The other highlight of my weekend was this wonderful little museum, Estes Park Museum. If you ever find yourself in Estes Park, it is free and well worth a visit. It is pure social and cultural history really since it is made up of artifacts of the town and displays showing what its founding was like and life there over the years. I was quite impressed by it--all the displays were interesting and vibrant--not dusty old displays that you sometimes find in touristy areas. I took a number of photos, which I will let speak for themselves.
I wish I could have found postcards of the artwork above as the paintings were really beautiful.
Estes Park has always been a resort town and I would love to read more about its history.
But that "rigorous" and changeable weather can also be devastating.
There was even an actual cabin built in 1909 out back. Alas, the cabin I stayed in had much nicer amenities.
The museum, for its size, has an excellent gift shop/bookstore filled with lots of interesting books on local history and the couple, who staffed the museum were volunteers and quite pleasant and helpful.
We also went on a Stanley Hotel ghost tour. I will only say, steer clear if you decide to visit. Maybe the regular hotel tour would have been a better fit for us, but the ghost tour is to be avoided at all costs. It was mostly just a lot of silliness I am sorry to say.
It was cool to see inside the hotel, however. In case you are wondering--Stephen King stayed at the hotel and it was the inspiration for his novel, The Shining. It wasn't actually filmed there apparently.
Tomorrow books, and then back to normal bookishness.