A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Estes Park, Colorado, the Last Night and Day: Snow, Stephen King, and Ghosts

  

On Friday, after our friends left we explored town. Then we came back to the hotel for a nap since neither Gene nor I had slept well the night before.  Gene slept. I gave up, grabbed my copy of The Shining by Stephen King that I'd purchased in the gift shop and headed downstairs to read.  On either side of the desk there are groupings of large comfy leather chairs in front of blazing fireplaces just begging to be curled up in. I accepted their invitation, tucking my feet under me and relaxing into the book, the coziness, and the view out the windows overlooking the town.

Exploring Estes Park: Elks, Ghosts, Food, & The Shining

Barb and the gang left Friday morning leaving us to our own devices.  But before going on they left us with their haunting stories from the night before.  Apparently, while Gene and I snoozed peacefully, the others received goodbye messages from "The Others". 

Barb and John woke up in the middle of the night to their room door swinging wide open.  Maybe they forgot to lock it, you might say, EXCEPT, the doors don't work that way here.  We had used Barb and John's suite as the official unofficial hospitality suite and while the rest of us tromped in and out, Gene and John had both tried to find a way to prop the door slightly open to save comers in from having to knock every time they came back to the room and also the already ins from having to get up and open the door every time but it wouldn't work.  The doors either stood wide open or closed with a click, locking from the outside automatically.  And yet....their door swung wide open by itself in the middle of the night.  They also heard what sounded like people running up and down the hallway, EXCEPT, when they checked, no one was there.

Diane and Rosie awoke to the tinkling of the metal clothes hangers in their closet in the middle of the night, as well as the sound of someone dropping what sounded like a ball that rolled across the floor above them.  Diane rationalized that maybe it was the people in the room above making that noise but the hangers in the closet?  As far as they knew they were the only people in their room and they were snug in their beds.  I don't think either of them got up to check the closet and I wouldn't have either.

Carol had the most up close and personal experience.  She awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of the wind gusting through the trees outside of her room when, still half asleep, her bed shook for several seconds.  She thought of the wind, but then coming fully awake realized that the wind was outside while she was inside, her room sandwiched between rooms on either side and floors above and below.  It only happened once but that was enough to wake her fully, turning on her TV  for light.  What channel?  The TV's in The Stanley automatically tune to The Shining channel, the homage to Stephen King's novel inspired by this hotel, where the Jack Nicholson/Stanley Kubrick version of the movie plays 24/7.  She quickly thought "No way am I watching this right now!" and switched to another channel, staying awake and keeping the TV on until dawn crept over the mountains.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado

PART TWO

Happy Official Birthday to Barb!  From left around table:  Gene, Me, Birthday Girl Barb, Barb's hubby John, Roseanne, Barb's sister Carol, and Diane, all having the "OMG Fabulous!" Thanksgiving Buffet at the Stanley Hotel.

John's favorite thing on the menu:  Bacon Bloody Mary!  The garnish was a meal itself and the bacon to die for.  The waittress told us the pastry chef coats the bacon with a simple syrup with six secret ingredients to make it the incredible sweet, salty, crispy wonderful it is. We all kept guessing:  "Molasses?  Sorghum? Honey?"  But the secret is still safe, at least from us.

Sigh. The views from our Thanksgiving table.

HappyThanksgiving from The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado

PART ONE:

Celebrating Thanksgiving in Estes Park, Colorado this year to help good friend Barb Schurke (center) celebrate one of those even 10 numbered birthdays that we don't always say out loud!  Barb's been telling me for at least 2 years that she wanted to celebrate this birthday at the Stanley Hotel and had been telling family for even longer that this is where she wanted to be when she turned that certain numbered birthday.

We're heeeeeeeeeere!  And it's gorgeous!  This is the front of the Stanley Hotel a registered Historic Hotel built at the turn of the last century by the man who invented the Stanley Steamer.  It's probably more famous for it's association to Stephen King who wrote The Shining while staying in a room here and built the novel around his impressions of this hotel, supposedly the most haunted hotel in America.  So not only is it one of the most beautifully built places we've ever stayed, it has that fun, grin-worthy quirkiness that lends an extra couple of fingers of fun.

View from the front veranda of the hotel.

And now, since this is a food blog, a little tour via food:

Kansas City Weekend: The food: Gates Bar-B-Q & The Flying Saucer & My Own Recipe for an Appetizer I Loved

Our hotel, the KC Airport Hilton, wasn't our first choice but since the Cards were playing the Royals...hotels were hard to come by that weekend.  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise since the rooms, food, and service were exactly what we were looking for.  The only ironic twist was that the hotel was hosting a Jesters (supposedly similar to the Shriners but we'd never heard of them) convention and they didn't seem to have a sense of humor which is rather odd.  Maybe the Jesters are the cranky Shriners who got kicked out because all the Shriners I know are fun and love to party.

In the hotel Cafe Weatherby, we enjoyed a wonderful appetizer of pulled pork topped red potatoes that I decided to recreate at home with a couple of substitutions:  mainly omitting the cheese and adding cole slaw for texture and creaminess instead of the sour cream they served it with (recipe and step-by-step photos at the end of the post).

The two most fun meals we had over the weekend were lunch at Gates Bar-b-q near the art museum and a late night appetizer fest at The Flying Saucer near the Sprint Center.

Kansas City Weekend: Michael Buble Concert: The friendliest section in the House

The reason for the trip to Kansas City last weekend was to see Michael Buble. James suggested it, Lynn got the tickets, and Gene found the rooms.  A joint effort that turned out to be so much fun we didn't want to come home.  Had it not been for the St. Jude telethon James had to work at the tv station, we might still be in KC.

