Rocky Mountain High - part 1

I'M BAAA-AACK!

So…didja miss me? :-) I missed all of you!!

Alas, my Colorado vacation is over, and it was SO hard to leave that beautiful state and come back home.

How ‘bout a bit of a report and some pics? *g*

John and I were staying at the Lane Guest Ranch (http://www.laneguestranch.com), two hours from Denver, waaaaay up in the mountains, in Allenspark. It was a long drive up twisty roads, but it was so scenic.






As you can see by the sign, the ranch was established in 1953, and trust me when I say that the interior of the cabins is still in 1953. :-) Ours was the last cabin on the property, the furthest from the main house, and straight up the side of a hill. It pretty much exhausted us climbing up and down all the time, but because we were away from everyone it was nice and quiet. I booked us a cabin with a private hot tub on our deck, and we used it every single night. Ahhh….

Whomever your server is for the first meal you have at the ranch (all meals are included with the price of your stay) is your server for all of your meals the entire time you’re at the ranch. Which is great, because you get to know them and they get to know you. And boy, did we luck out. Our server was Matt, a young college guy (as is most of the staff) who turned out to be the head of the wait staff. He gets a list of all incoming guests, and when he saw that our last name was Miller, like his own, he claimed us! LOL! Observing most of the other wait staff, Matt was by far the most competent. By the second morning he knew what we were going to have to drink and had it waiting before we sat down. He was just extremely attentive and very funny and ended up with a hefty tip from us the morning we left.

Saturday morning we took a landscape drawing class, and our subject was Mt. Meeker:



Beautiful, isn’t it? This was also the view we had from the back patio of the main house where we ate all of our meals.

Horseback riding was after the drawing class, where we rode up to Deer Ridge. Here’s John and I at the top:




We headed off for some fishing and hiking around Lake Estes, in Estes Park, about a 20 minute drive from the ranch. We didn’t catch anything, but the scenery was gorgeous and we saw some wildlife, including my first elk!

( Wanna see some elk, a beaver and a cute ground squirrel? Plus me fishing? )

Of course we also drove out to Rocky Mountain National Park, where we did a bit of hiking. We weren’t used to the altitude at all, so we picked two fairly easy hikes – one out to Dream Lake and one to Alberta Falls – that still took us a while to do, as we needed to stop fairly often and rest. But it was worth it!

The first gorgeous site as you enter the Park:




( Here’s some beautiful pics from our hikes )

John and I did a lot more during our time in Colorado, but this post is getting really long, so I’ll be back later with my report of my ghostly encounter at the Stanley Hotel and also my exciting tale of whitewater rafting!

Rocky Mountain High - part 2

Part 2 of my Colorado adventure!


John and I spent some time in Estes Park, where the downtown area is adorably quaint, with blocks and blocks of shops for the tourists. You can find anything from candy to jewelry to t-shirts. I ended up buying things for myself and a few friends and I had the BEST chocolate malt when John and I stopped for lunch. Yum!

The reason I wanted to go into Estes Park was to visit the Stanley Hotel, made famous by the movie The Shining. I’d heard stories about it being haunted, and the hotel ran a Ghost Tour, so I had to go. :-)




Our tour guide was a young college guy and he was AWFUL. He wanted to talk more about himself than the hotel or the ghosts and I wanted to strangle him and turn HIM into one of the ghosts.

Amongst his ramblings he did finally talk about the hauntings. Apparently the Stanley’s cat, Comanche, haunts the Manor House, appearing to guests and jumping up on their laps to be petted. Lord Earl Dunraven’s ghost is a bit of a pervert and on one stairway in the hotel likes to touch young ladies inappropriately. Mrs. Stanley’s ghost likes to play the piano in the Music Room on occasion. Steven King stayed at the Stanley in room 217 while writing The Shining and the room has been reported to be haunted.

The most interesting paranormal activity takes place on the 4th floor of the hotel, which is where the team from Ghost Hunters visited in 2007. The 4th floor is where the children of the guests staying at the Stanley, and their nannies, lived.

Room 401 is particularly haunted, which was the breakroom for the nannies. All sorts of things have happened in there to guests over the years, though nothing particularly harmful. Now I know why Jared Padalecki’s short lived series on MTV was called Room 401! I never knew the significance of the name!

Our tour guide said that sometimes the ghosts of the kids will come out to play if a toy is put in the center of the floor and a nursery rhyme is recited. So we all sat down in a circle on the floor with the toy in the center and said Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Now let me first say that there are NO guests ever booked in this wing on the 4th floor. We were the only ones up there. Second, where I was sitting I had a clear view all the way down the hallway to the end, where there was a glass door that led to a stairway outside.

We had no more than finished Mary Had a Little Lamb when BANG! It was the very loud sound of a glass door slamming closed. We all jumped. And I can guarantee that door never opened or closed. So we tried it again, saying Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. BANG! It happened again! All of our eyes were as wide as saucers, let me tell you. We tried it a third time, and this time we heard the sound of someone pounding on one of the hotel room doors just down the hall – where all of the children’s toys used to be kept. Freaky! LOL!

