We flew from Philadelphia to Denver on Southwest (using miles from Peak to Peak Scenic Byway. The drive was gorgeous with beautiful views in every direction. In fact, I can pretty much say that about this entire journey of thousands of miles, so please bear with me & try not to get sick of it.
We are lucky enough to have friends who are excellent travel companions for our whole family. It’s not easy to find people that you truly like, enjoy being with, AND can travel well with. But we have them & they met us in Estes Park and stayed with us for the Colorado portion of this trip. The kids enjoyed having some friends to play with, and so did we!
We spent 2 nights at the YMCA of the Rockies in the Wind River Lodge. This is a family camp style of accommodation. There are several different lodges and also lots of cabins that can be rented. The cabins were sold out when we booked our stay, otherwise we would have stayed in one of them. The lodge we chose was one of the newer ones, and was a 2 story building with balconies (and gorgeous views). The rooms do not have televisions or typical hotel amenities. Our room had 2 double beds, a small table, and a small bathroom.
There are lots of activities here, including a great art center, horseback riding, hikes, and much more. The downside of staying only 2 nights is that you have to sign up for the activities a couple of days before, so most of the things that we really wanted to do (such as horseback riding) were sold out by the time we got there. I would suggest staying longer than 2 nights or trying to call ahead to ask about the possibility of booking over the phone. We were able to do some things, like a fun nighttime nature hike, that were not already completely booked. The art center has different types of crafts that people can pay for. We did tie dye, mosaics, and some painting.
The food was mediocre at best. It reminded me of something that I would have had at summer camp (so pretty appropriate for a camp-style setting). Being a picky eater doesn’t really help, but this was my least favorite part of this place & a reason why I would want to have a cabin with cooking facilities if we ever come back. There was one main “restaurant” with a buffet style set up. There was a sit-down restaurant as well, but it seemed overpriced for the food choices.
This is a super cute little town. I really liked walking around and just soaking up the atmosphere. We had dinner and got some (really good) ice cream. There are lots of touristy kinds of shops, and we had fun browsing and walking through the shops. Also importantly, Estes Park is the gateway into Rocky Mountain National Park. The air just feels clean and crisp there. I kind of wanted to move there.
Next Up: Rocky Mountain National Park & Grand Lake, CO
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[…] See Part 1: National Parks Road Trip: Colorado – Estes Park & YMCA of the Rockies […]