A Bad Night at 7,500 Feet

A resort hotel that opened on July 4, 1909, in Estes Park, where Stephen King spent one night in 1974 and came away with The Shining. A Colorado state agency led the partnership that bought it for $400 million in 2025.

Start in Estes Park at the hotel where Stephen King's unsettling 1974 stay became the inspiration for The Shining, a visit that turned a century-old mountain resort into one of America's most reputedly haunted hotels.

An airport that opened in February 1995 with apocalyptic murals, a dedication capstone bearing a Masonic square and compasses, and a baggage tunnel network it never fully used. It now prints the conspiracy theories about itself on its own construction barriers.

Drive down out of the mountains to DIA, where Luis Jiménez's 32-foot blue fiberglass mustang, an infamously abandoned automated baggage system, and murals depicting environmental collapse are the basis of the theories about secret bunkers beneath the runways.

A giant pink Mexican restaurant with cliff divers and a fake cave system became a cult legend through a South Park episode, then reopened in 2023 after a $40 million restoration by the show's creators.

End the day at the giant pink restaurant immortalized by a South Park episode, complete with cliff divers plunging past your table. Closed for years, then restored by the show's own creators and reopened in 2023. Reservations are required and are made only on the restaurant's website, since Casa Bonita takes no walk-ins.