A nice, if slow, improvement...

You may have noticed the slide show of pictures in my side bar. Those were from a trip to Denver (actually Westminster), CO, last fall. One of the things I really enjoyed about my brief visit was the extensive network of well maintained multi-use trails that literally spiderwebbed the city. From seemingly anywhere, you could walk to nearly anywhere else, with some pretty nice scenery to boot.

Back home, our fair city has been taking a few notes. On a recent trip to the new Wal-Mart near our home, I took the kids to visit a nice feature. Out at the far end of the massive parking lot is what would ordinarily have been a fenced-off, trash-strewn overgrown, ignored, nasty gully with a runoff stream through it.

Instead, it's a pleasant creekside meadow with paved walking paths and discreet lampposts, mostly free of garbage (though I did spy one shopping cart embedded in the stream), with small mowed lawns surrounded by tall trees that had been left by the developers.

Now, I know perfectly well that this little mini-park was part of the conditions of sale for this particular piece of horse-farm-cum-urban-wasteland - partly because it is host to a small, but elegant cemetery/memorial for the farm's founder/owner/namesake. But it's nice. It will be even nicer when-and-if the many small parks in our fair town are internconnected and extended so that one can walk all over town.

This little park is actually quite pretty, even though it is sandwiched between two major commercial developments. I find it quite clever that they made good use of what would have otherwise been either bulldozed over or ignored entirely.

Next time we visit, I'll try to snap a few photos and share them. I really hope our town planners and developers continue to make such excellent use of the "in between" spaces. It's a great way to, in a sense, have our cake and eat it too - urban devleopment with trees!