Tomorrow is August 1st and you haven’t scheduled a vacation yet!  Your Estes Park hotel has rooms available at great rates and you’re watching reruns while sitting in front of the A/C.

The Appenzell Inn has a great selection of rooms at competitive rates and available for shorter stays to help your budget, so give us a call!  TICK TICK

Sometimes people who have been camping for several days will stop in looking for a room so that they can “sleep in a real bed” or “just take a nice hot shower or soak in a Jacuzzi”.   Camping is a lot of fun and we wouldn’t discourage it at all, but after a while we all crave the creature comforts of a nice Estes Park hotel.

The Appenzell Inn is here to provide the cold, the wet, the dusty, and the tired camper with those amenities most appreciated,- like a hot shower, a cold drink and even a guest laundry. 

Come and Enjoy!

You’ve probably read or heard that in this economic climate, with most hotels clamoring for business, it’s a good idea not to book a room in advance because you’ll probably get a better deal as a drive-in.  In many instances that may be true, sometimes not.  But what happens when the day you chose to arrive is the same day that a lot of other people chose and all of a sudden the No Vacancy signs start to light up and it’s late and the next town is an hour away?

We just had a day like that and it’s no fun for anybody.  The good deals are non-existent, the lower priced rooms in the cheaper hotels are gobbled up, and some people are faced with either paying rack rate in a 3 diamond hotel, driving to the next town, or sleeping in their car.  People are frazzled, the kids are whining, the trip is costing more than they had thought and their memory of Estes Park will always be a nightmare.

Most Estes Park hotels offer their rooms at competitive rates for the season, which is fairly short.  Those with nicer places or special accommodations will charge more but will still be within reason for a Rocky Mountain resort area .  Take your time before your trip to book  the room you want, in the place you want, at a known price, and then just enjoy the trip;  ’enjoy’ being the key word.

When choosing your Estes Park hotel, please give The Appenzell Inn a look.  Come and enjoy yourself.

I saw this headline on a blog site called Tomorrow’s Table which is part of ScienceBlogs.  The posting notes that Japanese kids more easily identify Japanese cars than native plants and animals, and that American kids not readily exposed to nature are more prone to depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder.

We used to live with nature but now we live in cities or at best, tightly packed suburbs with little access to a wild environment.  I was born and raised in a farming community in upstate New York where many kids from New York City came for a few weeks of exposure to what we called our backyard.  These “Fresh Air” kids had never seen large lawns and wooded areas, fields of grain, streams with crayfish, and ponds full of sunfish and frogs.  They’d never been outside without hearing the constant sounds of traffic and other people, and just thinking of it leaves me with an empty feeling.

Maximizing your exposure to the great outdoors is something you owe yourself and your children.  Your local parks and open space are great, your larger state parks are better yet, but every so often you should pick out one of the magnificent National Parks for a thorough exploration.  Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the best with Alpine meadows, great forests and steams plus the high altitude Alpine tundra.  There are miles of well marked trails and dedicated rangers to explain what to look out for and the significance of the various plants and animals.

When you finally decide that this is the place for your next family vacation and you’re looking for a wonderful Estes Park hotel, we hope you decide to stay with us at The Appenzell Inn where we appreciate and complement your outdoor adventure.

Today we had our first bear pay us a visit; not a big bear mind you but a very healthy looking one-year-old with very black and shiny fur and a white band just behind his very sensitive nose.  Seems we forgot to empty the trash at our picnic patio and someones lunch leftovers became the bears lunch.  Bears don’t leave leftovers.

Just about every Estes Park hotel has seen it’s share of bears but this was our first; probably because we keep our dumpsters in a garage and empty the trash most every day.  We think it’s kind of neat to finally see one, but we also realize that we need to discourage them from coming into populated areas looking for food.  “A fed bear is a dead bear” is very true because if this little guy keeps it up when he gets big, he’ll become a nuisance bear that may have to be killed.

From now on we also have to alert our guests at The Appenzell Inn of the possibility of a bear encounter, not that anyone has been hurt around here recently, but you never know.  We also need to tell our guests not to leave food in their cars; one bear totaled a car just recently in pursuit of the remains of a peanut butter sandwich.

People leave so many things behind in their Estes Park hotel that the local UPS store has issued an ‘OOPS’ form for hotel owners to use when returning items to their owners.  At The Appenzell we use the ‘OOPS’ form with the guests information and CC# so they can wrap it up and ship it in whatever time-frame the guest wishes.  Sometimes we’ll use the guest’s next destination hotel as a shipping address and the item might get there first.

The Appenzell doesn’t charge the guest for taking the item to the UPS store but UPS will charge the guest account for shipping and handling.

Before leaving your Estes Park hotel, check for the battery charger cord you plugged in under the desk, The expensive gift you bought and hid behind the extra pillow in the closet, the child’s favorite toy that found its way under the bed skirt, or your dentures-(Steve).

