View from Trail Ridge Road

Every summer we head over to Grand Lake and play. We start out at the Fat Cat Cafe, which has the best breakfast in the world. Try it for yourself. The owner, Sally, is a fantastic hostess. I thought she told me that she has about 200 people per day for her weekend buffet. Pastries, scotch eggs, tons of bacon, cinnamon rolls and desserts of all kinds, I could go on and on…

Best Breakfast Around

My kids aren’t really into hiking these days so we planned a short hike on the Green Mountain trail. Our main goal was to see MOOSE, which we were very successful.

Moose in Big Meadow

Moose Cow and Calf

We saw bulls, a cow and calf and many wild flowers on our way to Big Meadow. It rained all day and the mosquitoes were horrible so it was pretty difficult to keep the kids motivated. All in all I would highly recommend a early summer hike on the West side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The Calypso Orchids were just amazing.

Calypso Orchids

We also spent about an hour at Grand Lake watching the sailboats race. The best way to finish off the day is at Grand Lake Chocolates for some of their world famous ice cream.

Sailboats on Grand Lake

Historically this blog has been real estate and hiking related and this really limits so many topics that I am interested in.  I want to share more of my hobbies and interests like recipes, exercise ideas, home remodeling, gardening, maybe a little HS Girls Basketball. This is a year of change in my business and family life. I have spent the last week or so setting both personal and professional goals.  Experts say that people who make resolutions are more likely to reach their goals so here I am sharing with the world my goals for this year.  I have always been a firm believer in writing down your goals, they have a habit of slipping away if you don’t. I have an iphone and I keep them in my notes so I can refer to them often.  Here are a few of my goals for starters.  K.I.S.S. is a good theory for me.

Live In Estes Park

For business I set sales goals and organizational goals. I love meeting new people and introducing them to Estes Park so I definitely want to work with more buyers.  I already met with an internet tech about beefing up my website.  I also have an idea for an iphone app specific to Estes Park so tomorrow I am going to start making calls to make that happen this year.  I exceeded my sales goals last year and doubled my business.  I am hoping for a repeat.  I set new goals of time limits for returning emails and phone calls too.

Health and Lifestyle

I had some major setbacks in my exercise program towards the end of last year so I have written off running for the time being and signed up for swimming 3x times a week at 5:30am. This is practically the middle of the night for me so this will be a huge struggle.  My amazing coach got me from 0 to Freestyle in only 3 sessions. I signed up with a weight loss accountability group too.  I have about 20 pounds to lose so I will pledge a dollar amount per pound to benefit Crossroads Ministry, a local food pantry. My husband is reading the “4- Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss so I am getting up to speed to see if that could be incorporated into my busy schedule too.  The book looks interesting at this point.  I don’t know if I can eat that many beans.

Hobbies, Travel and Family

I want to double the size of my garden and experiment more with mountain gardening. I have some travel goals as well, for one we are planning many of our trips around my husbands races this year to try to keep the family together. Three one hundred mile races are already on the calendar, Big Horn 100, Hard Rock 100 and our of course the Leadville 100. It is hard to find time to take vacations and for Alan to do his races so we combined these two activities. I think it will be awesome especially with Vi Endurance rolling gel out in a few weeks.  I want to visit  Kentucky and the Smoky Mountains and I really really want to go to New York City too.

I am hoping this blog will also serve as a tool to keep me accountable.  So if you see me eating a chocolate brownie please pry it from my fingers. Look for some changes around here…Here’s to a great 2012!!

Here are some photos of a recent hike to Calypso Cascades in Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. This is a beautiful hike along the Saint Vrain river. Not a lot of vistas but a beautiful setting and this time of year abundant water. The warm pine smell was just amazing and my favorite memory of this hike. I looked the entire way for orchids and was rewarded right before the falls with many clusters of these delicate flowers. We were also rewarded by meeting a huge family of Ptarmigan. This hike is 3.6 miles round trip with slight elevation gain. The parking lot is small so arrive early. Enjoy! See you on the trail!

Pair of Calypso Orchids

North Saint Vrain River Wild Basin

Mark your calendars for May 7th, you do not want to miss the Estes Park Duck Race. This event is organized by the Estes Park Rotary Club. For a $20 donation you can  ”adopt” little rubber duckies and choose one of 69 different Estes Valley charities to benefit from your adoptions. Rotary keeps $1 to cover costs and gives $19 to your chosen charity. At 1pm these ducks are dumped in the river at Nicky’s and they travel down the cold Fall River to the finish line at Riverside Plaza.  If your duck crosses the finish line first you can claim one of the major prizes: 46″ LED TV, iPod speaker system, Nook e-reader, NetBooks or 700 other prizes. This is a fun event for the whole family so come on out and cheer the ducks.  Wear your long underwear, it is snowing as I type this.  Crazy spring weather!  See you there!