I’m glad something happened while I was there and now I have the urge to write Sam and Dean going to the Stanley. :-)

Oh, one line the tour guide said stuck in my head. He said that no one had ever died at the hotel, that’s not why the ghosts are there. They’re there because being at the Stanley was one of the best times in their lives.

“Happy guests. Happy ghosts.”

I like that. :-)

Rocky Mountain High – part 3

Part 3 of my Colorado adventure!


So I saved the best for last. :-)

The coolest, most exciting thing I did on vacation was go whitewater rafting. I’d never done it before and I was SO looking forward to it. And boy, it did not disappoint. I’m really glad I brought along one of those disposable, waterproof cameras. I hooked it to my lifejacket and got to document the whole trip!




There were 11 of us that went and we were taken 2 hours outside of Estes Park, to the Poudre River. The week before I was there the rafting trip was canceled because the river was too high and too dangerous. It was all snow melt coming down from the mountains. Thankfully the river had slowed enough to let us go on the trip while I was there, but it was still running fast and hard. And boy, was that water cold, even with our wetsuits!

We were split up into two rafts. I was with Dan, our guide, Theresa, a lovely lady John and I had met the previous day at the ranch, and a family of four, that included a nine year old girl. I was kinda worried about her, honestly. Little did I know I’d ended up in the best raft.

After instructions on how to correctly paddle the raft and extensive safety instructions on what to do if you fell out of the raft, we were ready to go. We suited up in our wetsuits, lifejackets and helmets and put the rafts in the water.

We were running Class 3 rapids, which for beginners like us was perfect. Rough enough to give us a thrill but not too dangerous. Or so we thought.

My raft was first in the water, and less than five minutes in we had to navigate around a large rock right in the middle of the river. We did so flawlessly. The other raft wasn’t so lucky. I heard a yell and turned my head and the second raft was up on top of the rock, getting ready to flip completely over. Next thing I know, one of the guys is falling out, into the water. I yelled for Dan and suddenly he’s grabbing for the rescue rope, yelling out commands to us. We got our raft slowed down and turned around as Dan threw the rope. The guy in the water was doing nothing like he was told in our safety instructions, so my raft started yelling at him to swim, to turn and see the rope. Thankfully he did, at the last possible second before he was swept down the river.

The other raft was able to push themselves off the rock before capsizing and met us as we reeled in their lost passenger. It took a bit, but we got him back in his raft, minus his paddle and shoe, which were washed away.

Talk about excitement, right off the bat! LOL!

The rest of the trip was awesome. We had no problems steering our boat down rapids with nicknames like Thunder Alley and Pinball, and under three bridges, one called Killer Bridge. Yikes! Even with nine year old Meg, we did great, while the other raft continued to struggle, but at least didn’t lose anyone else.

We stopped at one point so that those of us who wanted to take a trip down a natural waterslide into the rapids could. Of course I did! We got out of the raft and waded into the river to this large rock. We climbed up and slid down one side, that dropped us right into a rapid that quickly carried us downstream to where the other guide, Maggie, was waiting to catch us. What a rush!

The rafting company had photographers stationed along the banks, and they caught a few pics of us as we went by. I’m in the last seat, right in front of Dan, on the left side of the pic:




Overall I had an AMAZING time. If John and I had been staying longer I would’ve gone on another trip. It was just so much fun, and for a roller coaster enthusiast, it was right up my alley. :-)


( Lots and lots of whitewater rafting pics! )

And there you have it! My grand Colorado adventure! It was fun from beginning to end and I’m very sad that it’s over. I met some wonderful people and saw some amazing sights. I may have bruised my tailbone from too much horseback riding, strained my leg muscles from hiking and banged up my knee and hand from whitewater rafting and been out of breath from the altitude, but I’d go back and do it all again in a heartbeat. :-)

I missed you all terribly, though! I only had internet access that one day and my cell phone only worked when I was in Estes Park, so I’m very far out of the loop with all of you. I’ve got lots of comments and emails to answer back! I did see that the first clip with Jensen’s voice from Under the Red Hood was released. Sweet! I’m looking forward to watching it.

Okay, gotta run! Hope all of you enjoyed my vacation reports!

Sera Gamble quote from new Supernatural magazine

Hey all!

Got my new Supernatural magazine in the mail today (issue 18) and there's a quote from Sera Gamble, as she was asked by the magazine if season six will be treated as a stand-alone season or will the mythology continue beyond it.

She answers: "We're not treating season six entirely as a one-off season. There's no reason to believe that season six would have to be the final season, and the mythology that we're creating is not a mythology that would have to end. Really, this is not going to be any different than any past season, [we'll] plan for a season finale and [also] plan for a series finale. That's what we've done every single season."


Hmmm...first we have Misha saying the boys are already signed for season seven and now this from Sera. I was always convinced that season six would be our last, but I don't mind being proven wrong. As long as the writing stays good and the show isn't run into the ground like Smallville or X-Files, I'll be on board the Impala for as long as the ride lasts.