The Stanley Hotel

It's our last night in Colorado and we're high up in the Rockies (about 7500 feet high actually) in Estes Park. If any of you are thinking, "I'm sure I recognise that building" then you probably do as it starred, along with Jack NIcholson, in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining.". None of us has actually seen the film but as we're all three cowardy custards and not wild about being part of the Ghost Tours run by the hotel at night (!) we're in a nice, comfy, condo out the back.

Today we left Denver and headed for the mountains stopping off for brunch in Boulder and climbing higher and higher into the foothills of the Rockies. Usually, by mid December, we'd be driving through snowbanks but not this year. Even the highest peaks are barely dusted and there's a real concern that barely any snow-melt will result in another year of drought. My, but it's stunning up here. The Continental Divide stretches for thousands of miles and the scale of it all beggars belief. Another stunning sunset tonight and the stars are diamond-bright in the thin, icy air. Lucky us.