If you have not owned a home in the last three years, congratulations you are considered a first time home buyer and may qualify for some down payment programs that serve Estes Park.  The Estes Valley Workforce Housing Assistance (EVWHA) down payment loan program was developed by The Estes Park Board of REALTORS® and Estes Park Housing Authority to assist working families residing in Estes Park between the 81% and 150% of the Area Median Income (AMI). This program is a low interest loan. The maximum loan amount is 3.5% of purchase price OR $10,500 with an interest rate of 2% with a 10 year term.  Applicants need to invest a minimum of $3000 of their own money into the home purchase and attend a required Home Ownership class.

The second program is the Larimer Home Ownership Program (LHoP) down payment assistance program.  This program is available to buyers earning 80% or less of the Area Median Income.  This program is a low interest loan. The maximum loan amount is $10,000 with an interest rate of 2% with the term generally being 10 years.  The housing authority also has programs in several neighborhoods that offer deed restriction homes offering soft 2^nd mortgages of up to $50,000 that require no payments during the ownership.  Both, EVWHA and LHoP programs can be used with ANY of the homeownership programs of the Estes Park Housing Authority, provided you qualify.  If you are a first time home buyer I would love to help you reach your home ownership goals.  Call me and I can get you in touch with lenders and other professionals familiar with these programs.  Now is a great time to buy, rates are low and houses are affordable in our market.

Savor Estes Park is the opportunity to sample 24 different restaurants in town each Thursday in March.  Patrons are encouraged to visit 2-3 restaurants each week and enjoy quality dining at a discount price of $3 for a 6″ plate of their specialty foods and a glass of wine, beer or soft drink. Reel Mountain Theater is also participating by offering a matinee show at 1pm each week.  Over a thousand people participated last year so mark your calendars for lots of fun and food.  Download your map here. I hope to see you there.

A couple weeks back I went to the Ski and Recreation area presentation to the Estes Park Town Board. Here is my brief description: This project would involve a redevelopment of the Elkhorn Lodge and Guest Ranch property on the West end of Elkhorn Ave in Estes Park turning it into a small scale ski area and 4 season recreation area. This historic property is one of the oldest continuously run historic properties in the country and unfortunately one of the most endangered. This is an exciting opportunity to renovate the old lodge, offer a year-round adventure and ski park for people of all ages.
The snow would obviously be man-made, with a chair lift to take you up the ski run, and an alpine coaster that could be used year-round. In the winter there would be skiing and snowboarding for beginners to intermediate levels, lessons for skiing and snow boarding, tubing, the alpine coaster, snow shoeing and ski biking.

Summer activities would include the alpine coaster, canopy tour or zip lines, mountain biking, hiking, fishing, horseback riding and mountain boarding. Pinch me please, can you believe this? The final, also very exciting, aspect would be an arts district with possibly a performing arts center.

The project developers are seeking the Town’s cooperation to be the applicant for state regional tourism funding via state sales tax incremental funds. The application must be completed by mid March so the presentation was made in a hasty manner and with apparently not enough details for the Town Trustees who varied from supporting the project to combative. The short time line is unfortunate because the town is only able to support it in name only not with any financial backing for the research. Frank Theis and Todd Jirsa made the presentation and have done an outstanding job researching and putting this together. I do want to thank the Trustees who are open to this concept and voted to support it. Continue to contact town board members and let them know your thoughts. Many many questions to consider but it’s nice to see people open to dialogue that will bring us closer to a clear concept of this project. We can’t know if this might work here if no one is willing to take a risk. Being a real estate professional here and also recently sitting on the Fine Arts Guild of the Rockies board I can see huge benefits for the entire town. We may not get a performing arts center built otherwise. I personally would really like to see it done soon so I can enjoy it.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this so please leave me comments here.

Estes Park has pedestrian trails that connect downtown to Lake Estes and then continue West to Fall River Rd and also South to Carriage Hills.  This includes the Riverwalk trail along the downtown river corridor and also the trail around Lake Estes.  Locals and visitors alike take to our town trails to enjoy our outdoors, exercise or simply get from point A to point B. With shopping and dining so close together it is great for visitors to park their cars and breath in some crisp mountain air along these paths.  As a local, my kids use it to ride their bikes to schools, I use it to walk my dog and run safely away from traffic.   In April, the Parks and Recreation Department received a grant to assist with an addition of a new section of trail.  The grant is slated to fund an 2.43 mile section beginning at the Fish Creek Trail and ending at the Lily Lake Trail head.  This new section will be an eight foot wide soft trail estimated to cost about $875,000.  The grant from Great Outdoors Colorado is covering $450,000 and the town is contributing $50,000.  The remainder of the funds come from the mill levy increase approved by voters in 2008 for trail maintenance.  Upon its completion we will have a continuous 9 miles pedestrian trail from downtown Estes Park to the Lily Lake trail head.  Construction will be in early 2011 and be complete by the end of the summer.  I am excited, what a huge benefit to us.  I love the outdoors and Haley (my Golden Retriever) and I are going to enjoy using this new trail.  Thanks Estes Park!