"When in Colorado, go to the mountains."
"Spoken like a true flat-lander."
Estes Park it was. We got up, went to Target to get our picnic lunch, and headed North to Estes.
And, when in Estes, and the park is covered in snow...what do you do? You check out the Stanley hotel...of course!
None of us had ever taken the official Stanley hotel tour....so we signed up.
The tour didn't start for a couple of hours, so we went into downtown Estes to wander around the shops, and grab some lunch.
Finally, it was time to head back up to the hotel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The tour of the hotel was great. It could have been longer (like all day if you ask me)....but it was fun!!!!
Infamous room 217.
I see two little girls in pale blue dresses.
Even the elevator was uber cool!!! :-)
After touring the upstairs levels, we then headed into the basement.
Oh yeah, I volunteered to go into the spooky old tunnel in the basement. No one wanted to, or raised their hands...so I jumped at the chance.
"Um....Mot??"
"Yeah?"
"I need a buddy."
"What?" (giggles from the other tour people)
"I need a buddy. It's spooky in here." (more giggles)
After the tour, we went back into town with two missions in mind.
1) the tshirt I've been trying to get since we first went to Estes quite a few years ago. Success!!! We found it!!! It says "Bring a compass, because it's awkward eating your friends."
2) Coffee, and dessert.
We found a pie shop next door to a coffee shop. (We, of course, bought a piece for the ladies working in the coffee shop.)
You could tell that the mountains were getting weather. In fact, as we walked around Estes with our sunglasses on, and not a cloud in the sky above us.....we were getting snowed on. Talk about pretty!!!
We later found out, on our way home, that the mountain passes back to Denver had rec'd 3-4 inches while we were in Estes. The trip home was a little slower going. :-)
We went back to the hotel, down to the breakfast room, and played cards again into the night. While eating our picnic lunch that we didn't eat (we ended up at the Chicago pizza joint instead), and drinking our bottle of white wine. :-)
One more day left. We were going to have to go home on Monday. :-(
(to be cont)
To see all the pictures I took in Denver, check out my Webshots page.
14 comments:
Beautiful place and beautiful desserts! I really admire your collective ability to find fun things to do. Thank you for sharing.
wv: delysia which is what I thought looking at those desserts and coffee.
That's the "most haunted place in America" hotel, right?
Yeah, we do pretty well finding things to do. We all have similar interests, we're all pretty easy going, and we can all just handle vacations on the fly.
Delysia - unfortunately my pie wasn't so...but the others loved theirs!!!!! :-)
@ mjenks - Yep. Stephen King and his wife had some pretty scary things happen to them while staying there (and Jim Cary left after only being there one night, and refuses to go back)....so it's the hotel King used when writing The Shining. I guess he was currently writing a book about a haunted amusement park...but the hotel changed his mind. Mr. Kubrick didn't think the hotel was "remote" enough, so didn't use it in the movie. Pissed Mr. King off from what they say.
We were kicking ourselves for not staying there the last night of our stay. I'd LOVE to check the place out in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep!!!!!
Now I have to plan a trip to Estes Park. I must have that tee for my next camping trip, and if there's a pie shop, I'm in.
Plus, I'm a big fan of Google, but I love the latest Bing commercial set in the hotel.
@ Elliott - I haven't seen that Bing commercial. I'll have to keep an eye out for it as I fast forward through my DVR'd shows. :-)
I saw that shirt years ago..and didn't get it. We were totally over budget on our week, and we were trying to be good. And now every year we go back, I look for it. The last two times no one has had it. This time we had to go to 4 different stores to find someone with it, and in the right size. (I'm not an extra small...never have been, never will.) :-) :-)
What was the deal with 217? I'm a Brit with no clue!
*makes note not to stay in 217 just in case*
@ mo - The history around room 217 is pretty large. The woman who used to be responsible for that room, now haunts it. She puts luggage away for guests and such. One group of drunk men tried to get her to show herself, by being quite obnoxious...nothing happened. When they came back to room later on, she'd ransacked the place....and tied all their clothes in knots. It's the room that Stephen King stayed in when he came up with the idea for the movie The Shining. He was in the bar, and when he came back up, his wife asked him why he was back so soon. He said he'd been downstairs all evening. She'd heard someone come into the room, and put their luggage all away. Assumed it was him...it wasn't. I guess quite a few "interesting" things happen there.
Of course, if you don't believe in such stuff, this means nothing. But for those of us with a little smidge of belief tucked into our pockets think it's pretty cool. There have been so many reports of strange activity....but you never know if people make stuff up, just to be smart, or what?
looks awesome.
i always wanted to visit there to try the skiing.. just once.
@ Slyde - it's too bad we don't have more topography here. We've got TONS of skiing snow here!!!! :-)
I love it in Colorado. The air seems fresher, the clouds and skies seem more bold, and then there's topography. I love topography. (says the person who lives in Nebraska) Ugh! :-)
Your trip makes me want to go to Colorado!
@ Moonspun - we love it there!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
I think I remember Ghost Hunters being there and finding a lot of EVPs and, if I remember correctly, that's the one where they actually caught a closet door opening (might have been in room 217) and then the ironing board came out (or something like that).
@ mjenks - the closet opening was in room 411 I believe...but yep, that's the place. There was a guest in that room, so we couldn't go in. Was lucky that 217 wasn't occupied and we could.
The picture of the basement tunnel is where they heard the little boy laughing or talking, or something like that. The only way I could see was by taking pictures and using my flash...it was pitch black back in there. I kept running into pipes and tripping on boulders in the path. Spooky!!
The piano in the first couple of pictures is the one that plays in the middle of the night when no one is around. One lady was found playing it...real lady. The staff asked her to stop, and she said "that's ok, it's out of tune anyway." The cover slammed down onto her hands right after she said it. :-)
We really HAVE to stay the night in my lifetime. :-)
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