In early May, the hubs and I packed up and headed west to Colorado. His most favorite band ever, Clutch, was playing a special two-night event at The Stanley hotel in Estes Park and we knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime must-do. Besides being a Clutch fan since the beginning, the hubs is also a huge horror and Stephen King fan. Since Stephen King was inspired to write his novel, The Shining, after a stay at The Stanley in the 1970s, this had always been on his bucket list of places to visit. More on The Shining and Stephen King later.

We arrived in Denver super late and grabbed an airport hotel for the night. The next morning, we headed out toward Lyons to make a stop at the original Oskar Blues restaurant location. Oskar Blues is a craft brewery that started in Colorado and has a restaurant in Lyons serving up some amazing food. We actually ate there on the way back through to Denver on the day we flew home as well. Delish food and friendly service. It didn’t hurt that right next door was Lyons Classic Pinball so that made for an easy add-on to our plans for our departure day. The hubs loves Clutch, horror, Stephen King, craft beer, and pinball so we were really ticking off all the boxes on this trip!

After Lyons, we drove ‘the scenic route’ to Estes Park via Route 7. This stretch is gorgeous with several places to pull off and admire the scenery. Snow-capped peaks, wildlife, rivers, lakes… nature’s beauty all around! We returned to Denver same way to be able to enjoy the sights again before flying home.

Once we arrived in Estes Park, it was quickly clear we were in some kind of magical place. I saw elk lounging in the grass before we ever got near the hotel. A cute little downtown area, shops, even a Sinclair gas station were all spotted in minutes. As we pulled up to The Stanley though, we knew we had truly arrived. The hotel was just as stunning as it is in pictures. With the Rockies behind and around, red roof buildings standing out among the evergreens… stunning. We could not wait to hop out of the rental car and get settled in. The funny thing is, Estes Park is at about 7,500 feet above sea level, so the altitude will quickly stop you from hopping around too much, lol. Denver, being referred to as the ‘Mile High City’ comes in at 5,280 feet (of course) and Longs Peak, the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, comes in at 14,259. Coming from Virginia where our closest mountain peak isn’t even 1,500 feet above sea level, the altitude change rapidly becomes apparent.

Check in was smooth and we made our way over to a separate building next door to the main hotel called The Lodge at The Stanley. The top floor of this smaller building was our home for the next two nights. We chose the Lodge instead of the main building because the main building is the ‘haunted’ one, or so we thought. Turns out, the Lodge has its own haunted room and weird happenings so we weren’t free from the spooky after all! The room was lovely though and had windows that actually opened (a rarity these days) so I was able to enjoy the cool breeze in the evenings while the hubs rocked out at the Concert Hall. Surprisingly, we were on the side of the Lodge building that faces the Concert Hall, so I was able to hear the entire concert both nights and he was just a short walk (albeit uphill) back to the room.

So back to Stephen King. He stayed at The Stanley back in the 1970s when it was going through a tough financial period. The hotel has a long history going back to the turn of the century as a guest house for F.O. Stanley and his family. F.O. had moved to Estes Park, expecting to die from tuberculosis, but instead being healed by the pristine mountain air. He was very wealthy, having been an inventor with his brother, F.E. Stanley. They developed a photography process known as dry plate which they sold to Kodak and then later Stanley automobiles. Once he moved to Estes Park, he needed a place for his rich friends to stay when they visited (since Estes Park was very remote) so he built the hotel building as a guest house. Over the years, it became a regular hotel but was only open during the summer season due to the snow that happens in the area and not being able to travel out to Estes Park in the winter. As one can imagine, running a huge hotel for a couple of months a year and having to shutter it for the rest of the year isn’t financially practical, so it fell into disrepair about the time Stephen King was there. He actually stayed the night before the hotel was closing for the winter but he begged the staff to let his family stay there since there was no where else to go. His family were the only guests there that night and they stayed in famed room 217. Whatever he saw, felt, experienced that night is what inspired him to writing his next novel called ‘The Shining’. The book later became a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and starred Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. This version was filmed largely on a movie lot in England but the exterior shots were of a hotel called the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. The original ax from the movie is in a safe at the Stanley.

Stephen King hated Kubrick’s version and decided to film his own version as a miniseries at the real Stanley hotel. This was released in 1997 and starred Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay. Through the miniseries, King was able to move the picture closer to his original story. The Stanley hotel offers ‘Shining Tours’ to talk about King, the movie and miniseries, and some basic hotel information which we found very informative. I also went on a night tour of the hotel which was focused on the ‘spirited’ aspects of the property. Luckily (unluckily?) I didn’t have any personal paranormal experiences during the tour or our visit. It did snow a bit that night when the tour started, which was neat to see (before we scrambled back indoors!)

Why do I keep saying this hotel is haunted? Well, there have been many, many sightings and experiences at the hotel by guests and employees over the years that support the theory that the hotel has some guests that remain. While no one has died tragically at the hotel, it is believed that these spirits have returned to the Stanley as somewhere they remember fondly from their past to remain in their afterlife. This story from Uncover Colorado gives you the scoop on some of the ‘visitors’. I will tell you, the creepy feeling definitely takes you over in certain places!

The hotel doesn’t have the hedge maze or animal topiaries from the movie and miniseries but it does have the miniature hotel from the miniseries and a new mini-maze (that the elk keep eating) plus a delicious brunch right at the Lodge building. You

can also tell that wildlife come right up to the hotel from the prints in the dirt leading up to the main building.

In the evening, the hubs had concert bliss and I explored the hotel and enjoyed some downtime. During the day, we ventured to the entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park, a very short drive from the hotel. We had the best time in the Park and enjoyed looking at wildlife (deer, elk, coyote, birds), seeing the snowy mountain tops, the huge rocks, and lakes. We had dinner at a small Italian place in the downtown area along a river, and meandered around the hotel grounds together. It was such a perfect getaway!

After we got back into Denver, we had a little more time to burn so we drove through the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. It was hard to believe such a cool place was right there beside a huge city and an airport! This is an 11-mile drive through a wildlife refuge home to bison, prairie dogs, birds, deer, coyote and more. Don’t pet the fluffy cows! This bison picture is not zoomed!

If you’re ever in the Denver area, you definitely should drive through and see these beautiful creatures for yourself!

After a super late flight home and never enough sleep, we made it back to Virginia the next day. Back to the lower altitude and familiar surroundings. I would love to visit Estes Park and The Stanley again!

xoxo,

Amber