Naming our Rooms

Since we have been open, people have occasionally asked us about the eccentric numbering convention for our rooms. They're numeric, but we've left some numbers out. Currently, you can book rooms 1, 5, 7-10, 12-14.

The convention was something we inherited when we bought the place. And we are slowly working to distinguish our rooms with more than a numeral. And the numbers not shown are "out of service."

People have been telling us since we opened that we need to "name" our rooms in order to distinguish them in the minds of prospective guests. Early on, we added "Valley View Suite" to the name of Room 9, our very best room, because it was a 2-room suite and, well, it overlooked our valley. It has a lot of furniture that came out of our house from before we bought the High Mountain Lodge, including a Chinese carpet that we bought when Julie was pregnant and we went out to buy a rocking chair for the baby but came back with an oriental rug, instead. (Over the years, we've worked through our ADD issues.) There are also some nice Chinese prints in the bedroom. The name "Valley View Suite" probably isn't the most spectacular example of marketing positioning and branding ever conceived, but it has served to distinguish that particular room with many of our returning guests.

Similarly, we named the suite across the hall the "Atrium Suite" because it overlooked our enclosed pool atrium. On our website, we tell people that, in the summertime, it's just dark, because it has no view. In the wintertime, it's very popular because by the time people get back from skiing, it's dark anyway. It's also less expensive than the Valley View Suite, and that works for some folks, too. Another of our housekeepers, standing on the balcony of the Atrium Suite (yes, it has a balcony overlooking the pool), asked me one time, "Dude! Whaddaya do to keep folks from jumping from here into the pool, 'cause this could be the sickest most awesome plunge?!" I replied, "We fire any of our employees who suggest that to our guests." That seemed to work, though I briefly considered having a couple of brass plates engraved and affixed to the railing that would proclaim, "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT."

We have toyed with naming Room 12 "the Duck Room." When an interior-designer friend "staged" it right before we opened in 2009, she found duck and waterfowl art and objects all over the lodge and concentrated them in that room. The effect really is lovely. Then my wife, Julie, and her sister found a set of brass fireplace tools with duck heads on them at an antique shop, and they bought them to "complete" the room. Our housekeeper at the time, however, freaked out when he saw it, and termed the whole room "creepy." We eventually persuaded him to clean the room, in spite of his fear of the fireplace tools, but we have held off naming the room because we realize that some people don't like birds. Indeed, one set of guests actually put a towel on top of the mallard duck decoy in the corner of the room because, they told us when they were checking out, "It looked at us when we were sleeping." This begs the question of how people know that something is looking at them when they are unconscious, but I just smiled and swiped their credit card. Moral of the story: if you don't like birds, Room 12 may not be your best choice when staying at the High Mountain Lodge.

We have considered naming Room 13 "The Train Room." It has an amazing collection of train art from the early days of transportation in the Winter Park/Fraser area. And train buff friends have given us additional train memorabilia for the room. The press of other demanding projects have kept us from renaming it--that and sheer laziness. Because, if we have that many "named" rooms, what are we going to call the rest of the rooms? The Blue Room? The Indian Rug Room? Chalk it all up to a failure of imagination.

I have made a commitment to myself and to my wife that I will get "Room 3" in service before ski season. Room 3 is on the lower level of the lodge. When we bought the place, it was "being renovated." That renovation languished until now. We have installed a pedestal sink in the bathroom, stained and finished the wainscoting. Tomorrow, I'm painting the walls and frantically searching for a sound-proofing solution for the ceiling.

Room 3 has a fireplace and will have a king-sized bed. It interconnects with The Library (Room 4). The Library is generally a public room. The furniture consists of comfortable chairs, a recliner, a sofa-bed, and a game table, surrounded by books, both popular and academic. It also has a fireplace. When Room 3 and Room 4 are rented together, we will call it "The Library Suite." It will be an amazing, comfortable space for a family. The Library has a half bath, which means less trooping through the bedroom for potty breaks in the middle of the night--that is, if Tom can get the toilet to stop leaking....

