Today we decided to take Tommy on a little day trip adventure to search for Oddball Colorado landmarks. So, we packed up our Subaru and our Tommy and headed north to Ft. Collins and Estes Park. In Ft. Collins we visited the Swetsville Zoo. As Tommy soon discovered, this was no ordinary zoo. Instead, it was a zoo filled with industrial art created by former farmer Bill Swets. Bill has created two-headed dragons, a dragon rock band, a beetle spider and many other fantastic pieces. Tommy, Mark and I took a stroll through the zoo, which is actually Bill Swet's property. We wanted to see the Bungled Jungle, which is a faux museum of papier mache artwork also on the Swet property but as it was Labor Day all of the buildings were locked up. Hopefully, we'll get back to Ft. Collins sometime soon to see this jungle of paper aliens. I'm sure that Tommy would have enjoyed it.
After Swetsville and a lunch on the roadside (Tommy loves gala apples), we headed for Estes Park to see the famous Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's, The Shining. We had just recently watched the 2nd episode of Ghost Hunters featuring the Stanley Hotel so we were all pumped to see it. (OK, maybe not Tommy as he had to stay in his backpack for the self-guided little tour.) We were also disappointed to discover that the Stanley charges $5.00 for tourists who want to visit the hotel but are not guests there. We were not prepared for this and had to scramble for some cash. We came up with $4.00 before the guard got tired of waiting on us and let us go on through (a 20% discount!). We were pretty disappointed all around with the Stanley. It was a lot smaller than we had imagined and the grounds were not very well kept up. It looks like it could use some new management, in my opinion. We didn't stay long, mostly because we wanted Tommy to be able to be somewhere where he could get some exercise.
Next, we visited the Estes Park River Walk. Tommy was amazing on his leash! He walked with us for quite a while saying hello to other doggies and letting small children pet him. He had his paws dipped into the Big Thompson river (but only just! It was cold!) We was the star of the river walk. Everyone thought he was adorable and cute and tiny and fun :)
After the River Walk (not included in Oddball Colorado, we were just letting Tommy run around for a bit) we headed up to the Bald Pate Inn to see their famous key collection. They have thousands and thousands of keys from all over the world. They have the key to the Frankenstein Castle, a turkey, the key to My Old Kentucky Home, the key to room 217 at the Stanley, the key to Hitler's house and many, many more. After the key collection, we had dinner at the Inn. They had a gorgeous view of Estes Park from high up above and a beautiful old dining room.
Tommy had a very full day of driving up and down Colorado! But he doesn't seem to mind one bit as he just climbs into his backpack in the back seat and curls up...or rolls out on his back (pictures to come) and goes to sleep :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Monday, September 1, 2008
Tommy goes Oddball Colorado Hunting
Today we decided to take Tommy on a little day trip adventure to search for Oddball Colorado landmarks. So, we packed up our Subaru and our Tommy and headed north to Ft. Collins and Estes Park. In Ft. Collins we visited the Swetsville Zoo. As Tommy soon discovered, this was no ordinary zoo. Instead, it was a zoo filled with industrial art created by former farmer Bill Swets. Bill has created two-headed dragons, a dragon rock band, a beetle spider and many other fantastic pieces. Tommy, Mark and I took a stroll through the zoo, which is actually Bill Swet's property. We wanted to see the Bungled Jungle, which is a faux museum of papier mache artwork also on the Swet property but as it was Labor Day all of the buildings were locked up. Hopefully, we'll get back to Ft. Collins sometime soon to see this jungle of paper aliens. I'm sure that Tommy would have enjoyed it.
After Swetsville and a lunch on the roadside (Tommy loves gala apples), we headed for Estes Park to see the famous Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's, The Shining. We had just recently watched the 2nd episode of Ghost Hunters featuring the Stanley Hotel so we were all pumped to see it. (OK, maybe not Tommy as he had to stay in his backpack for the self-guided little tour.) We were also disappointed to discover that the Stanley charges $5.00 for tourists who want to visit the hotel but are not guests there. We were not prepared for this and had to scramble for some cash. We came up with $4.00 before the guard got tired of waiting on us and let us go on through (a 20% discount!). We were pretty disappointed all around with the Stanley. It was a lot smaller than we had imagined and the grounds were not very well kept up. It looks like it could use some new management, in my opinion. We didn't stay long, mostly because we wanted Tommy to be able to be somewhere where he could get some exercise.
Next, we visited the Estes Park River Walk. Tommy was amazing on his leash! He walked with us for quite a while saying hello to other doggies and letting small children pet him. He had his paws dipped into the Big Thompson river (but only just! It was cold!) We was the star of the river walk. Everyone thought he was adorable and cute and tiny and fun :)
After the River Walk (not included in Oddball Colorado, we were just letting Tommy run around for a bit) we headed up to the Bald Pate Inn to see their famous key collection. They have thousands and thousands of keys from all over the world. They have the key to the Frankenstein Castle, a turkey, the key to My Old Kentucky Home, the key to room 217 at the Stanley, the key to Hitler's house and many, many more. After the key collection, we had dinner at the Inn. They had a gorgeous view of Estes Park from high up above and a beautiful old dining room.
Tommy had a very full day of driving up and down Colorado! But he doesn't seem to mind one bit as he just climbs into his backpack in the back seat and curls up...or rolls out on his back (pictures to come) and goes to sleep :)
After Swetsville and a lunch on the roadside (Tommy loves gala apples), we headed for Estes Park to see the famous Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's, The Shining. We had just recently watched the 2nd episode of Ghost Hunters featuring the Stanley Hotel so we were all pumped to see it. (OK, maybe not Tommy as he had to stay in his backpack for the self-guided little tour.) We were also disappointed to discover that the Stanley charges $5.00 for tourists who want to visit the hotel but are not guests there. We were not prepared for this and had to scramble for some cash. We came up with $4.00 before the guard got tired of waiting on us and let us go on through (a 20% discount!). We were pretty disappointed all around with the Stanley. It was a lot smaller than we had imagined and the grounds were not very well kept up. It looks like it could use some new management, in my opinion. We didn't stay long, mostly because we wanted Tommy to be able to be somewhere where he could get some exercise.
Next, we visited the Estes Park River Walk. Tommy was amazing on his leash! He walked with us for quite a while saying hello to other doggies and letting small children pet him. He had his paws dipped into the Big Thompson river (but only just! It was cold!) We was the star of the river walk. Everyone thought he was adorable and cute and tiny and fun :)
After the River Walk (not included in Oddball Colorado, we were just letting Tommy run around for a bit) we headed up to the Bald Pate Inn to see their famous key collection. They have thousands and thousands of keys from all over the world. They have the key to the Frankenstein Castle, a turkey, the key to My Old Kentucky Home, the key to room 217 at the Stanley, the key to Hitler's house and many, many more. After the key collection, we had dinner at the Inn. They had a gorgeous view of Estes Park from high up above and a beautiful old dining room.
Tommy had a very full day of driving up and down Colorado! But he doesn't seem to mind one bit as he just climbs into his backpack in the back seat and curls up...or rolls out on his back (pictures to come) and goes to sleep :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment