Bertram Adventures

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Road Trip 2014 Utah (Part 1)

I took SO many pictures in Utah. It was hard to pick a few to post! We started out in Moab and loved that town! There were some great western/cowboy shops. Found a beautiful pair of boots--but didn't buy them. We spent two nights in Bowen Motel. Wednesday morning we got up at 5:45 and headed to Arches Natl Park. It is SO interesting! We spent 9 hours driving and hiking. We covered about 8 miles on several hikes to arches including Delicate Arch--a great hike!

That's Don in the arch....gives you an idea of how big it is!

Delicate Arch--beautiful!

Broken Arch

Incredible vistas in Utah!

This is Balance Rock (on the right). Just Balance Rock (on top) is 55 feet high and weighs 3500 tons!

Don in another arch.

I love the swirls in this huge rock mountain.

Next stop was Canyonlands National Park. Not far away from Arches but so very different. We hike the white Rim Overlook Trail, 3 miles round trip. Beautiful views of the canyonlands!

I love the colors in these rocks

Next was on to Goblin Valley State Park. It was recommended to us by another camper. What a unique surprise it was! Erosion has designed these little goblin-like formations. They are big and cover a very wide area. We were the only people there except for a guy and his dogs.

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This man (cool pants, dude!) was there with his 3 Spanish Waterdogs. They were so funny and playful and their fur was solid dreadlocks!

As you can see they goblins are big!

And they just go on and on.


I believe these are called the Three Kings.

Our plan was to drive to Capital Reef National Park--just a short drive--and camp out for a couple of nights. But the campground was full! We drove on Scenic Byway 12. It was an amazing drive with sheer dropoffs, some snow and groves of aspens. We were driving to Zion, but it was too far so we stayed at a little cabin a few hours away. We arrived at Zion at 9:30 am and drove straight to the campground to find a spot. It was full so we just had to drive around and wait until we saw someone leaving their site. Thankfully, we got a great site about the same time the camp host put up the "Campground Full" sign.


Our campsite in Zion. The mountains are on the right behind the trees. Beautiful!	Many more Zion pick coming on Part 2

Monday, May 19, 2014

Road Trip 2014 - Colorado

After Branson Don and I headed west to spend a week at Grand Timber Lodge in Breckenridge. On the way we thought we would drive through Rocky Mountain Natl Park on Trail Ridge Dr.--not realizing that it isn't even open yet! The Visitor's Center is still completely covered with snow--roof and all! Our week in Breck started very cold! It got down to 12 degrees one night and it snowed off and on for the first few days. Later in the week it warmed up and was perfect weather. One day we drove to Leadville. We made 3 trips to Dillon to the Dam Brewery because Don loved the stout and they had great food, too. We enjoyed relaxing, playing dominoes, and watching movies in the room. Our last day we rented bicycles and rode from Breckenridge to Frisco on the Hike and Bike Trail. It was an 18 mile trip.

Here's a few pics....

South of Leadville, CO

A lot of snow!

Bike ride from Breckenridge to Frisco and back!

Mr. Fox visited our room at least 3 times. On the third visit I took a few pictures.

Interesting "snow roll"

We saw so much beautiful scenery in Colorado! The Rockies are just breathtaking. We usually take our road trip in the Fall, so it was great to see the snow, flowing creeks and rivers and waterfalls.

Our campsite at Ridgway State Park north of the Ouray/Telluride area. We had a beautiful site and there were very few campers there so it was quiet.

It was so exciting to get these photos of a bear! He was eating on a very old and dried up carcass just across the road from our campground. We drove over and parked on the side of the road only about 40 yards from him.

Interesting fact!

We loved exploring Ouray. We ate at Brown Dog Pizza and had just about the best pizza ever called Pizza 313...in fact it won #1 Best Pan Pizza in the International Pizza Competition!

This is Telluride! We were told that Oprah just bought about 40 acres on a mountain there.

We visited the newest national park--The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It was beautiful. It has the greatest combination of depth, steepness and narrowness of any canyon in North America. You just look from the edge because it is practically impossible to climb down. We are so glad we stopped there....and we can check off another national park!

A New Adventure--Road Trip 2014-Branson

Our trip began in Branson, MO. We drove to Branson along with the Laniers, Dehmers and Betteses.
Don and I "took one for the team" and went for a time share tour so we could get free tickets to The Haygood's show and golf for the guys!
It was nice being there for a week. The dogwoods were in bloom and beautiful! The Lanier's time share was wonderful. We enjoyed The Haygoods show, rented a pontoon boat on Table Rock Lake--fished and fished but nothing caught! We shopped at all kinds of antique shops and thrift shops and ate at Lambert's--"home of the throwed rolls" in Springfield. The girls had fun at every quilt shop we could find while the guys played golf! Tom's cousin owns The Track. We had a blast driving the race cars up and down the 4-story track and also playing the games in the arcade. After playing at The Track we enjoyed delicious frozen custard at Andy's! We played some 42 and just had a lot of fun together! Seven days went by so quickly...What a great group of friends!