Well… here we are on Day 1 of “social distancing,” a term many of us hadn’t heard of two weeks ago, yet it has become what all of us must strive for during the foreseeable future. We are busy reading books, getting creative, trying to find groceries in the empty stores, cleaning house, breaking the news to the kids that it’s not a snow day where we can invite all their friends over to play, preparing to hunker down for weeks on end, and finally…. cancelling not ONE, but TWO failed spring break plans. Vacation 1 was to be an epic trip to Thailand (which was to have a layover in China, so our flight was cancelled well over a month ago). Vacation 2 was our original plan, Disney World, which we had actually booked back in September, so naturally when Thailand was cancelled, it was an exciting second option. Well, Disney World announced their closing on Thursday, our schools were all closed by Friday, and things are continuing to progress and change by the minute. None of this is any surprise to us anymore. Now, we find ourselves thankful to be in a home we love, putting together that Disney castle we didn’t get to see in real life (thanks to Grandpa for brightening our week) .

With newly found time on our hands, I decided it might get our anxious minds off all the craziness to go back to the summer and catch up on all the blogging and photobooks we haven’t had time for. After leaving Lake Powell, we headed over to Provo to check out Diamond Fork Hot Springs, somewhere that looked as epic as family favorite Havasu Falls, but ended up more like discovering that the glass beach in California had no more sea glass on it because everyone had taken it away in truck loads. Sometimes these places we see on Instagram turn out to be like that. We weren’t as surprised this time because we have learned to expect the unexpected.

We stayed at what looked like a nice campground near Provo, which unfortunately ended up being infested by mosquitoes. The saving grace was the nice pool. Like everything else, sometimes you just have to jump right in.

The next day, we headed off down the trail on a busy Sunday, with an overly crowded trailhead, so we kind of knew our destination would not look like photo 1 (yet we still brought the drone, just in case). What we did found was photo 2: a very overly crowded swimming hole, which had none of the color of the first picture due to heavy spring snow melt.

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We are always so thankful to get to spend our time traveling, and while an overly crowded creek wasn’t what we had hoped and planned for, we jumped in like everyone else and tried to remember that even though it wasn’t what we had thought it would be, we would still make the best of OUR experience, and we will always remember it.

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We didn’t stay long, but the hike was nice, and we enjoyed seeing the springs and the falls. Someday, maybe we will return on a weekday in Winter and see something more like the amazing Instagram pix 😉

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For now, with all that is happening in the world, this small part of our travels is a good reminder to expect the unexpected. I never expected to see a pandemic in our lifetime, but here we all are living it together (but also totally apart), the most uncomfortable most of us Americans have ever been. While the tragedy all around us is just that, we have to look for those silver linings to keep afloat. For now, we can all hope that the time home with our loved ones is a gentle reminder to slow down, think of others, and appreciate all we have. Let us all use this time to soak it up, just like those hot springs, and remember to appreciate each other while doing all the things we haven’t been able to find time for. Love to all!