Love the pic. I'm like the vampire boob queen or something. :-) Nice pic of Lynn and James though.  Serves me right for not taking a real camera along.

Buble puts on a great show, wonderful music interspersed with entertaining patter, and his opening act was no yawner either.  An acapella group who literally become singers with a band (all the instruments are performed vocally), Naturally 7 was so good I'd love to see THEM in concert someday.  They're putting out a new album in the next few weeks that I'll be looking for.

Besides the great show itself, we were fortunately placed in the absolute BEST section of the house.  Halfway up the first tier with a straight on view, we were surrounded by people who were anything but straight.  Wonderfully warped would be a better desciption.  Apparently there is a sense of humor section at the Sprint Center. With the exception of one mis-seated man who kept glaring at us all who were whooping and laughing and carrying on during intermission, a great time was had by all.  Too bad for that one humorless guy.  Remember what the Divine Miss M used to say "F*** 'em if they can't take a joke!"  Motto of my life.

 

Directly behind us were seated nine of my new TGF's,  token gay friends, they called themselves.  The.  Life. of. the. Party!  I turned around to take these pics and one of them said something like "Good Lord, look at that rack!"  and someone else said "Jesus, take the wheel!"   Thank you, Gentlemen, from the bottom of my self-esteem. I appreciated the stranger love.  (That sounded bad.)  I also appreciated the entertaiment along with the entertainment: the tales of "adult" lemonade in the "hospitality suite" of your hotel, circumventing the hostess at the restaurant you chose for dinner, and your love for "Bubbles!"

You all were as much fun as the concert, adding your own suggestions for what Michael could be doing next in the show.   May we all meet up again sometime!  Btw, the floor was sticky when I got up to leave....nevermind...I don't really want to know.  :-)  

In the first pic above, notice the two ladies in the row behind them who are also having a great time.  See? I'm telling you..the whole section rocked.

We were seated on the aisle. To our left were two awesome ladies who joined in the fun with us.  One of them took the pic of Lynn, James, and me (not her fault my vampireness came out--somebody needs to get a tan!)  that I emailed from the phone to Aunti Miranda at home just for fun so she could be there vicariously with us.  To those ladies' left was a couple who....okay...how do I say this nicely?  Why bother buying expensive show tickets if all you're going to do is go back and forth for beer and the restroom.  (Hope none of my blog addy cards got passed to them since I'm being catty.)  Greatest line of the evening:  After about their third pass in front of us, the lady to my left turned to me and whispered "They get up one more time and I'm putting a catheter in 'em."  Yes!  Foley's for everyone who can't stay in their seat!  I think they should be passed out at the ticket gate.

Sigh. Great Night. I will ALWAYS think of that concert and smile.  The show was fantastic but the folks who shared those few hours of my life were even better. Thank you all for being in that place at that time.

Julie's Disney World Food Adventures

Julie may kill me but I love love love this pic of her. She was just clowning around but it's so her, her personality.  Just love the joy and fun it shows!

So the fam when to Orlando on vacation and somewhere inbetween fun and hotels and swimming and rides and all the other stuff, they managed to eat fantastic food! And not only that, but Julie managed to take lots of pics to share with her favorite food blogger and her favorit food blogger's readers.

Check all these great pics out. I'm so totally jealous of the food alone, forget all the other fun! 

LuLu's Bakery Came Home with the Campbells.

 

The Campbells brought home treats from their Man vs Food food tour (really it was a family trip to attend a graduation) of San Antonio.  I thought Corbin was joking when he said they brought us back one of the LuLu's bakery cinnamon rolls but he wasn't.  It's hilariously huge!  The package above is ONE cinnamon roll, weighing in at 3 1/2 lbs.   See the black bowl behind it? That's the insert to my crockpot!

It's wider than the circumference of the crockpot.

Slicing into it, it's basically a huge cinnamon roll made into a loaf of bread, supposedly the biggest cinnamon rolls made in the US, or at least in the state of Texas.

   

Gene and I sliced off from the middle, since we were told most of the good stuff was in the middle and I was curious to see how the pastry had been put together and rolled up. It was good, a nice challah type bread, very sweet, with lots of cinnamon and sugar in the middle with a powdered sugar glaze.  No fancy ingredients, just the normal sweet cinnamony bready goodness from the microwave you'd expect.  Corbin and Jenn and Gene and I had originally talked about microwaving the whole thing (cinn rolls are always better warm) since they serve them hot at the bakery but when we got home it made sense to me to slice it and heat it as we eat it. Worked perfectly.

For those who would like to test drive one without going to Texas....they do mail these babies:

http://www.luluscafeinsa.com/

Thanks Corbin and Jenn!

Campbell Family On-Going Man vs Food Tour of San Antonio

Another photo emailed from Corbin's phone:  OMG huge!!!!  Looks good though. I love cinnamon rolls.  Check out their website and Man vs. Food pics.  The rolls weigh in at 3 lbs (take a friend, please) and you can have Lulu's mail them to you! 

Great job, Corbin and Jenn! I love traveling with a food theme!

Big Lou's 42

As I type this in, Jenn and Corbin are finishing up dinner at Big Lou's Pizzaria in San Antonio.  Look at Corbin grin! They've had a few mishaps along with vacation but all in all they're doing well and having fun.  Big Lou's is part of the Man vs Food, or Jenn and Corb vs Food tour of San Antonio.

Gee, are you guys delivering?

For more info, see Big Lou's Facebook Group.