here.  

Estes Park

We had a nice visit with Sandyat the campground she is hosting at. After spending a couple hours visiting with her we went to lunch at a BBQ joint called 'Smokin Dave's BBQ and Taphouse'. It was actually really good which is a surprise for a tourist type place!

We drove around and checked out the town a little. Here is downtown. You can see how high the water still is in the river. The water is almost hitting the bottom of the bridge.

Downtown High Water

On the way back from Estes we noticed that the truck was heating up. The fan would cool it down enough as not to do any damage but it was not a good sign. I noticed that the overflow was empty so I went to autozone and put some anti-freeze in the overflow. This helped but it was still not right. 

I called a shop and they were able to squeeze me in the next morning. They pressure checked everything and all was fine. I had them do a chemical radiator flush and refill the radiator with new fluid. I need to do this more often, but thankfully everything is OK and the Dodge is running cooler then before! 

They only charged $95.00 total! Thank you JESUS!!!!

We read about another African Stone Sculpture Park called Chapunga Sculpture Park in town. There is about 2.5 miles of walking trails with stone sculptures all through it. We decided we needed to see it all! 

Chapunga Sculpture Park

We probably like the bronzes better but this was interesting also and was a very nice walk. Who new that one little town would have this much art?

Sculpture Park

All these sculptures were carved out of African stone instead of made out of bronze.

Sculptures

We really enjoyed Loveland and would love to come back. There is a lot to do around here for a small town.

Lovely Park

That's it for Loveland, Colorado. Now it's on to Wyoming. Love you all!

God Bless,

Brian and Patty