Denver's had its mildest winter in forever. It's been in the 60s and 70s it seems for about 2.5 months straight. It's been sunny and dry and wonderful. So a couple of weeks ago Elizabeth and I decided that we were going to get out of town over Spring Break for a bit to relax. We scrounged up enough cash to get us a hotel room in Estes Park for a night, and set aside all day Thursday and Friday for the trip up (a 1.5-hour trip). We planned to check out Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), visit some Estes shops, eat a nice dinner, and spend some time doing NOTHING.
As the week wore on we found out that a humongous blizzard was on its way into Colorado, and it was supposed to strike... Thursday. No big deal. Maybe the trip will take us 2 hours instead of 1.5, but we're leaving at 9 a.m. and we can't even check in until 4, so we were hoping to take our time on the drive a little bit anyway.
Thursday came. The snow was falling. We got out of the house on time. We had lots of warm stuff and some food in our car. We were set. For about 20 minutes everything was okay. We were heading north on I-25, getting ready to exit onto highway 36 West (which connects Denver with Boulder and eventually takes you right into Estes Park). As we got on the ramp to 36 we hit stand-still traffic. Just as we passed our last chance point where we could have changed our minds and gotten back onto 25, we heard over the radio, "Do NOT take 36! Between Boulder and Denver it's complete gridlock. There are accidents everywhere, cars in the ditch, and traffic's not moving." Fantastic. So, we figured, no big deal. Within about a mile there will be an exit off of 36 and we can make our way back to 25 and choose ourselves a different route. Well, that mile took us 2 hours. We spent about an hour and 15 minutes sitting still in one spot. And that whole 2 hours was the calmest weather of the day... so by the time we exited and got back to I-25, we were in a white-out blizzard. Couldn't see more than about 50 yards. I drove about 20 miles an hour on I-25. We eventually got to exit and take a different state highway to the west that pointed us toward Estes Park. The weather was getting better. Before long it stopped snowing (but not blowing), and I could drive 50 miles an hour. Visibility was still bad. We made it to Estes and checked into our hotel. As evening approached we headed downtown to walk around and find some good dinner. Turns out, on a Thursday evening in Estes Park after the biggest snowstorm of the year, nobody is open. We found a bookstore that was open, and a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company that sold us some ridiculously priced candy. We had to look for about an hour for a restaurant to serve us. Thursday was a bit rough.
Friday was MUCH better. It was bright and sunny. We could see for miles (when you're in the mountains, it's only pretty if you're actually able to SEE the mountains). The roads were remarkably dry and clear. So we hung out at the hotel, took some pictures (see below), drove through RMNP for a few hours, and then took a longer scenic drive home (which was actually a faster trip than the drive up). We had a good time on Friday, and we did get to relax a little.
Our hotel was The Stanley Hotel, made famous as Stephen King's inspiration for his book The Shining. It's a gorgeous building, seen here:
Apparently King got many of his ideas for the book from walking the halls of this old hotel, and he even wrote the book while staying here. They didn't film any of the movie here, but they did film the miniseries (which came some 20 years later) here. The hotel regularly gives "ghost tours" of the property, because there are apparently ghosts all over the place. Here are some more pictures of the place.
I've never seen nor read The Shining but after reading synopses of it, I'm glad that I didn't read it or watch it this week... before we ended up staying in this almost empty hotel after a huge blizzard that threatened to snow us in for an extended period of time...
To see some more pictures, and a description of our trip from a different point of view, check out my wife's blog post on the topic.
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