Snowbird. Best place to be!

View from the balcony

Since I have gotten older, I have traveled more and had the yearning to go new places and see new things. I always want to venture out or make new traditions and see new people and places. And then every once in a while, I get to stop, look around me, and see that some of the best places to be are places from my childhood. And that some of my favorite people are from right here in Utah. And that some of the most beautiful things to see are right here around me.
I grew up going every year to our family time-share condo, up in Snowbird. It was always in the beginnings of fall and the leaves were just at their peak of changing. We always attended the Oktoberfest festival, went on hikes, took the tram up to  Mount Baldy, had late night swims and picnics at the little playground near the condo. Everyone around us were hikers, earthy people, athletes and families. I loved going there for a full week and valued the time I spent with family and friends.

My parents offered the week at the condo to Erwin and me. We jumped at the chance to go and sped right up on Friday night. The condo had been remodeled since I was a kid, but everything else was the same. The cement walls, the smells, the feeling. It was so exciting. We certainly enjoyed ourselves and I got to show Erwin lots of stuff and get out and about.

 We went swimming every night and then rested in the wonderful jacuzzi. Monday was our jam packed day as we squished in everything we wanted to do. We started out with a morning hike, which we found out soon enough was one of the hardest trails. It was 7 kilometers and another friendly hiker told us we were only 1/10 of the way to an ending point. We couldn't help but laugh and feel so worn out, since it was all super steep and we kept passing by serious looking hikers. So we turned around and went back, and found all the other easy hike trails that we could have taken, but missed.
We then went and played some tennis. My game was WAY off. So we ended that quickly. :) 

It was then off to Oktoberfest. we went and ate some german food. (erwin didn't like most of it) and listed to some people sing, yodel and watched dancing. We went shopping in all the booths and tent shops and enjoyed looking at all the things on sale.                                


Then it was Tram time! I had forgotten how fun it is to ride, though I still get nervous some times. It looks like a big glass box, that take you up on a cable to the top of the mountain at 11,000 feet. You stand, and while riding up, can see beautiful scenery. We got to the top, and then you could REALLY see everything. The valley, lots of rows of mountains everywhere, trees, rocks, and even snow left over from last winter. Erwin really wanted to go touch the snow...so we hiked all downhill, over tons and tons of rocks and rubble, to get to a huge area of snow. It was fun to see and there were fields of flowers and a lake and lots of small hills. We then had to trek back uphill to the point of the mountain where we first were dropped off. Needless to say, up the steepest part of the mountain, I was gasping and Erwin was pushing me up the hill. Whew!

The Road to Provo!

 We then saw that you could take a ski lift back down the mountain. We didn't realize there was a faster way to get there, so we took the trail we saw that was windy and long and all downhill. We were exhausted by the time we arrived to the lift, and saw a tunnel that couples were casually walking through, to get to the same point we were. Bah! We huffed and puffed our way there, when of course, there was a short cut. We couldn't help but laugh. We enjoyed the hiking though and pushing our bodies in a way we haven’t for a while. Erwin was loving every minute and kept saying how we should camp and hike more. It made me laugh.
 We then took the long ski lift down the mountain back to the condo. The ride was at least 15 minutes long, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. We enjoyed just sitting there and resting our bodies and loving the gorgeous scenery.

It was of course ended with swim time and a warm Jacuzzi. Our muscles were sore, but we were super happy.

 

We touched snow. Hard hike, but worth it.

It was a good time. We enjoyed the fresh air, the beautiful scenery and time to really work our bodies and laugh a lot. It was another nice break and little vacation to have, and we feel blessed.