Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1910 — B. F. Coen Suggests A Summer Vacation Trip. [ARTICLE]

B. F. Coen Suggests A Summer Vacation Trip.

Fort Collins, Colo., June 29, 1910. To the Editor of The Republican: Many of the good people of Rensselaer and vicinity take a few weeks’ vacation each year. Many more of them should forget work and worry and do so. Many are saying, “1 can’t afford a trip. I can’t even afford to stay at home for two weeks. I must be at my place of business. I must look after my Stock. I must attend to my farm work. I must do this, or

this, or this.” The real fact in the case, and we all know it, is, that we cannot afford not to take a rest, a vacation, once in a while. People in the West realize the necessity for rest more than the people of the Middle States. It may be due in part to the fact that there are so many places near by to which one may go.

Let me suggest to you, a new place to spend a vacation. The only bad thing about it is, that if you go once, you will be determined to go again. You may think I’m paid for my talk but I’m not. I have no financial interest, whatever. I like to see people enjoy themselves, and I like to enjoy myself. If I can get a few people from Rensselaer to take my suggestion, I shall not need to say anything more about it. Those who go will see that others go. lam certain of that. I suggest to you, Estes Park, Colorado. I’ll tell you why. Estes Park is about 75 miles northwest of Denver, on the Burlington, and the Colorado and Southern Tailroads, or rather it is on no railroad at all. After Loveland is reached, there is a 32-mile automobile ride, and such a ride! A number of people have told me that it is the finest ride ttyey have ever taken. I have taken it ten different times, but I should like to take it again today. Twenty-two miles is up

a canon, so narrow in many places that there is scarcely room for the river and the road, And the road is so crooked that many, many times it looks as- if the automobile would dash against the mountain, when 10, a sudden turn, a bridge, and on we go, only to come face to face with another mountain wall, perhaps 1,200 feet in height. For miles and miles there is just a single track, with here and there places for passing, cut out of the granite walls. In the twenty-two miles, there is* a rise of 2,500 feet. You would naturally expect a swift flowing stream. You are not disappointed. Sometimes the spray from the liver gives gs m wetting as we speed along. The walls of the canon are from a few feet to 1,200 feet almost straight up. The road bed, itself, is one of the best*in the state. - Daily steamer automobile service is carried on. The view is ever changing. Th? drivers tell me that though they make the trip every day, there is always something new. It’s the same trip, yet ever new. ‘‘ln fact, all Colorado reminds the traveler of Italian scenery. It has been called the Switzerland of America, but it is far more than Italy. It has the Italian sky, the Italian coloring, and the mysterious and indefinable enchantment of that land of romance and dream.”

The Rocky Mountains in Colorado, alone, cover five times the area of the Alps of all Europe. There are nine Alpine peaks over 14,000 feet in height. In Colorado, alone, there are 43 peaks higher than the Jungfrau. There are 30 towns in Colorado, higher than the pass of St. Bernard. Estes Park is destined to be one of the greatest resorts in America. It is right in the heart of the Rockies. To the top of Long’s Peak is but a day’s journey. Two days will take one to a glacier. There are such journeys by the dozen.

The elevation of the Park is 7,500 feet. From this elevation, rise a great number of peaks 10,000 to 14,000 feet in height. The air is pure and dry. How good it seems to take in *a full breath of it. The nights are almost always cool. Sleep? There never was a finer place to sleep. I like to sleep right out under the stars. There is nothing like it. I tried it in Estes Park, only about three weeks ago. It took all the covers that could be found, though it was the second week of June. ■Almost every morning there was ice in the water-bucket. How would you like to have the coyotes snooping around your bunk and have them wake you up with their howls? T came back from the Park ten years younger in action, and five years younger in appearance, so my friends say. Don’t you want to try such an experiment? If you are Interested in getting out of a hot, murky climate for a few days,

and getting into a high and dry spot, a place where it Is pool as 4 pleasant in the shade, evep during the day, and where it is always cool and quite often cold at night, then Estes Park is the place. You can be idle there if you wish. You can just read and sleep and eat and rest, or you can be on the go all the time, or a part of the time, just as you please.

For scenery, there is probably nothing finer in America. In fact, “Every* journey in Colorado has its vista of surprise.” There are snowcapped mountains galore; there are storms of alrhost daily occurrence on certain of them; there are rocky mountains in the real sense of the term; there are precipices 2,800 feet on the perpendicular; there are boulders of solid granite, big as Indiana hills; there are pine forests so thick that a person could scarcely make his way through; there are forests mature, in which Uncle Sam is harvesting timber in which the forestry service is working out experiment; there are areas over which great forest fires have swept, such desolate places; there are patches of this sort in which Uncle Sam is sowing pine seed, that the people of the coming generations may have timber for their homes and snow for irrigation; there are trails or drives through all these forests; there are large mountain streams, with flow sufficient, and fall enough for power purposes; there are water-falls of great beauty; there are streams that roar like the forest in a wind; there are trout streams that make sport for the anglers; (a private fish hatchery in the Park supplies the streams with trout). There are meadows as level as any you ever saw; there are slopes so steep they cannot be scaled; there are deep canons and the highest peaks of the continent; there are glaciers of ice and snow, and springs of water the temperature of which is never above 28 degrees.

You can live in a cottage and do your own housekeeping, or you can live in a tent or a wagon. You can live in a rustic hotel or you can live in a hotel equal to the best in Chicago or New York.

You can live the easy, comfortable way, not “dressed up.” You need never wear a white shirt if you do not wish. You can live at another place where society and fashion hold sway. You can play golf, tennis, or croquet; you can hunt, fish or swim. You can drive to dozens of places frqm 4 to 20 miles distant. There are automobiles for hire in the Park. You can go horseback over trails where carriages and automobiles can not go. You can follow trails afoot, to mountain tops and glaciers; to sources of mountain streams. You can climb to places no one has ever been. Or you can sit on the mountain side and paint, or look and dream. The possibilities are limited only -by your time and inclination.

A stay in the Park need not be expensive. The trip from the railroad and back will cost $7.00, but it means 70 miles of wonderful scenery. Board and room with modern conveniences, may be had for from SIO.OO a week to SIO.OO a day. Teams, automobiles and horses cost per day about the same as elsewhere. Going with a party of five, it need not cost more than a dollar a day per person. Guides may be secured for five dollars a day. So why not try Estes Park, this summer? I am sure that you will not be sorry if you do. I should be pleased to give any one interested further information. Bulletins of information may be secured of the Burlington Route, Chicago, or of the Colorado & Southern, Denver; and of the Stead and Stanley hotels of Estes Park. Very truly yours,

B. F. COEN.