Estes Park Trip: June 11, 2009; Day 6

Today was started out as a pretty rainy day. My mom offered to watch the boys so Dave and I could do some things without the kids. We visited the Stanley Hotel, which was somewhat cool, but definitely not worth the $5.00 they charged us for parking. Especially when we realized that if we had only turned left instead of right when we entered the property, we could have gotten out of paying altogether. The hotel’s historical significance is that Stephen King got his inspiration for The Shining from staying at this hotel. The actual movie was not filmed there, but King did film The Shining miniseries there.

After visiting the hotel, we walked around town for a bit and then went to lunch, then headed back to the cabin. We didn’t do much else throughout the day. We put the boys down for a nap, which Tyler refused to do. We finally gave up on that and Dave took Tyler down to play putt putt golf in the main part of the campus. Once Garrett woke up, my mom, Joe and I met them down there. It was really cute seeing Tyler play golf, although he cheats a lot. Garrett didn’t so much like to play, but he did love dropping the golf balls in the holes. We took the boys to the newly finished playground afterward to get some more energy out of them.

After the playground we took an exploratory drive farther up the mountain on the YMCA property. We found a beautiful outdoor chapel and some great scenic views of the mountains. My mom and Joe took the boys back to the cabin so Dave and I could walk around and take pictures. We finished the evening back at the cabin having leftovers for dinner as well as some vegetables that mom and Joe picked up at the farmer’s market that morning. I woke up this morning with a slight sore throat and by the end of the day I had a fever and was feeling really achy and had the chills, so I ended up going to bed around 6:30.