A week after we returned from vacation some friends of ours invited us to go four wheeling with them up in mountains. It was supposed to be pretty warm (40’s which is warm for the middle of March here where we live) so it sounded like a nice opportunity to get out of the house for a few hours. First we met for breakfast. You can see the three JEEPS above. The other people were *driving* their JEEPS. Not us, we have to pull ours behind our pickup until we get to the mountains… something about the tires being too big to run on the highway.

See the snow in this picture? That’s where we’re headed. EGADS. I didn’t even bring a winter coat along. I thought it was supposed to be WARM where we are going.. I guess I think I’m still in the Caribbean (LOL).

We travel a little rough paved road after we leave the highway.

The pavement turns to gravel…
When the road gets rough enough we stop to unload our JEEP.

And away we go. I’m not particularly fond of heights. As we started heading up this mountain I was reminded of the conversation we had with Josh before we left. I had asked Tim if we were going to be climbing any steep hills and he said no… looking at Josh… who started LAUGHING! That should have been my first clue that there were going to be hills and they were probably going to be STEEP!

Here’s my dh! This is HIS kind of vacation!!! He enjoyed our cruise, but he’s just as happy out here in the boonies! Hmmm… next time we need to find a four wheeling excursion somewhere… The road has narrowed considerably now.
We each take turns leading. Whenever there is a little place to pull off then the next JEEP in line goes on ahead and the first one brings up the rear. And, the rotation continues all the way up the hill.

Looking back down to see how far we’ve already come. WOW… that’s a BIG LONG mountain range over yonder. I hadn’t noticed that when we were at the foot of the mountain we were climbing.

Now we’ve gone high enough to get into the trees! We’re hoping to see some wildlife along the way.

Now we’re in the snow and, of course, the guys are liking the deteriorating road conditions!

The muddier the better I think!

Look at those tires! It seems like there is some reward in how much mud one can collect on tires.

We stopped here for a short break before proceeding up the mountain.

The guys had to hike down and check out some tracks they saw. They’re hoping we might see a bear just coming out of hibernation… hmmmm…. the rest of the JEEPS have hard sides and tops. WE, otoh, do NOT! I don’t mind seeing a bear from a distance, but I’m hoping we don’t see one too close up.. especially if they’re HUNGRY!

The guys decided this would be the first annual JEEP trek to these mountains. Evidently, there are a LOT of trails up here. We didn’t take the trail that they had originally mapped out. But, this one ended up being just fine. There is another trail further over that is supposedly closer to the wild horses that run in these mountains. It would be fun to see them sometime.

Remember I mentioned our doors up above? Well… here’s a close up shot of how I have to shut the door (LOL)! Yep… the door is shut with a bungee strap and hook.

Now we’re almost to the top of where we’re going.

On second thought… they decided to go up a little further yet. It might not look to steep looking forward and from behind a camera, but….

looking back you can see just how high we’ve gone….. we started out way below the trees that you can see in the middle of the photo…. way down past the lake just to the back and right of those trees.. it’s a LONG WAYS down there! It took us nearly 2 hours to get up this high.

Definitely a cool breeze up here!

We made it to the top!

Tim grabbed his binoculars and was hoping to find something in the caves that we saw across the way. He even spotted an ice cave of some sort.

This is the view from the mountains we are in looking across the valley to the mountains on the other side.
We packed our lunch and had a picnic up there at the top of the mountains. We set everything out on the back of our JEEP! Fried chicken, potato salad, and more.

BRRRR…..I had to borrow a coat from one of the other couples! I zipped down our window to say hello! It really wasn’t as cold as it looks because Tim had the heat turned on full blast! That was nice… it kept my feet warm and that pretty much kept the rest of my body warm.
Now we’re headed back down the mountain.

Going up wasn’t so bad… going down is another story. Remember I’m not particularly fond of heights. Then, the engine started to stall and Tim did this little trick on the pedals:

Two feet on the brake and a heel on the gas! YIKES! I can’t watch. We’ve come to a fork in the road. I can’t get over how many trails there are up here. We really should bring the boys and the four wheelers this spring. They would LOVE It up here.

Now the road is REALLY MUDDY because it has warmed up enough for the frost to start coming out of the ground.

Really.. with views like this I’m not sure we need to go to another country four wheeling. This is in our backyard so to speak. It’s about two hours from our home.

MORE MUD! Did someone say this is mud season? You know the season between winter and spring?

These deer are the only animals we saw all day long.

There is a big cave down there if you look closely in the middle of the photo and behind the trees.

We had mud FLYING EVERYWHERE when Tim spun out a couple of times. Here’s a piece of this clay like mud on the steering wheel. And, below, I still can’t get over the beautiful colors in these mountains!

Here is the bush with the berries that I used as a 365 picture below. The bush doesn’t look like much until you get up close and see the berries. Then, it’s VERY PRETTY, imo.

There are some unique crevices and rocks in these mountains. This appears to be a deep gorge of some sort.

LOOK! NO HANDS!

I need to get the picture of us coming down with our hands in the air… reminds me of a Disney World ride (LOL). More cool rocks

I don’t know what this is, but I sure liked it! There were lots of these things up there. It appears to be a single stem that just sort of grows off to the side instead of straight up.

Remember the hook and bungee strap we have to use to secure the door? My finger got caught in it! OUCH!

I really like these rocks! They remind me of the balancing rock or whatever it’s call in Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. Maybe Kristine will tell me the name of that rock since I don’t remember it. Anyway.. these rocks reminded me of it.

So, that’s our Sunday drive. It was a LOT of fun and very quiet! We didn’t take any of the kids with us and it’s amazing how refreshed one comes back from a few hours away. I hope we can do some more four wheeling this spring.