Earlier this month we took a winter trip to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Little did we know, a few weeks later the national parks would be affected by the current government shutdown. Unfortunately, that means visitors can’t drive into the park. Based on articles I’ve read, this hasn’t had a big impact on the local economy yet because winter is typically a slower season. With that said, I hope that the situation is resolved soon!
Moraine Park
During our December trip, we enjoyed a brief but beautiful hike in Moraine Park beginning at the Cub Lake trail head. We chose this area because at 8,080 ft of elevation there is substantially less snow compared to areas of the park with higher altitude.
I was excited when this picture was featured on the instagram feed @visitestespark where over 930 people liked it.
The first stretch of the hike is in a valley where there is little protection from blasts of freezing wind, but the scenery is worth bundling up and getting out of your cozy cabin for. The Big Thompson River was mostly frozen and seem to glimmer against the blue sky and snow covered mountain backdrop.
Luckily, you don’t have to walk far before tall trees and surrounding rock formations block the wind. Our four-year-old daughter veered off the path to scramble up boulders to join her sister and dad taking in the peaceful views.
Our nearly two-year-old insisted on hiking in her pajamas, wearing socks as gloves, and borrowing my hat. She held on to my husband’s hand in icy patches, but wanted to show off her independence by walking at her own pace. This led to our decision to cut the hike short. The trail to Cub Lake is 2.5 miles each way. We wrote about this hike in more detail in a previous post, Rocky Mountain Tot Goes to Cub Lake.
New Year Goals
As we look forward to a New Year and new outdoor adventures, our goal is to have the girls walking rather than riding in kid-carriers during many of our hikes. We are excited to discover new hikes in the Rocky Mountains and the Ozark Mountains which are located near our new home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We will write about all of them in our family hiking journal and also look forward to sharing with y’all too!
From a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream to a glass of robust red wine, the holiday season is a great time to sip and savor. Estes Park has opportunities for you to pair fun winter adventures with your favorite cup of cheer.
Best Kid’s Drink
Trailhead Restaurant on Fall River Road serves hot chocolate the way toddlers and their parents like it, with loads of whipped cream! If you are feeling extra festive you can order peppermint hot chocolate or opt for the hot cider that smells just as good as it tastes.Â
Another favorite is the milk flight found at Mama Rose’s restaurant. Our kids enjoy small cups of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and white milk. This is a fun replacement for dessert.Â
Best Coffee
Kind Coffee is located on the edge of downtown Estes Park. Grab a cup of quality organic coffee and warm up in the cozy cafe before shopping, or take it with you on a stroll along the Estes Park Riverwalk. For many Christmas is the season for giving, but Kind Coffee gives back year-round by donating a percentage of their revenue to international charities as well as participating in the Estes Park Give Back community partnership.Â
Warm up in local coffee shops before shopping in downtown Estes Park
Best Local Beer
If you appreciate good beer and a laid-back, friendly environment, Rock Cut Brewing Company is your place. It’s a tough choice to decide which beer on their menu to try, so why not go with a flight of 5 tasters? Rockcut also contributes to the local community. When you order a pint of their German-style amber aptly named Altruism, $1 goes to charity.Â
In this category we also have to mention Lumpy Ridge Brewery which is located in an old gas station building that feels both hip and compact. What they are lacking in space, they make up for in taste. Their menu currently includes a Winter Breeze Coconut Brown Lager – yum.Â
Best Local Wine
We have written about our love of Snowy Peaks winery before and we probably will again because of their awesome play area for kids to enjoy why parents taste local wine. For $6 you can taste 5 wines that are made by Snowy Peaks and other local Colorado wineries.Â
Kids entertained at Snowy Peaks Winery
Best Margarita
Merry Margarita to all! It’s not the first drink you think of on a trip to a winter wonderland like Estes Park, but there are several good Mexican restaurants in town and there is always room in our life for chips and salsa. If that comes with a refreshing margarita, no complaints here. For Mexican cuisine with a Colorado twist, we think Ed’s Cantina and Grille is the place to go.
There are plenty of ways to fill your cup this season in Estes Park, Colorado. We are excited to learn more about a Booze Cruise offered by the Ridgeline Hotel. We have kids traveling with us this season, so we can’t participate, but we want to share for those looking for a safe and fun way to experience local breweries and distilleries.Â
The Ridgeline Hotel’s website also highlights Trendz boutique, which is one of our favorite local shops. They now offer a Sip & Shop experience along with a full calendar of great shopping events in December.Â
Winter Refresh
We have been doing a winter refresh project on our blog and want to share a couple articles that have updated content.Â
Tis the season for family road trips. If you are like many Midwestern families, you will be bundling up the kiddos and driving at least a couple of hours to visit loved ones this holiday season. How do you make this part of the holidays a little less stressful so you can focus on the festivities?
