A Week in the Mile High State…Part III

— ESTES PARK, CO. —

Outside the cabin, Thursday morning.

Wednesday evening we drove up to Estes Park—a place I haven't visited since around the time I moved to Arizona 10 years ago. It's almost exactly like I remember with only a little bit of new developments along the route up there.

Sister and I treated Mom to a day in the mountains, and we cooked pasta with the Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle from Peneys Spices, garlic toast, a green salad with avocado and a couple bottles of wine. Let me tell you about those! When we got to the cabin, we found the corkscrew provided was broken and had no way of opening the wine bottles. In my good mood, I decided to ask our neighbors—whom we could see through the window—if we might be able to borrow theirs. I trotted over to the cabin, knocked on the door and got a very vocal

“THIS ISN’T THE OFFICE!!”
“Uh…yeah, I know…just wanted to see if I could borrow a corkscrew?”
“Oh, oh, OK.”

When I brought the thing back—nearly immediately after borrowing—as I started saying "thanks!" the guy at the door goes, "You're welcome"—really rude family, I tell you. Sometimes altitude does strange things to people.

Mr. Happy, after watching an evening of American Idle.

Next day, we went into town to do a little window shopping. We sat and watched an entire presentation at the glass blowers, where I snapped a picture of these as of yet unopened poppies.


And on our way out of town we all stopped by the famous Stanley Hotel, one of the many sets used in Stephen King's "The Shining". Though they say it's haunted, I saw no evidence of that whatsoever.


Next up: The end of the week.