We're looking forward to adding a new, "named" room to the offerings at the High Mountain Lodge. We hope you'll come visit us and check it out!

First Snow of the Season!

I wouldn't exactly call it a "storm." It's been gently snowing on and off all day. No accumulation to speak of, but a lot of moisture has been soaking into our very thirsty ground.

I took the dogs for "walkies" earlier today. You would think that, with all the acreage we have around the High Mountain Lodge that the dogs could explore the place on their own, but noooo, they insist that we take them. You would think they'd been shut up in an urban apartment all day the way they go nuts when we put on outdoor boots--instead of being in the country in doggie paradise.

But anyway, walking along country roads and in the pasture in the snow was a delightful experience. The aspen leaves have all fallen, and you can smell the leaf mold on the wet ground. A Dan Fogleberg song from my adolescence begins, "The end of October, / the sleepy brown woods seem to / bow down their heads to the winter." That's sort of what it feels like today.

We're really slow right now, though reservations are starting to pile up for the winter ski season, as well as Thanksgiving. Winter Park opens on November 14. In the meantime, we are participating in a Professional Association of Innkeepers offering of two free nights to active military and veterans over the Veterans Day weekend. We filled up within 48 hours of posting the offering, and have a respectable wait list, as well.

Some friends whom I used to play in a bar-band with are coming up to provide entertainment for the weekend. Should be an awesome time.

While the summer activities are winding down and the winter ones have yet to gear up, there is plenty still to do in the mountains in the fall. Hikes, bike rides, fishing, golf. Shoot, all the merchants are having sales getting read to flop their inventory for the winter.

Good times in the mountains. Come visit.

Fall is the Best Time of Year

The crush of summer guests has moderated now that it's almost October, but the work is no less intense. We are looking for a new housekeeper; anybody want a job?

The aspen color is past its peak now, but there's still a lot of beauty to be seen. Just this morning during breakfast, I looked out the dining room windows to the west, and light from the rising sun hitting the trees on the far side of the road made the leaves positively glow. Annie Dillard, in her spectacular book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, wrote a chapter on "the tree with the lights in it." I read it in college; in spite of her splendid prose, I didn't understand what she meant until I moved to Colorado and saw the aspens.

It's as if the sunshine hitting the leaves all summer was somehow sequestered in them. Now that the chlorophyll has faded, the slightest bit of light hitting them makes them explode with color.

It's quiet at the High Mountain Lodge right now. Instead of ten or more couples on a weekend, we have two or three. This makes for a lot of cooking fun. Just this morning, I made herb scrambled eggs stuffed in popovers and roasted asparagus with lime-chipotle hollandaise because one of the couples staying with us were repeat guests who had had that dish before and specifically requested it. I was happy to oblige. We don't have the staff to accommodate table service if we have more than six or eight people staying with us, so it's nice to be able to cook for just a few people.

If there is one thing that doesn't change with the seasons at the High Mountain Lodge, it's the quiet. We have little traffic noise regardless of the season, but in fall, it seems as if the peace just doubles down. We're far enough from the train tracks that on the rare occasion when we here the train horn, it sounds romantic instead of something that "makes you want to stick an ice pick in your ear"--as a Trip Advisor review of one of our competitors--who have the train tracks running virtually through their back yard--noted.

This is a quiet and peaceful time. There's not much going on. It's a perfect time for hiking in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and Rocky Mountain National Park, for fishing in the Fraser and Colorado Rivers, for horseback riding, for a last few rounds of golf on fairways surrounded by snow-dusted peaks. The winter ski season is a few months away (please, God, send us good snow!)

Lots of "locals" leave town for a quick vacation before the ski season gets busy.We prefer to stick around. We're getting additional rooms ready for winter, as well as fixing the hot tub (yet again!). But it's all good.

Come visit us during this magical season.

Fall Color

Golly, has it been a year since my last blog post? Uh, I guess so. Only excuse: we've been busy!