What was the weirdest item left behind?  We’d rather not mention.

Exploring a new area can be great fun and sometimes getting in your car and taking short day trips from your Estes Park hotel can lead you to a completely new adventure.

Grand Lake for lunch is always a great trip to the other side of Rocky Mountain National Park, especially if you take the Old Fall River Road over and the the high portion of Trail Ridge Road on the way back.  Terrific scenery, wildlife including Moose along the Colorado River, a tasty lunch in the old Western town of Grand Lake, and a breathtaking ride back to Estes Park makes for a great day.

I wouldn’t have believed it, but one of the most visited attractions in Colorado is the Denver Mint. Seeing how our money is made is rather fascinating and not something you see every day, so you may want to take one day and drive to Denver, see the Mint, maybe the Zoo or one of the many fine museums.  It’s only about an hour and a half from Estes Park with no mountain passes to climb.  You will have to make reservations and of course, no free samples.

A bit closer is the city of Boulder with its Pearl Street Mall for great outdoor people watching, entertainment, and terrific restaurants.  You might also visit Celestial Seasonings where they produce some well known tasty teas.

Fort Collins has its Old Town brewpubs, Budweiser brewery, and it’s also on the way to white water rafting on the Poudre river.

Whichever direction you take from your Estes Park hotel you will be greeted with unrivaled scenery, good roads, and nice people at every stop.  We’ve only touched on a few highlights but our staff at The Appenzell Inn will be glad to help you with the details.

In a recent check of three of the big hotel discounters, it was found that when booking a room at an Estes Park  hotel during the last week of July; there was little difference in price between discounters, many of the hotel/motels had lower than average approval ratings, and the selection was very limited.  Are you getting a good deal or are you being sucked in by slick advertising?

The Appenzell Inn has an excellent guest approval rating, a beautiful property, and newer rooms, at a very competitive rate,- every day.  We don’t pay high franchise fees and we don’t give a percentage of our room rate to discounters, which allows us to offer more at an attractive price.

When planning your vacation and especially when choosing an Estes Park hotel, do yourself a favor and explore the many options available from independent owners who depend on their reputation rather than brand names or discounters to sell their rooms.  In doing so, you will find The Appenzell Inn rising to the top of your list.

When you’re out touring, how much time do you spend bouncing from hotel to motel to lodge looking for a place to stay at a rate you want to pay?  Or do you make life easy and just stop in at the first chain hotel you come to, knowing that the price will be reasonable and the room will be the same as all the rest you stayed at? 

Some like the adventure of not knowing what to expect while others don’t expect anything more from their accommodations than a fairly clean room, hot water, and a continental breakfast consisting of a pre-wrapped muffin, terrible orange juice, and weak coffee.  Don’t you think a major portion of your trip should be a bit more memorable?

Yesterday a couple came in looking for a one night stay.  I offered her our basic queen room at a good rate but her husband found a room at another motel for $16 less.  He wanted the cheaper room in a plain motel while she wanted to stay someplace that made her feel good.  They stayed with us, and the smile on her face was certainly worth $16.

Why does The Appenzell make people feel good?  I’d like to think it’s the charming fellow who’s writing this post, but it has more to do with the charm of the property itself; it’s architecture, landscaping, and room design.  It also has to do with the attitude of the entire staff, especially our housekeepers who understand the standard we want met; they take pride in people leaving notes complimenting them on the exceptionally clean rooms.

Our gardener, Lynn, is also pleased when people stop her and ask about the flowers and how often she feeds them, waters them, and deadheads them.  We don’t mind guests disturbing her work, it makes both parties feel good and that’s what we like.

So when you decide to visit Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, do yourself a favor and find an Estes Park hotel that makes you feel good, like The Appenzell Inn, it will make the entire trip more memorable.

A couple drove in this morning from the Town’s Visitors Center and they remarked on how friendly and helpful the folks were behind the counter and then remarked on how the town must be well off to pay those people.  Truth is, those folks are mostly volunteers and those of us who rely on them don’t let them know often enough how much they are appreciated.

In general, the people of Estes Park are very warm outgoing people who love to tell visitors about their town. Once in a while you might run across some trolls who would like the whole area to themselves, but they don’t bite.  The one thing that gets locals the most upset, however, is when a tourist stops in the middle of the street to watch a deer or elk that might be grazing nearby, so to avoid a wreck and hand gesture, it’s a good practice to pull over.

You will find that most of the people in town are actually NOT natives.  Most have moved here from other parts of the country to find adventure, a different lifestyle, and to enjoy the unique environment of Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  Some of us find ourselves doing something they’d never dreamed of 15 years ago like building and operating a hotel called The Appenzell Inn and catering to the wonderful people that come to visit our friendly town and beautiful Estes Park hotel.  Enjoy!