Haunted Colorado

A month or so before our trip to Denver, we saw a great show on the Travel Channel (I think it was) about Haunted Colorado. Of courses, we decided we just HAD to see some of the spots featured on the show.

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park

The first was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, about an hour north of Denver. I think I mentioned in the previous post that this was the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. Last Monday we took the ghost tour, and here are our pictures, complete with "orbs" (click on pictures to enlarge).

There are four rooms in the hotel that our tour guide said were "very haunted." To the right is a shot of room 217, where Stephen King stayed, and Jim Carey lasted only a couple of hours before going to the front desk and demanding they book him at a different hotel. Notice the orb on the left side of the bed.

To the right is a shot of a room on the fourth floor, which is officially the hotel's attic, but was made into rooms for the maids and children who accompanied their parents to the resort.

Word is it's so creepy the maids won't even clean it. Enlarge to see the orbs (note, the circle in the upper left is not an orb, it's a fire alarm), the largest one being over the pillow of the bed near the door.

Finally, above is a shot of the fourth floor hallway where Stephen King "saw" the boy and girl playing with a ball. You can see an orb in the bottom left of the hall. It was very creepy up there with a low ceiling and dim lighting.

The Molly Brown House, Denver

Down the street where we stayed on Pennsylvania Avenue in Denver, stands the Molly Brown House (of Titanic fame - who hasn't heard of Molly Brown?). They would not allow you to take pictures during the tour, but I spoke with a girl afterward who was one of the former curators of the house and she confirmed the house is very haunted, with occurrences happening just about every day. She's experienced a lot of stuff like doors opening and closing, smelling fresh cigar smoke, footsteps and figures while she worked in the house.

The Brown Hotel, Breckenridge

On our day trip to Breckenridge, the locals told us about The Brown Hotel, which is supposedly also very haunted and has had a tragic past. There are all kinds of stories about sightings in the women's room of the tavern. Unfortunately, when we got to the door, it was closed, as many of the town businesses were when we visited. It was just our luck that we came during "mud season," the time between the end of ski season and the beginning of the summer tourist season when when many business shut down for a month or two. Bummer! But, we did get a nice shot of the outside.

It was a lot of fun visiting actual haunted places, but I can't report any interesting things about our experiences...we didn't sense a thing!