It begins with home
Looking back at my childhood I missed out on the opportunity to see more of the U.S. parks; I recently took a trip to Colorado so that I may see the Rocky Mountain National Park with my wife and some friends.
So I was tasked to find a place for all of us to stay, so I did what anyone else would do and logged onto Airbnb.com. After searching through some excellent places in Colorado, I ended up stumbling upon a town by the name of Estes Park. The town has a lot of history, and it was fun learning about how it became what it is today. Mostly famous due to how close it is to the Rocky Mountain National Park, RMNP, it also is the home of the Stanley Hotel. Getting the opportunity to see the RMNP was amazing but being able to stay in a cabin 5 minutes away from the main entrance was priceless.
The Worldmark by Wyndham was our home for seven nights. Our cabin was a spacious three bed two bath with a fireplace and full kitchen. The cabin was cozy and had a warm feel to it. The toastie cabin made it easier to become acclimated to the cold weather being that we are all from Miami, Fl. As soon as we got there, it began to snow which was a delight for my wife and others on the trip that had never seen snow in their life. For me, I had seen mountains before but having the ability to stay and experience the sheer awesomeness still leaves me breathless as I write these words. The resort had a hot tub and a river that ran behind it. The river was partially frozen over when we got there, but you could still hear it flowing through Estes Park.
The town has a McDonalds, Starbucks, Safeway and also your typical gas station. We found ourselves actively staying away from everything except Safeway. You get a sense that the town helps out its own, so we wanted to lend a helping hand to local businesses. It was pleasant to see so many small mom and pop shops. I recommend getting the Safeway card and doing groceries if you will be staying for more than a couple of days. We were so excited to see the discounts applied to our groceries after we got the card (shoutout to an unknown Safeway employee). I also suggest you get the weekly park pass or if you are going to be traveling a lot this year it would be worth it to get the yearly parks pass. We didn't get a chance to use the pass too often on this visit, but we plan on going back. Throughout our stay, we experienced the quiet comfort of staying in the mountains. We met many interesting and passionate people. I truly can't wait to return and experience what the mountains have to offer in Spring or Fall.
Thanks for reading this entry and check back for some more entries in my travel journal. I will be sharing stories on our tour of the Stanley Hotel, RMNP visit, sledding, skiing, hiking and all the other cool things I did on our trip to Colorado. Feel free to check out the pictures below.