After a disappointingly snowless winter and a very dry spring, mid-summer saw the weather turn around and the pasture green up quite nicely. In spite of the "bad" weather, we have enjoyed a flood of wonderful people to the High Mountain Lodge recently.

We also had an amazing summer for hummingbirds. The little guys went through a fifty-pound bag of COSTCO sugar in July and August, alone:

Improvements to the High Mountain Lodge include a pergola on the upper deck, replacement of the deteriorating deck railings, and the renovation of another room at the Lodge.

But that's beside the point. The aspen are turning early this year, and we want to see some friends visit us.

Of course, if the early aspens are any indication, then we're expecting an epic winter. Make your reservations soon.

Murphy & the Bear

The Navajo have a name for wintertime when they perform their ceremonials: “The Season When the Thunder Sleeps.”

With that in mind, I’ve decided to name summertime “The Season When Tom and Julie Don’t Sleep.”

For the past few weeks, we have been plagued by a bear trying to get into our dumpster in the middle of the night. Ever vigilant, Murphy the Lodgedog nightly has been pitching six fits at about three in the morning when the critter starts to rattle the dumpster. 

This is a smaller and younger bear than the one the size of an Escalade that got into our neighboring lodge a couple of summers ago, broke into their walk-in freezer, and ate all their ice cream.

But though young, he’s already gotten in trouble before. About a week ago, Murphy started barking, roused us out of sleep, and I shambled down to the storeroom to turn on the outside light to see what the matter was. Julie shouted down from the balcony, “Tom! Don’t open the door! There’s a bear out there!” So naturally, I opened to door, and sure enough there was a bear on the other side of the road from the dumpster. He boasted a white ear-tag: a sure sign that the Division of Wildlife had already had at least one run-in with him.

I was so mad at being awakened in the middle of the night that I stood there in bare feet and boxer shorts, waved my arms and shouted, “Get outta here! Go on! Git!”

The bear looked surprised, said, “Whoaaa?” and ran up the mountain.

Murphy was beside herself. She literally could not stop barking, and for the rest of the night, the slightest noise would set her off. 

It has been like that every night since. We haven’t been this sleep-deprived since our son was a collicky infant and I briefly considered drowning him in the bathtub.

Just last night, Murphy went off again. We didn’t see the bear this time, and I briefly wondered if it might be our neighborhood evil raccoon, but this morning the dumpster had been moved, so it was clear that the bear had been back. 

Since we seem unable to convince Murphy to be a less-ambitious watchdog, it’s time to start filling balloons with a dilute ammonia solution and putting them on the lid of the dumpster. Bears, whose sense of smell is tremendous--even better than that of dogs--do not like the smell of ammonia, so perhaps if our bear gets a whiff of the stuff, he’ll leave us alone.

If not, just about the time it becomes The Season When the Thunder Sleeps and the bear goes into hibernation, it will also be The Season When Tom and Julie Sleep, as well.

Rain

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of smelling the moisture in the air after a rainstorm.

I grew up in the Oklahoma panhandle, where rainstorms were few and far between. However, most years around about the 4th of July, we would be treated to spectacular downpours, the product of cumulus clouds that would build and roil and form and churn about in the air above the high plains, then release torrents of water from the bottom of anvil-shaped monster-clouds, as well as not a little bit of hail, and occasionally a tornado or two.

But I always welcomed the rain--since I didn't have to worry about the hail denting the car or the tornado sucking the house away to Oz and perhaps, if you were lucky, dropping it on a politician: that's why God made fathers: to work to earn money to pay for the insurance.

The July storms were usually the first rain we'd had since spring, when after a dry winter we'd have maybe a week or two of gentle rains, and everybody would hurry out to Elmhurst Cemetery to harvest the asparagus that was frantically erupting from around every tombstone. My wife has similar stories of harvesting spring asparagus from the irrigation ditches on the farm in Boulder County, Colorado, where she kept her horse. Town boy that I was, I had no clue that you could find asparagus growing on the sides of irrigation ditches, but I learned early on that you could always find a healthy crop of it at the Beasley mausoleum after the first rain.

