My Staycation July 2020. Finding places to be outside during the pandemic.

On my second staycation I visited the gardens again.

It was nice to see the humming bird and all the summer flowers.

We actually saw a humming bird at our house,

so I am now going to try out feeding them.

My favorite little spot by the stream with all the wildflowers in bloom.

I like the bike, but I think the wart hog here was better,

I finally did find where it is now in the garden, but the

photo I took was not great.

We went to Bicentennial park in Provo. 

I was hoping for a long shaded walk, it was shaded,

but very short. The cool thing was all the

interesting dragonflies.

I love going out and seeing things in nature.

This is what the board walk looks like. 

The nice thing was it wasn't crowded. 

I got some good bug photos.  

After walking around for awhile we set up some

beach chairs under a big pine tree, and sat in the 

shade looking at this beautiful view. 

I nice relaxing morning. We will probably come back

sometime with a picnic lunch.

Our other favorite place to go and sit is

at Utah Lake.  We go listen to music and watch the sunset.

There are lots of interesting birds to see,

and often the fish will jump out of the water.

I spent a lot of my vacation working around the house.

I am pleased with all the interesting flowers growing in my

own backyard this year.  I planted a bunch of wildflower seed packets.

This is bee bomb.

I also have been getting my house more organized.

I watched a bunch of movies that take place in England and

Ireland for my pretend vacation. I have also been 

doing family history for ancestors in these areas.

We then did this hike, the Stewart Falls Trail.

It was a longer hike, there were 

some steep parts, but the falls at the end were cool to see.

You can even go under them if you want to.

My husband did, I did not.  The water was really cold.

Lots of beautiful views on the trail.

The trail is very narrow in places, and

very rocky in places too. 

It was really dusty, when we got home we

were covered in dirt. The dirt went 

through our shoes and socks, we were a dirty mess!

I loved this hike and can't wait to find

more to do, and most likely will do this

one again.

Oh look his shadow is kissing my shadow.

Some people were brave and rode horses on the trail.

I don't think I would be that brave!

Information about the trail.  I'm going to get the all

trails app so we can have more hiking adventures.

Another thing we have started doing is playing scrabble. 

My husband thought that this board was the perfect game. 

It will be awhile before I have another vacation.  I'm glad I took

time off as this pandemic causes stress and I felt so much more

relaxed when I went back to work.   We get extra money every so

many weeks for working as essential workers, I would rather

they give paid days off instead of extra money.  I would like some days

off where I don't have to wear a mask.

As I put the photo's together for these past two blogs I realized I have a lot of

pretty photos that I have not put in blog posts.

I think I will do a blog with photos and talk a bit about the pandemic and 

life.

Well hope you are safe and well.

G.G.

My Staycation Adventure.June 2020

In June I took a much needed staycation.

The pandemic causes stress. 

My job at the grocery store used to be so stress free,

and then Covid-19 came along and there is just

stress. So I took a week off to rest and do things that

were a little stress free.

I went walking at the gardens.

It was nice to see all the flowers in bloom.

Last year I walked the gardens every week.

This year that is not happening.

I just don't want to be around a lot of people when I am

not working.  

So while I enjoy walking the gardens,

I have found a new joy in growing my own.

This is a pretty little flower.

On my staycation I pretended that I went to Scotland.

What helps is that I follow a lot of people on Instagram

who are from Scotland.  So everyday I get to 

see beautiful photos of castles and places in Scotland.

I had a tea party with my family.  Do you 

see Dynamite in the background?

She was not happy that she was left out of the tea party.

We actually had hot chocolate instead of tea.

I also read a bunch of books that were took place

in Scotland and also watched a few documentaries 

about places in Scotland.

We also took my son to the aquarium.

This was one of his Christmas presents.

I liked the poison dart frogs.

It was interesting going to the Aquarium in

a pandemic.  Everyone had masks on.

You were supposed to social distance,

but people were not as good about that

as they could have been.

There were a lot more people there

than I thought would be there.

It was nice though to see the different 

animals and fish and to learn about the world.

We spent about 4 hours walking around.

I thought this deep sea fish painting was cool.

I tried to do a selfie, my mask kind of glows.

Watching fish and jelly fish float around is relaxing. 

This octopus was at the edge of his tank when I first walked up,

it moved all the way to the middle so I could see it,

or perhaps so it could see me.

I thought these ducks were pretty.  They were

not very happy with each other.  The boy was being a bit bossy to the lady duck.

We also went hiking.  Utah has tons of different

hiking trails.  You need to read up about the trails before going on them though.

This was the Horse Tail falls trail.  It was probably

not the best first hike for me.  It was very steep and

we did not make it all the way to the falls.

It gave me an idea of how much I have to work out

on the treadmill at home though.  I now do an incline of

13 with a backpack on filled with what I would carry on a hike.

Walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes this way gives me a 

good workout.

I saw lots of wild flowers, and my son and husband 

saw a rattle snake.  It was a bit in the woods

which I was thankful for.

Here is a chipmunk.  It is nice to get out 

and be away from everything,

There was a beautiful view.

Our next hike was the Battle Creek Falls Trail.

I did much better on this hike.

It wasn't as steep and it was a shorter trail.

Here is the view from the top of the trail.

A view of the falls.

There were people repelling.

It's cool that you can go right up to the bottom of the falls.

This was a beautiful hike.

Oh look our shadows are kissing.

There were many things I wanted to do this summer that I just didn't get to do.

My daughter had wanted to study abroad in Japan, but instead she is 

doing zoom calls with a person from Japan that is teaching her how to speak better and they talk about places to visit when she eventually goes. 

My husband was supposed to go back to New Jersey this summer but that isn't happening.

The one nice thing about a staycation is that I pretend I am gone somewhere,

and then I am home and getting things cleaned and organized.

This was a much needed break from work.  I finally can go into work and

not feel stressed. 

My next staycation is to England and Ireland.

What are you doing this summer?

Did you have plans that were cancelled due to the pandemic?

Hope you are safe and well.

G.G.