Snow in the Park

....Estes Park, Colorado, that is. Plenty of snow, but, despite the reputation of the hotel where we stayed, no ghosts or other supernatural happenings. Just a gorgeous building in a fabulous setting.

Yes, that's the famous Stanley Hotel, the original inspiration for The Shining (after all these years probably still the scariest movie I've ever seen).

It wasn't the hotel that was filmed in the Kubrick movie, but we learned that a 1997 re-make was filmed there. Gotta find it on Netflix or at the library. I'm curious to see if it's as scary as the one I've seen, but mostly because it's so much fun to see a movie set in a location where you've been.

The photos above are of the front of the place, but in winter you have to enter through the back door...

...set in what is probably a lovely courtyard in summer. (It was pretty when we were there, with all that snow, but a little slippery!) Those tall ecru-colored poles are actually gigantic furled umbrellas that must cover the whole area when they're opened.

The hotel was named for the Stanley Steamer Stanley (I'll show you a picture of the car they have in the lobby next time, when I showcase the building's interior), who found relief from his consumption and renewed vigor by spending time in the mountains here. In this picture taken on the front porch, you can see the old boy's statue out in front of the hotel (in the red square):

That porch was really gorgeous, as I'm sure you'll agree. It was a little chilly to sit out there and enjoy the view when we were there, but you could tell it would be a wonderful place to relax in warmer weather...

There isn't a big maze, like in the 1980 movie, but there are a couple of touches on the grounds that made me think of that, and of the corresponding structure in the book (wasn't it a playground?)...

could you evade a homicidal maniac in these rows of trees?

mysterious "S" in the front "yard"...
mysterious because I didn't notice it until I looked at my photo!

I guess running into this guy in the right circumstances could be pretty scary, but here he was by the side of the drive to the parking area in the middle of the afternoon. Just impressive then, not frightening!

Of course, in the movie, the scariest stuff happens inside the hotel. Not that we had any supernatural experiences, but we were blown away by the building's interior and decor. I'll show you some of that next time.

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And why were we here? We were honored to be invited to a Colorado wedding and made a little vacation of it. The wedding was outdoors and we had wondered about the wisdom of that, in mid-January, but it was lovely and we didn't even get too cold...

Congratulations, Laura and Sam!