We’ve learned a lot from our frequent treks from our home town near Kansas City, MO to Estes Park, CO. This trip takes about 10.5 hours each way. One of the things we hear the most from friends with young kids is that they are intimidated to make long drives. We get it, driving all day is tough on us and really tough on the kiddos, but they usually do great.
Prepare for Traveling Day in Advance
The day before we go on our trip we make sure all of our electronics are charged, filled with downloaded content, and ready to go with car adapters. We recently bought the girls new Kid’s Kindle Fire tablets, but limit their use to road trips, so it feels like a special treat.
We also stock up on snacks and drinks for the road. While we often still end up buying odds and ends at gas stations (we try to buy something when we pop in for restroom breaks), its great to have a cooler full of milk for the girls and water/Gatorade for us. While it’s a tough balance to avoid too many extra bathroom breaks, we’ve found it to be important to stay fully hydrated on the trip out to fend off altitude sickness at our final destination. For us, it helps driving in to Colorado rather than flying in because our bodies can acclimate a little more gradually to the change. Altitude impacts everyone differently, even those in great physical condition, so we often advise family and friends who know that they struggle with the adjustment to stay near the Denver area for a night before going further up in the mountains.
Road Trip Backpacks with Activities
Each girl gets their own backpack filled with coloring, activity books and art supplies. We often listen to toddler radio stations to sing along to before switching to relaxing tunes around nap time.
Our Toddler Travel Bags Include:
Amazon Fire with a kid-proof (pink!) case – we are able to download their favorite videos, the girls can play games, and they love to take pictures with their tablets. We only let them use them on long road trips, so playing with the tablets feel like a big treat.
Tracing books to practice our preschooler’s emerging writing skills
Snacks, snacks and more snacks. You can’t have too many snacks
Water Wow! this is a mess free art activity that the girls can do again and again
Color Wonder Mess Free Coloring our girls love to draw and we love when we don’t have to worry about what they are coloring on because these markers only mark on the special color wonder paper.
Timing
We’ve tried several theories on the best way to time the long trip including leaving late and driving through the night or stopping half way and staying at a hotel. Surprisingly, we’ve found leaving mid-morning works best for our family. Here is our basic time-line:
7:00AM girls wake up, eat breakfast, play to burn off energy and we pack the car
9:00AM leave after making sure everyone has used the restroom and/or has fresh diaper
10:00AM we typically try to make it out-of-town before we start any electronics
12:00PM stop for lunch, bathroom and gas fill-up break
12:30PM get back in the car and hope for nap time
3:00PM stop for snack, bathroom and gas fill-up break
5:00PM we make a game time decision to stop for dinner or keep going
6:00-7:00PM estimated arrival. We gain an hour of sunlight when clocks change to Mountain Standard Time.
Route
Without traffic it’s just about as fast going through Denver and Boulder to get to Estes Park, but we typically take E-470 up by the airport to bypass most of the city. E-470 is a toll road and they will mail you a bill if you plan on going once, but if you plan on going to Colorado frequently, it might make sense to get an express toll pass.
Restroom Breaks
We bring along our own potty training toilet for the girls to use when we are in need of breaks between towns (which is common in the middle of Kansas and Eastern Colorado) or when we decide the toilets that are available are not clean enough to use.
Weather
We pay close attention to weather and road conditions using COtrip.org, KanDrive.org and our weather apps. In the spring and early summer we are concerned about pop up storms that can produce tornadoes. In the late fall through early spring we pay attention to icy roads and snow.
Whether you are going on a 1 hour trip or 10 hour trip, planning ahead, having lots of distractions including loads of snacks, and thinking through potential hiccups will help reduce the stress of traveling with young kids. We hope you enjoy happy and safe travels this holiday season.
We’d love to hear your opinion too. Do you have any road trip survival tips we missed?
In honor of our six month anniversary of buying our vacation home at Solitude Cabins in Estes Park, Colorado, I’m sharing six things we learned during the process of buying and selling real estate in our favorite mountain town.
Location, Location, Location
I’ve been hesitant to talk about our decision to buy a vacation home because I was afraid our family and friends would assume that we had been watching too many episodes of HGTV House Hunters or that we secretly won the lottery and forgot to mention it.
