Estes Park

We're just back from a long weekend in Estes Park. The drive up was in a word--gorgeous. Lilacs have started blooming and another varietal which Doug thinks is related to the Dogwood, was also in bloom. We went through Boulder (which Doug and I always call Berkeley, not sure if we intentionally slip or not), and then Lyons, which I have always wanted to see and was not disappointed.

Estes Park was more of a town that I thought it would be. I expected it to be more of a enclave of motels outside Rocky Mountain National Park. There is even a wine bar in Estes. Curiously, they have two doors, on one side they sell for off-premise consumption and on the other side, through the other door, it is a wine and cheese bar. The part that makes it curious is that they have a large archway cut between the two stores. Seems like it wouldn't be legal to me, but their explanation was that they were two separate business, two separate licenses, two separate distributor accounts, etc., and that they only shared a staff. Hmmm, still doesn't seem like that would be legal, but who am I to question it.

We stayed in a lovely little inn called the Silver Moon; their customer service was exceptional. Saturday was spent settling in, resting, reading in the sun, and walking around town. After Frank and Doug hit the skate park, we made our way up to the historic Stanley Hotel for a visit. As we always do when we visit historic or grand hotels, Doug and I had a drink in the bar and the boys had Shirley Temples. There were at least three weddings taking place and at one point there were two sets of brides and grooms having their photos taken on the veranda. Must've felt special, kinda assembly-linish. Anyway, it seems as though the Stanley is a very popular place to get married.

We found a little pub in town we quite liked and ate there twice during our trip. On Sunday we woke up and intended to go on a hike before brunch, however, the weather was NOT cooperating. We called Mary's Lake Lodge and moved our reservation up a couple of hours (they were very nice to be accommodating). Brunch was fabulous, everything a Mother's Day Brunch should be. We all had great fun sampling ALL of the desserts, eating too much smoked salmon and shrimp and basically just being decadent. Beckett is getting to be old enough to participate and understand the fun, and has a great, dry wit. He just makes me laugh and laugh with some of the stuff he says. I wish I could remember right now something funny he said, but I cannot.

After brunch we went for our hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. First stop we trekked down the very icy path to Bear Lake; then on to Sprague Lake which had a very nice walking path all the way around the lake. Frank insisted he saw a beaver, but I think it was probably the bottom end of a duck. We stopped at Moraine Park and spent quite a long time walking alongside the river, which was the only thing separately us from a herd of a 200 or more elk.

Monday came too soon, but we weren’t in any hurry. We took a route home that led us through Nederland, home of the Frozen Dead Guy Days. Interesting. Frank got two frozen dead guy t-shirts. The drive was pretty, through mainly forests and then dumping us out in Golden. I much preferred the drive to Estes Park over the drive home, but it was a highway Doug wanted to explore, better to just go with the flow since it is more important to him than it is to me.

Home again. Back to work. Lots to do. Of course.