Elegance in the Park

...again, in Estes Park, Colorado. Last time I showed you some exterior views of the super-elegant Stanley Hotel, where we stayed for a friend's wedding. Now I want to show you some of the wonderful interiors of this historic building.

Yes, it did serve as the inspiration for Stephen King's book The Shining (which is almost as scary as the movie) but we didn't find it spooky inside at all...just wonderfully elegant and maybe a few steps up from our usual cheap-motel lodgings. 

However, in the interests of full disclosure, we didn't have time to take their Ghost Tour, so perhaps we just weren't looking for supernatural phenomena in the right places  . And the resident psychic wasn't in to offer assistance.

They also offer history tours, which we were even sorrier to have missed.

It's obviously a place with lots of non-supernatural history. They do have displays and informational signs that let you in on some of this. For example, the Stanley Steamer (that's the Stanley the hotel is named for) in the lobby:

And there's this amusing, but also rather sad, note that's displayed outside the Music Room (where we had a delicious morning-after brunch with our friends—click on the image to enlarge if it's too small to read here):

But it was mostly just the sheer elegance of the place that charmed us the most. For instance, those fabulous staircases that are at the top of the post—the top one is the main stair, the second is one that just leads from the second to the fourth floor. Our room was on the third, so we took this one a lot.

Although, when we were lugging bags we were grateful for the old-timey (but fully functional) elevator. On the left is a picture of Henry inside its cozy confines. It didn't have an operator, but otherwise looked very much like the elevators I remember, mistily, from childhood—with double doors and lots of shiny brass.

The design highlight of the place, though, is the gorgeous bar...

I admit to being first drawn to it because of the incredibly creepy scenes in The Shining when Jack Nicholson visits with the hallucinated bartender. But upon entry we found it to be, more simply, just a fabulous space, with all kinds of interesting features...

gorgeous copper-topped tables

room divider with lovely liquor bottles diffusing the winter sunlight

All, in all, a great lodging experience that we wish could have been longer. But we were off to our place in Garfield the day after the wedding, where more adventures awaited us. I'll tell you about them next time.

the old room keys at the registration desk

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!

Wordless Wednesday: winter sun

A horseshoe for luck

I forgot to eat my black-eyed peas for luck on New Year's day. (This is apparently a custom in the southeastern US, and since I grew up in Houston, which is in many ways more akin to the Old South than the rest of Texas, I have always observed this rite. Until this year, that is.)

We were at Canyon Lake for the weekend, eating too much non-pea food, hosting friends, and shooting off the kind of fireworks that are not legal inside the San Antonio city limits but that Henry is quite fond of. 

I also had a very nice walk around our CL neighborhood on New Year's Eve; here's one of the nice views I snapped while strolling:

Doesn't that look nice and peaceful?

However, since I usually don't think about the peas until NYE at the earliest, it never occurred to me to put a can in with the stuff we took to the lake on NYEE. (Plus, I don't even have any cans of peas on hand; I've been lately transitioning away, pretty successfully, from canned veggies and soups to the fresh and homemade variety.)

Anyway, this is all a round-about way of expressing my concerns about luck in the upcoming year, due to the lack of peas in our diet on the appropriate day.

However, we did go paddling on NYD (this has been a tradition among our paddling friends), and the lovely feature where we stopped for lunch is shown at the top of the post: Horseshoe Falls. Most of us, myself included, not at all surprisingly, portaged this rather tricky falls, but Henry went over it as smooth as silk:

So I'm holding out hope that this will suffice for our family's luck guarantee for 2017.

It was a beautiful day for a paddle, not nearly as cold as we had been fearing. And the scenery was terrific. We were on the lower Guadalupe, below Canyon Dam (we can't go here in the summer because the river's choked with toobers), and the banks here are much more developed. 

But there are some stretches where the topography ensures a more wilderness-like experience:

And the river itself is just as beautiful here as upstream:

Horseshoe Falls side channels

the Falls from almost rock-level

So, keep your fingers crossed for me in 2017!

Wordless Wednesday: a friendly zoo

Season's greetings to all!

Hoping for peace and justice (both of which might be hard to come by) for all in 2017. 

We love the way our super-cool county courthouse decorates for the holidays. 

And we also appreciate these near neighbors, who really went nuts this year with lights on their trees. The yard is like a wonderland!

Holiday greetings to all!