Maybe Alice’s White Rabbit did take a sabbatical after the adventures of the book. And if he did, we imagine he might have scampered straight toward the Rabbit Ears Motel of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where he would be treated like royalty.
The Rabbit Ears is rightly famous, and so is its namesake terrain: Located at the roof of the Rockies, this long-standing family motel shares a moniker with Rabbit Ears Pass, the southernmost of three geological gateways across the Continental Divide. The gently sloping crossing to the Yampa River Valley, in turn, earned its name from Rabbit Ears Peak, the remnants of an ancient volcanic plug, shaped in two great columns that stick straight up like the ears on Bugs Bunny’s head.
The motel’s first ten rooms were built in 1953, during the postwar travel boom… At the time of the motel’s opening, its iconic rabbit sign was animated: Chase lights winked across the big red arrow that has since turned pink. The eyes of the giant white bunny flashed blue from side to side as if to say to the harried traveler, “It’s getting late, so why not stop here?” In 2003, its sign was placed on the Routt County Historic Register. So hop by for a bit of well-earned rest.
