The Tourists are Coming

Dick Mulhern helps us kick off the 2025 tourist season with a cartoon riff of Paul Revere’s famous Midnight Ride, and with the help of ChatGPT, we would like to share this fun little verse.

The Tourists Are Coming to Estes Park
(In the mode of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride”)

Listen, my friends, and you shall hear
Of the seasonal march that draws ever near—
When tires roll west on a winding track,
And the Rockies echo with gear-packed packs.
In the month of May, when the elk horns shed,
And the peaks still cradle their snowy bed,
From Denver’s sprawl to the canyon’s bend,
The tourists come ‘round every turn and end.

He said to his friend, “If the weather be fair,
And the clouds hang light in the mountain air,
Climb to the hill where the Stanley stands,
And look to the lot with your sun-shielded hands.
If the Subarus come by land or lease,
Winding slow like a line of geese,
Hang a fleece from the porch for the trail to know,
And I shall be ready to greet them below.”

Then he said goodnight and strapped on his boots,
Dodging the jays and the chipmunk’s hoots,
Through whispering pines and columbine fair,
With marmots whistling a traveler’s prayer—
Silently stealthy, he watched and roamed
Past cabins shuttered and elk that combed
Through lawns of green and wildflower beds,
Where picnic ghosts shook their checkered spreads.

Meanwhile, his friend, with a cautious eye,
Watched the road where the valleys lie,
And lo! like ants on a granite face,
Came vans and wagons in steady pace—
From Kansas plains and Texas dust,
From Minnesotan lakes and Utah’s crust,
All bound for Trail Ridge and Bear Lake’s shore,
Where awe is the law and wanderers pour.

Then he sprang to his feet and raced through town,
Past souvenir shops and hats of crown,
Past ice cream lines and hiking poles,
Past maps of trails and fishing holes—
“To the meadows! The tourists are near!
With their selfies staged and rented gear!”
And the town it stirred as he passed the news,
While the deer looked up from the morning dews.

So through the park rides the warning true,
In whispers of wind and skies of blue—
A herald cry from glade to glen:
“The tourists are coming! Again! Again!”
And still, when the aspens catch golden light,
And the campsites blaze through the star-kissed night,
You’ll hear in the hush of the summer dark:
The tourists are coming to Estes Park.