A few times, I was lucky enough to be on the edge of town after a rainstorm and find myself buffeted by the wind blowing the moist pollen from the fields of wheat that stretched away to the horizon. I'd go home later and find myself covered with the stuff; my t-shirt would never be the same again. But while standing at the edge of the dampened fields, I only cared for the smell of the wheat, driven by the still-moist breeze.

The smell of wet wheat is almost indescribable. For a boy growing up in the proverbial center of the Dust Bowl, I can only say that it smelled like "life."

Of course, I was born long after the Dust Bowl, but I remember my mother cursing and crying when the wind blew, telling the stories of her mother making her and her sisters lie on a bed with a wet sheet over them so they wouldn't breathe in the powder-fine dust and develop pneumonia from it.

Some of her anxiety undoubtedly rubbed off on me, but even in the early 60s when I was a child, it didn't take much for me to develop an appreciation for the blessings of rain.

You would think, given my childhood, that I would have fled to a humid climate and never looked back. In college in a damp climate, however, I discovered some of the unsavory things that moisture can do to skin, so it didn't take much to convince me that rain, like so many other blessings, is best enjoyed in moderation.

My godmother, a panhandle girl, followed her husband to a job outside of Charleston, South Carolina. True to her upbringing, she made him string a clothesline between a gum tree and a live oak growing in their back yard, then proceeded to set up housekeeping, hanging the sheets out to dry. Well, they didn't dry; instead, they developed grayish-green stains that spread exactly like mold on a petri dish.

So she made her husband go into Sears and buy her a dryer. Years later when she told me that story, I  could tell that she was ashamed of the fact that she couldn't dry her laundry outside. She never made her peace with the South. It irked her that the alternative to drying her towels in a machine was having mold turn them into gelatinous goo and that, if you were going to dry your sheets outside, you had to put so much Clorox in the water to kill the mold that if you perspired on the sheets during the night, you would wake up in the morning with little white bleached lines on your skin corresponding to the wrinkles in the cloth.

But I digress.

This post is really about the smell of nature after rain. Up here at the High Mountain Lodge, we don't have wheat, but we have acres and acres of pine trees. After a few clear days, the sun has toasted the pine pollen so that, when it rains, the air smells like tincture of Colorado. Of course, the rain will also precipitate the pine pollen out of the air and make yellow streaks all over your car.

You should feel privileged. For a few days, at least, your car will look like a local's.

Come visit us soon, and smell the air.

THE DECK

Isn't it "interesting" how seemingly simple projects can balloon into titanic time-sucks? When we bought the Lodge two years ago, high on our list of "deferred maintenance" issues, we realized we were going to have to address the problem of deteriorating planks in the multi-tiered deck that is the focus of so much of our outdoor hospitality in the summertime.

Alas! A more than 200% of normal snowfall last winter and the persistent snow we had during "mud season" in May caused us to postpone the project a little longer: according to a neighbor who tracks such things, we got over 400 inches of snow at the High Mountain Lodge this past winter, so we were weeks late in beginning the deck repairs.

In addition, when we began pulling up rotting planks, we discovered that the seemingly sound planks next to them were also deteriorating rapidly. Long story short: we are completely replacing the middle tier of the deck with a "composite" material (think recycled plastic soda bottles mixed with sawdust then dyed brown).

A simple weekend project has expanded into a major construction effort, all done while we've been welcoming guests who arrive with a mixed look of indulgence, concern, and alarm. We've been apologetic, and so far I'm managing to suppress the eye-tic that develops every time I have to go into explanation mode.

The good news: the deck will be finished before the holiday weekend (or else I will be hospitalized somewhere and receiving powerful anti-psychotic medication).

Also good news: the weather up here has been spectacular. Our daytime highs are in the mid-70s, with lows dipping into the 40s. Guests from Denver (where it has been in the 90s) can only rave about our perfect weather.

So come on up and enjoy the gentle Colorado breezes while sipping a drink on our brand-new deck. You won't regret the visit!