Our stay at the Stanley Hotel was in celebration of our son’s graduation. It was a surprise gift to him as he was a fan of the movie Dumb and Dumber staring Jim Carrey and many of the scenes from the movie were filmed throughout the hotel. Before leaving Denver, on our way to Estes Park, we watched the movie The Shining, just to get us in the mood! Our son of course didn’t know what the connection between watching The Shining and our upcoming trip to Estes Park was but he would soon find out.

The Shining Hotel

In the lobby of the Stanley Hotel there was a Stanley Steamer Car on exhibit that was really cool to see. After arriving at the hotel our son of course was excited to check out the hotel and some of the locations where scenes from Dumb and Dumber were filmed. And now he knew we were also at the hotel where Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining. He had no idea, and neither did we, what kind of night we had in store for us!

Our Stanley Hotel Ghost Story

After dinner we drove to a nearby market to purchase drinks and snacks for our evening at what we were now calling the Shining Hotel. We watched TV, ate our snacks and retired for the evening. NOT! I don’t think any of us slept much that night. I closed my eyes and the closet door, which had been closed all evening, suddenly POPPED open with a creaking sound that startled us all. My husband closed the closet door, climbed back into bed and the door POPPED open again. OK, we’ll just leave the closet door open. No problem. Back to bed – again. No one is sleeping of course and now our ROOM door starts rattling!

Oh, my, God! We can’t believe this. We check and no one is at the door but it continues to rattle periodically like someone is trying to get in. By now we are all in quite a panic but calling the front desk at a hotel that is supposedly haunted is NOT going to get us much sympathy!

I don’t recall what time of night it was but apparently some of us had managed to doze off. By now my daughter and I had taken some of the blankets and pillows and we were sleeping on the floor beneath the open window. I don’t know why! Is this night ever going to end? Remind me please to NEVER watch The Shining before staying at the Stanley Hotel! Whose idea was this anyway?

Things Seem to be Calming Down (but not for long…)

Everything seemed to have calmed down but there was an eerie howling sound coming through the window. The hotel, located at the base of the mountains must get a lot of wind current blown over it daily. The wind was slowly blowing the thin white curtains up in the air, which was casting shadows all over the walls from the full moon light outside. The shadows looked very weird especially playing against the old wall paper. It was a very strange setting, but nothing else had changed so everyone eventually fell asleep.

Our son explained to us that while sleeping he had a sense of something extremely close to his face. When he opened his eyes he saw his right arm fully extended toward the closet door that had sprung open earlier. He quickly yanked back his arm and got out of bed and lay down under the table near the rest of us. This was when in his mind he had seen enough. He covered himself up with blankets but within a minutes time he began to hear noises. But this time they seemed to be coming from right above him on top of the table that he just laid down under. IMPOSSIBLE is what he said he was thinking. The sounds continued and sounded like bags crunching, but they were loud enough that there was no mistaking that they were there in the room with us. About 30 seconds later, a bag of chips fell off the table and hit our son in the face. The only small part he actually had exposed from under the covers. He leaped up to confront whatever the heck was there in the room with us….

OMG…there is something in our room, on the table, dragging our bag of dinner rolls off with it! It jumps onto the windowsill of the open window and drags the bag of rolls with it. It then jumps out the window onto the ledge outside of our room -in the dark of the night. WHAT THE HECK? IT’S A RACCOON!

A raccoon had been in our room, walking around, (while we were sleeping on the floor) eating our food and now he’s sitting on the ledge outside our window eating what’s left of our bag of rolls RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! Ok, now this is getting funny…he not only took our rolls with him but he had been sitting on our table eating our Lemon Meringue Pie while we slept. THEIF!

I don’t know how, but we somehow made it through that night. Dismayed as we were about our closet door springing open again and again and our room door rattling repeatedly like someone was trying to get in, it was the raccoon that topped that night off at The Stanley Hotel!

The Raccoon Thief at the Stanley Hotel!

Well the front desk is certainly going to hear about this in the morning! Explaining about our little intruder and how he entered our open window on the 2nd floor in the middle of the night and made off with our bag of dinner rolls giving us all a fright…well let’s put it this way, it seems the Stanley Hotel hears ghost stories much more bizarre than ours!

Needless to say this surprise celebration of our son’s graduation turned out to be one our family will never forget and one that we love to share with others. I hope you enjoyed reading about it and that you will check out The Stanley Hotel when you visit Estes Park in Colorado. It’s a fabulous hotel and one well deserving of its reputation!
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Do you have a ghost story to share?

Have you ever wanted to visit a Ghost Town?
Read about our recent visit to Bodie California – A Ghost Town in Arrested Decay.

Have you stayed at The Stanley Hotel? Did you experience any unusual happenings while you were there?

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