I’m getting better at sharing our dream even when it seems a little crazy. We were drawn to the city of Estes Park because we love hiking. We aren’t skiers, so we don’t mind that Estes Park doesn’t have slopes and this fact seems to make it a more affordable option compared to other destination towns in Colorado. For an investment, we like that Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park which draws nearly 4.5 million visitors annually according to National Park Service statistics. Estes Park is only an hour and a half away from the booming Denver, CO market.
Once we decided on Estes Park, we did a lot of research on the local housing market on websites like Zillow and signed up for local realtor e-newsletters. You can get a lot of information on the listings but we learned the most from walking through properties. One tip is to check your phone while you are touring to make sure you have reliable cell/data reception especially if you need to keep up with work. Reception in town is generally pretty strong, but more remote locations can get spotty.
Views from our old back deck at Mary’s Lake Lodge
Financing
The condo we owned for a couple of years and the cabin we now own are both classified as condotels which means they can be rented out like hotel rooms with on-site management. We live out-of-state so having on-site management is a good fit for us. Condotels typically do not qualify for traditional home loans so we worked with a local lender who is familiar with the properties. When you are selling, this is something to make sure the potential buyers are aware of before accepting their offer.
Lobby at Mary’s Lake 2015
Rental Permits and Zoning
Understanding zoning in Estes Park can be a challenge. Our first condo was zoned so that we could rent out the unit for short-term or long-term rentals. An owner could also live there full-time. Our new cabin can only be rented out for short-term rentals. Even as owners we can’t stay at the property for more than 30 days at a time. The town of Estes Park has also put a cap on the number of homes which are located in a residential zone that can be rented out on a short-term basis. This does not affect our property, but it was helpful to understand during our home search.
View of Longs Peak from our new home away from home at Solitude Cabins
Ongoing Additional Costs
Home Owners Association (HOA) fees and how they are legally managed is a detail that can be easily overlooked when you are staring out the window at your dream mountain view. The good thing about HOA’s is they often pull together money from all the residence to pay for common amenities and services such as trash, internet, maintenance projects and community swimming pools. Depending on how the HOA is structured, owners might be responsible for the expenses related to exterior items like roof damage or deck maintenance. Interior updates are typically handled by owners individually as well.
Another cost to consider is insurance. If you are renting out your property, you will need liability insurance. Property and income taxes as well as qualifying deductions are things we discussed in detail with our accountant. Some HOA’s have restrictions that do not allow short-term rentals which is important to know if you are hoping to offset costs with rental income.
Our toddler loved swimming at the pool at Mary’s Lake Lodge
Furnished vs Unfurnished
Our first condo came unfurnished. I remember sleeping on a blowup mattress the first night before heading to American Furniture Warehouse the next morning in search of the most petite pull-out coach we could find. Our big splurge was on our outdoor furniture. We wanted something comfortable and durable to enjoy the breathtaking views. When we sold our condo we sold it furnished which is an option that buyers appreciate in this market.
Our new cabin was furnished. We had to purchase a new queen-sized couch to qualify the cabin for the rental program, but we didn’t need much else. This time we splurged on local art (found on clearance!) and a nice outdoor grill.
Delivery and shipping items to your new home might be slower and more complicated in Estes Park compared to larger more accessible cities. For example, if you pick out a couch and want to get it delivered, don’t expect next day delivery. The furniture company might have a regular delivery day scheduled 1-2 times per week. We have the same expectations for FedEx or Amazon shipments.
We love our new cabin – it’s a great fit for our family
Noise and Amenities
One of the biggest reasons for our switch to Solitude Cabins was the desire for more peace and quiet. We love that the cabins are all free-standing with no shared walls. The previous condo we owned was located in a historic lodge that books many weddings and special events. The bookings are great if you are looking for rental income, but it wasn’t the best fit for our young family. We sometimes miss the amenities the lodge offered including an on-site restaurant and pool. However, we are excited about the proximity we now have to Lake Estes, the Estes Valley Community Center, the community bike trail and Stanley Park. My girls are in heaven!
Stanley Park is one of the local attractions within walking distance of our cabin
If you aren’t sold on buying your own vacation home in Estes Park, we hope you consider staying at Solitude Cabins. It’s truly our dream and we are excited to share it with other people who love Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park as much as we do.Â
*Disclosure – I’m not a realtor or real estate professional. This post is only based on our personal experience and shouldn’t be taken as real estate, financial investment or legal advice. Think of it as a friend giving you the scoop. Thanks 🙂
