What Now

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH EDITION

June 18, 2011

Today was such an awesome day!

Josh had class in the morning, so Jeoff and I hung out around the house and did various thises and thats until Josh came back home.  Actually, Jeoff was being industrious and doing his homework.  I sat on the couch and dozed with the cat.  :)  Josh left school early and we were on our way!

Our plan today was one of the things I'd asked to do specifically while I was out here.  We were going to drive to Estes Park and visit The Stanley Hotel! Squee!!!!

For those of you who aren't Stephen King fans, The Stanley is a huge resort hotel up in the mountains where the book "The Shining" was created.  Mr. King was living in Boulder in the 70's and had just had a book rejected from his publisher.  He decided that he needed to get away and try to think up a new story, so he and his wife drove to The Stanley and asked for a room.  Since it was the end of the season, and the hotel staff was in the process of closing down the hotel for the winter, he and his wife were the only two guests in the hotel. Since the hotel is allegedly haunted, Mr. King was woken up by a nightmare and voila! The Shining was born.  This is how the tour guide explained it, so...I guess it must be right.

The hotel is beautiful, old and huge, and has some of the most gorgeous scenery out of the front windows.  You can see snow capped mountains, even in the summer!  Gah!  Loved it!

We were actually at the hotel for a ghost and history tour, which are very popular.  We began our tour learning a bit about the history of the hotel and the family that started it, about why "The Shining" was written and how it affected the hotel itself.  The tour guide was very excited, but I got the idea that she may have still been in the process of learning how to do the tours, because some of her stories were a bit disconnected.  Anyway, we walked all over the hotel and saw most of the areas of the place that are supposed to be haunted.  It was so much fun!  I love ghost tours!  It was especially cool because the hotel is so old and has a lot of interesting non-paranormal history behind it.  I took lots of pictures, but I don't think I caught any ghoolies, ghosties, or long-leggedy beasties.  I tried to, though!  I really want to catch a ghost, darn it!  :(  I guess I'm not "open" enough to the experience.  Heh.  Actually, I realized that a lot of the things the tour guide said and did were basically a way to plant suggestions into the minds of the people listening.  Funnily enough, the guide said she was skeptical about the whole thing and that she knew that most stories DO plant suggestions into the listeners minds...and then she went on to do just that.

Oh, the best part of the tour was when we were all standing in an empty bedroom on the "Children's Floor", trying to "feel the spirits of the children's ghosts."  She asked us all to close our eyes and let our hands hang down to our sides.  The ghosts of the children sometimes come and hold your hand, if they sense you work with kids or are around kids.  So we were all doing this when some dude in the back freaked out and said something touched his hand.  In my humble opinion, he was faking.  I can't explain why he would do it unless it had something to do with trying to startle everyone.  Anyway, this guy had just made us all jump, and the tour guide asked us to try again.  So we were all standing there, eyes closed, and hands out.

Now, Josh has this ring tone on his phone that is so very creepy.  It sounds like a little kid giggling.  It's supposed to be a happy sound, I suppose, but it really makes me think of Chucky or something equally as disturbing.  It's a creepy kid giggle, is what I'm trying to say.

Ok, so we're all standing there, eyes closed, crammed into this hot bedroom, and had just been startled by the guy who said something touched his hand.  It was really quiet when Jeoff secretly text messaged Josh and that giggle went off.  Oh, y'all, I bet there were some stained dainties in that room with us!  It even freaked out the tour guide!  I think we could have gotten away with it if Josh hadn't laughed !  It was so funny.  After that, the tour wound down and we went on our way.  I very much want to go back and do one of their Ghost Hunting events, and if I can't do that, I want to stay in one of the haunted rooms!  The whole thing was so awesome!

After the hotel, we went down into Estes Park and walked along the strip of souvenir shops and restaurants.  I love doing that, because you can just go in and out and shop and loiter and do whatever.  We each bought a few things, and Jeoff and Josh did a wine tasting.  It was fun to watch, but I just simply don't enjoy wine, so I had to live vicariously.  We had dinner at one of the local places, which had delicious food, and then we said our goodbyes to Estes Park and came home.

It was such a fun day!