The Real Shining

Hi My name is Lauren and I just want to start out by saying I love the paranormal and being scared! However sometimes there are things that happen that are just a little too much. This is one of those times.

Last February my fiance and I took a trip up to Estes Park, CO. It's a really pretty place to stay in the winter and it's almost always sunny, in general, its just alot of fun. We had stayed in Estes before and this time we wanted to splurge a little bit on ourselves. So we booked the presidential suite at the Stanly Hotel. Now some of you know what this place is and some of you don't. This hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining". The made for television movie version of "The Shining" was actually filmed there. All in all it's a really beautiful hotel.

Well since "The Shining" the hotel has been conducting "ghost tours" of the hotel. They have one or two guides take you around the grounds, into the basement, on all the floors, they show you the infamous room where the old woman in the bathtub scene was done ( I think it's 213, but I haven't seen "The Shining" in a while so I could be wrong.) And the whole time they are telling you stories and showing you pictures of ghosts people have taken on previous tours. I took a few pictures but got nothing, unfortunately. At the end of the tour they ask you to pick out one of the stories you think is made up. And its always the most believable one thats totally made up, its really funny, but anyways, after that the tour is over and we went back to our suite.

Later that night, we were just way to hyped up to sleep even though it was like 3 in the morning, so we decided to journey into the main part of the hotel( the room we were in was a separate edition to the property) We walked into the front doors, and right in front of us is the huge staircase that leads upstairs, and to the right of us is the ball room all locked up, where Mrs. stanleys piano is, and to the left is a restraunt, and check in service desk. THat alone was pretty freaky in and of itself because everything was dark. We looked around for a second and decided to just walk around for a little bit. We went downstairs,where there is a little museum sorta gallery down there with pictures from the movie, and of how the city used to look and all that good stuff. We were pretty interested. All of a sudden we heard footsteps upstairs. Which would be pretty normal, if it wasn't really really late at night. So we went back upstairs and there was no one there but we did notice that the previously dark ballroom had a little flicker of light in it now. We walked to the door and the closer we got we thought we could hear the piano playing. Now this was the sorta moment that sent chills up my spine, made the hair on my arms and neck stand up and also made my eyes water, because alot of people have reported hearing the piano play late at night from their rooms. It was different for me though because the piano was only like 20 feet away from me! So I knew we weren't going crazy, other people have witnessd this. We looked through the windows on the doors to the ballroom and we could see a single dim lit light on in the entire room. And the music was very distinct now. It was odd though because there was obviously no one siting at the piano, the keys were not moving by themselves or anything like that, but the music just seemed to drift and linger in the air. I could tell it was coming from that room, but it wasn't confined to just that area. Sorry it's a really hard sensation to describe.

Anyways my fiance and I just looked at each other, neither of us really knowing what to do or say, all I know is after that initial glance we knew what the other was thinking. " Let's get outta here!" So that's what we did. We ran back to our room, and could not go to sleep, it was the coolest experience, we stayed up and just talked about it all night. The next morning we had to leave, and it was sad becasue like I said the hotel itself is really pretty, but I will never forget what happened that night back in February! So if any of you readers ever make your way to Colorado, the Stanly Hotel is definitely a must see!

Thanks for reading!