Colorado Part 4 (the last one!): Estes Park

Day 7 (Friday 9/9): We started our day off by enjoying our campsite at Rocky Mountain National Park! We didn't have to "check-out" until 11am, and we really wanted to have a nice relaxing morning to continue to enjoy it. So we made a campfire, we made breakfast, and we MAY have made a few s'mores too... It was a nice peaceful morning, and we took our time breaking camp too and packing up our car. It was a lovely way to start the day! After we were all packed up, we drove around the park looking for wildlife! We did see an elk, but we didn't have a ton of luck finding wildlife, so we decided that the next morning we'd wake up nice and early and come back to look for more.

I think this was from the prior day, but I just found this on our camera so I thought I'd post it!

Kevin took this while I was sitting at our table enjoying the view. We just couldn't get used to those amazing views! 

Here's the elk we saw! He was resting.

Here's a picture that's a little closer! They're SO huge, and SO amazing.

After we'd driven around a bit, we drove just outside the park to Estes Park! This is where The Stanley Hotel is, and this is where we would be staying for the next two nights. It's the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining (he stayed here), and it's supposedly quite haunted. For the movie The Shining, Stanley Kubrick chose NOT to film at this hotel, which upset Stephen King quite a bit... So years later Stephen King made a miniseries of The Shining and that was filmed at The Stanley. We had a tour that first day, and they went over the history of The Stanley which was SO interesting. I won't bore you with it, but I'll just say it was built in 1909 by F.O. Stanley (inventor of the Stanley Steamer, among many other things) when he moved to Estes Park, CO because of his tuberculosis. His doctor had told him the elevation and freshy, dry air of the Rocky Mountains would be good for his condition, so he moved there with his wife, and shortly after that had the hotel built so that their friends and family could come stay for long periods of time.  There's lots more history, but I don't want to bore you guys with it!  It was a really cool tour, and we got to see a lot of the hotel. We had a very relaxing day/evening! Here are some pictures of the hotel: 

Here's a Stanley Steamer! A steam-powered car... super cool.

Here's the staircase down from our room! That woman on the right side of the picture is Fiona Stanley, and I think she totally looks like Benedict Cumberbatch in that picture.

Here's the other side of the staircase... That is F.O. Stanley on the far right. 

Here's the front of the hotel! 

Another view of the front of the hotel. 

Day 8 (Saturday 9/10): We woke up suuuuuper early and drove the 20 minutes to get into Rocky Mountain National Park again so we could look for wildlife! And my goodness did we see a LOT of elk!!  They were everywhere! We didn't see any other wildlife, but I was so happy and excited to see (and hear) so many elk! It was super cool, and we took a bunch of pictures: 

These two were fighting! It was amazing to watch. 

This male elk on the right kept herding his ladies! Whenever one would separate he'd chase it back.

The ladies! (and some kiddos too) 

He's chasing the ladies back to their group! 

He was bugling to the ladies!! He kept getting mad at them when they'd try to run.

Here's all the ladies grouped together

And here's the grumpy dude that wouldn't let them go anywhere.

The rest of our day was spent driving around the area, and then also wandering around the city of Estes Park and also the grounds of the hotel. We had a late night ghost tour of the hotel (we HAD to do the cheesy tourist stuff since we were there!!) and it was actually really cool. It wasn't one of those awful ghost tours where they're like, "Did you hear that??" etc (I hate those!)... It was just telling some of the stories of what had happened there, and some of the stuff that people had experienced. It was good and creepy, and it was also just really cool to see so much more of the hotel. It was the perfect way to spend our last night there! We left early the next morning to catch a flight home. SUCH an awesome trip!