We went into town early today as we had been warned the tourist pour into Estes Park on the weekend. The warnings were right. We were lucky to get a parking place at the Visitors Center and then we took a shuttle into town. Lots of tourists.
Cliff Scott, our friend back in Ft. Smith, AR had told us about the prevailing political climate in the area. Cliff went to law school in Boulder. For example, in Boulder, you cannot "own" a pet. This is thought to be akin to being a slave-owner. Rather, you may have principle responsibility for your pet. There are a lot of folk that are "responsibility centers" here in Colorado. In town, we saw this guy on a scooter whose pooch was having a discussion with the Yorkie traveling in an RV.
A stream from the mountains runs through the edge of Estes Park. There are open-air restaurants along the stream. There is a water wheel that I don't think is operational but does mark the entrance to the "Water Wheel Gift Shop."
The walk through town takes you past specialty shops...taffy, outdoor wear, kids toys, women's clothing, men's hats, restaurants serving Elk and Buffalo burgers, and cookies. Cookies! We had to stop into Grandma's Cookies. (See the sign just ahead of Lib in the photo below). We had a chat with the owner. She had been in the shop for 17 years and said there is no place in the world that is more fun to work! If only everyone had that level of job satisfaction. She made our visit fun and her homemade oatmeal raisin cookie (she heated it for us) was much better than the Safeway version. She took to Libbo and said as we parted (when about 10 customers walked in at once), "Some customers get a hug!" Lib got the hug and we were off.
I didn't realize I got this lady sporting a Nebraska t-shirt in the photo above. We have noticed there are a lot of Nebraska fans here in Colorado. There is even a "Colorado for Nebraska" store on the street. The atmosphere is like many tourist towns. A lot of people and a lot of folk pushing their wares...even horse and buggy rides.
No tourist town is worth its salt without an Arts and Crafts festival on a major holiday. This being Labor Day weekend, Estes Park was no exception. There are many nature painters; bears, elk, eagles, fish, landscapes. They are good! I warned Lib, whatever you buy, we will have to UPS it home as Creme Puff is pretty full.
It was fun walking around the festival. We stopped and talked to one artist who told us she lived for several years as a child in the Stanley Hotel. In the early 80's Stephen King hung out in Estes Park. He got the idea of the book/movie, The Shining, based upon the Stanley Hotel. She said they tried to film the movie here at the hotel but they couldn't get enough snow and they had electrical problems in the old hotel. So, they gave up and filmed the snow scenes in some gorge in California and the rest of the movie on sets in Hollywood. We are planning on going to the hotel tomorrow morning. The traffic was so bad we decided not to try it today. If we do I will come back to this post and append the photo here. OK, I'm back! We learned a little bit about the Stanley Hotel, a major attraction in Estes Park. It was built in the early 1900's and completed in 1909 by F. O. Stanley. Stanley was the inventor of the Stanley steam engine so he was an important character in our history. He and his wife Flora moved to Estes Park upon his Doctor's advice "to seek cleaner air" because he had tuberculosis. He did fine after moving here and, according to legend, still walks around in the hotel lobby and pool room at night! Yes, its supposed to be haunted and even Flora is seen. This haunting business is probably what inspired Stephen King.
One of the famous celebrities staying at the Stanley was Teddy Roosevelt. TR stayed here to visit the Rocky Mountains. If you haven't studied the National Park history, TR was the most influential person in our history to preserve our lands so we can enjoy them today. Teddy was primarily interested in the outdoors for hunting until he ran across a guy named John Muir from California. Muir talked TR into making Yosemite a National Park and changed TR's beliefs about the need for conservation.
Estes Park has beautiful flowers all over. This is just a shot of flowers in a pot located on the main street.
Maggie watching the kids play football
After we watched more football than we had seen in a year, we watched a movie, The Butler, and turned in at 10:30pm. We're slowly adjusting to the time zone change.
Tomorrow, we will start getting ready for a big travel day on Monday. We are headed to South Dakota and its going to be a 350 mile day!
It looks to me like Maggie is thinking about making a break for freedom.
ReplyDeleteThe SPCA ships excess dogs from Tulsa to Boulder where they are adopted or assigned to a responsible party.
Jan's son in Boulder got a great little dog that way.
We were amazed to see all the marijuana stores around Boulder.