Souvenirs From The Road: God's Beautiful Country!

After spending Sunday morning attending church, we decided to do a little jeep driving. Right outside of South Fork is a forestry service road to Beaver Creek Reservoir. Our first stop was at Million Reservoir (wonder how it got it's name!). It's a beautiful little reservoir close to town, nestled between trees and hills.

Folks around here call these weeds. They remind me of my Ballerina Rose.

Million Reservoir

We continued on down the road to Beaver Creek Reservoir. Some of the peeps from the campground fish here and continually limit out. There's a boat ramp here and a nice campground before you get to the reservoir.

Beaver Creek

Beaver Creek Reservoir

We drove back to Hwy. 160 and headed towards Wolf Creek Pass. The other day Ron drove Rodney (owner of the campground) and his friend to Big Meadow. They were going to camp out and hike 10 miles back down to the highway. Ron said it was a pretty drive and it was! Big Meadows is located in the San Juan Mountains and is about 11 miles from South Fork. It's lightly wooded and creates a beautiful meadow look and great views of Big Meadows Reservoir.

Had to brake for the bird crossing!

Fire scars from 2013

Big Meadow Reservoir

Creek coming out of the reservoir

We continued on down the road (FSR 430) to Shaw Lake and then Hunters Lake (a short hike to see this lake). Stunning scenery. We drove on down farther until you couldn't drive anymore, turned around and headed home.

Monday July 2 found us up bright and early to head out of the park at 8:00 a.m. with a group of 11 to go ATV'ing and 4 wheeling in the beautiful Colorado backcountry. We are so thankful that the folks here at Alpine Trails RV Park are so good to us. Check out our ride for the day - nicknamed "Ole Yeller" because it has ridden many a mile out here by many different people.

Our ride! Old Yeller!

We look a little scary!

Our destination for the day was the community of Platoro where it is rumored there's a restaurant with awesome burgers and homemade French fries. The ATV's are trailered to a parking spot on Park Creek Rd/FSR 380. Check out this group!

Lots and lots of beautiful scenery here. Once we got into the alpine meadow the scenery gave us so many beautiful wildflowers to look at. I think I've mentioned that there is a severe drought here. As a matter of fact into Stage 2 (if you're a smoker you cannot smoke outside, for example). Here's a collage of some of the wildflowers we saw.

I really enjoyed riding the 4-wheeler. It was comfortable and we didn't get quite as dusty, believe it or not. But it also made room for beautiful views. A little picture overload, but here's what our day looked like. I love God's creation!

As you can see, it can get a little dusty!

All the cows up here are butterball fat!

Look hard and you will see deer running!

I wish that little cabin was ours!

You come to a fork in the road and you take FSR 380 (about 15 miles down the road). We went over Elwood Pass and Stunner Campground (which will be a beautiful place to pitch a tent when those aspen trees start turning colors). The Platoro reservoir is located next to town. We didn't drive down to it, but it sure looked beautiful. It's about 990 acres and the elevation is 10,000 feet. We ate at the lodge and the burgers did not disappoint. Our ride today was roughly 75 miles. Sure didn't seem like it though!

These alpine lakes are beautiful1

There's lots of ore in these mountains.

Beautiful fields of daisies

Looking down on Pletora.

Lunch stop!

Brad and Rhonda being goofy.

Playground equipment.

South Fork celebrates July 4 on July 3. We checked out the Farmers Market. Then there was a parade. It was a small town parade, complete with horses, mules, rodeo clowns and a ton of 4-wheelers and ATV's.

Gathering up to watch the parade.

Elk Country Jeep Rentals!

Our July 4th celebrations ended with a hot dog cook-out at the RV Park. Just saying.....the camping guests sure got quiet that afternoon. Must have been a lot of napping going on!