Estes Park Busier Than Expected Memorial Day Weekend As Town Reopens Businesses
ESTES PARK, Colo. (CBS4) - Memorial Day Weekend is the traditional kickoff for summer and this year it's also when Estes Park has been granted permission to reopen food and entertainment venues.
Rocky Mountain National Park will begin a phased reopening on May 27, two days after the holiday. Despite the fact that the park remains closed, CBS4's Makenzie O'Keefe found a busy tourist when she visited Estes Park on Sunday.
The Colorado Cherry Company is a family-owned, four generation businesses that sells homemade pies and other desserts including from a store on Highway 34 as you head into Estes Park.
"We were anticipating a decrease in sales, in traffic for sure," said owner Kristi Lehnert.
"Rocky Mountain National Park is still not open and so we didn't really think we'd see nearly the volume we would see in a normal year."
Despite no indoor seating and a limit on the number of people allowed inside the shop at one time, the weekend has been better than expected.
"It was very busy. We were pleasantly surprised to say the least. There were people from Texas and Illinois and Georgia. Our ovens ran all day."
In downtown Estes Park, shoppers were in and out of businesses, following the mandate to wear masks both inside and outside.
The vacation may not have been what they planned but both visitors and business owners made the most of the situation.
Visitor Vra Morales said it was just great to get out.
"We were going go hiking but obviously we weren't able to do that but we'll be back in August," she said.
"It's going to be on one of those memories like the floods," Lehnert said, "things that we look back on one day."
