Bluebell camping ground presents itself as a rustic stop for travelers near Sidewinder, Colorado, but its intermittent public operation masks its real purpose: it shelters the True Knot. Its position on the former site of the burned Overlook Hotel makes it more than a concealed base. For Dan Torrance, the campground is evidence that the evil associated with the hotel endured its destruction and may draw him back into danger.

Setting and Public Face

A dirt road branches north from the highway about twenty miles from the point where the Eastern Slope becomes the Western. A wooden sign welcomes travelers to Bluebell camping ground, but locals know that the gate is often shut, sometimes marked closed until further notice. Sidewinder residents would prefer it open whenever the upcountry roads are clear of snow; they had hoped the campground would restore some of the commerce once brought by the Overlook Hotel, even if campers spend less than hotel guests.

The campground’s uncertain business fuels local suspicion. Many residents assume it is a rich corporation’s tax shelter and a designated money-loser. Their guess is partly right: it is a haven, but the corporation it protects is the True Knot. When the group is in residence, its members’ RVs are the only ones in the large parking lot, with Rose the Hat’s EarthCruiser standing tallest among them.

The True Knot’s Refuge

The public-facing Bluebell Campground Lodge once served meals and hosted bingo, card parties, and weekend dances when the campground was open. On a September evening, however, nine members of the True Knot gathered inside the lodge to conduct business of a different kind. The occasional welcome offered to ordinary visitors therefore obscures the group’s private use of the property: Bluebell camping ground can appear to be a struggling tourist business while functioning as a secluded meeting place for the True Knot.

Revelation and Connection to the Overlook

Abra identifies the group’s property to Dan and John as a campground near Sidewinder, beside the Sam’s Supermarket, where Rose and the True Knot are gathered. She hesitates over its name, recalling it as Bluebird or perhaps Bluebell, but is certain that the group owns it. Her information turns Dan’s memory of Dick Hallorann speaking through Eleanor Ouellette’s dead mouth into an answer: the empty devils are in his childhood.

Dan recognizes that the campground stands where the Overlook Hotel stood. The hotel has been burned flat, but its evil, in his understanding, was not burned away; as a child, he had been visited by revenants that escaped. He concludes that he will have to return to the campground, probably sooner rather than later. The location thus joins the True Knot’s present refuge to Dan’s childhood haunting and foreshadows his return to the site where the Overlook’s history remains active.