Last Friday, Steve and I flew to Denver for our long-awaited weekend in Estes Park with our friends, Isaac and Kari. They drove in from Des Moines, picked us up at the airport, and we headed to the mountains. Although we did have some storms each day, we woke up to this clear blue sky ...
One day we drove up through Rocky Mountain National Park to do some site-seeing. The views (and the altitude) were breathtaking. We didn't see as much wildlife as we would have hoped (mostly elk), but as we were having a picnic lunch one day, there were large elk doing the same, just up the path.
Steve had to test out the depth of the snow. We made some snow balls and threw them into oblivion.
When it started raining hard on the mountain, we decided to go into town ... where it began hailing! We waited out storms in a pub on more than one occasion.
We ate dinner one night at The Dunraven Inn, and it was delicious. It's the one restaurant I would absolutely go back to. It's this tiny place sort of off the beaten path that apparently everyone knows about ... next time we'll make a reservation. Anyway, Dunraven was apparently a guy who was run out of town because he was illegally selling land that he didn't own way back in the day. Now he just serves up fine food and spirits.
We enjoyed walking around Lillie Lake. There were many people fishing, but it's all catch-and-release.
A highly anticipated part of our trip included our ghost tour at the Stanley Hotel. The Stanley is where Stephen King stayed and had some paranormal experiences that became the inspiration for his book, and then the movie, "The Shining". Our tour guide talked about all of the odd things that guests have experienced while staying at the hotel.
The Stanley was also the Hotel Danbury in "Dumb and Dumber". These are the steps on which Jim Carrey handed out cash to all of the hotel employees (remember, "there ya go, there ya go ...). The stair and bar scenes were also filmed inside the hotel, so while we were busy being creeped out on our tour, I just replayed "D & D" scenes in my head. The tour guide did say that, while many famous people had stayed in the hotel over the years (both with and without incident), Jim Carrey checked out after three hours, and only returned to film.
The tour, which started after dark, was informative but also a little scary. We were disappointed that our pictures didn't know any paranormal activity, but I stand by the fact that I saw F.O. Stanley, who built the hotel to serve as a summer vacation home for friends and family. I held up my camera to take a picture, and there he was on my screen. It startled me, so I put the camera down, and he was gone. But I promise he had been there: beard, hat, and all.
Unfortunately, due to the rain, we only got in one good bonfire night at this spot. The weather was cool enough to enjoy fires inside, though, as well as the hot tub on our deck. The Fall River, which ran just outside the door of our cabin, was fast and loud, and the whole place was just so peaceful.
We returned home on Tuesday afternoon ready to see the girls, but already dreaming up plans to return to EP as a family in the future. These pictures and my commentary don't begin to do it justice, but I think it's fair to say that we found our own version of paradise.
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