Long before this pandemic thing started, I reserved an Air BnB for McGyver and I, for our big 30th anniversary. (yes, I was a child bride and thanks for noticing, lol).

We’ve only gone away twice for our anniversaries. Our first anniversary we spent a few days in San Diego. Our 25th anniversary, McGyver joined me late that night in Philadelphia, for my mom’s funeral service the next day. That definitely didn’t count as a fun trip. With McGyver’s health being the way it is these days, I wanted to do something special and have some wonderful memories together.

The pandemic changed a lot of our planned day trips, but we still went and had fun paddle boarding, hiking, metal-detecting, hiking through lava fields, swimming in creeks, exploring random dirt roads, driving through Zion, walking through gardens, stopping at every turnoff to enjoy the view, walking upstream, climb dirt roads in the dark for night photography, and a whole lot of other things. I did manage to get a few photos, but not near as much as I had hoped for. It was okay, because we were busy having fun and doing fun things.

Our Air BnB was in Toquerville, Utah and was simply charming and delightful. A creek meandered through the back of the property and went for miles. We walked through the creek while McGyver searched for buried treasure. The kids had bought him a new metal detector for Father’s Day.

Searching for gold in this old mining area

This little lady lived close by and was quite friendly.

I heard of Sand Hollow State Park in S. Utah a few years ago and have wanted to visit. The colorful landscape is incredible in a photo, and breathtaking in person. We spent a day at the beach paddle boarding. We were definitely the oldest people out there, but we held our own.

Although the whole state of Utah is gorgeous, the southern part is my favorite.

You’re welcome that I’m sparing you the photos of me swimming in the creek. :)

The lava fields were particularly interesting to this guy. It was fun walking through, exploring, etc, but it was definitely hard to get a good photo of the lava rocks.

We spent a few hours at Navajo Lake, walking around. It was too breezy to go out on a boat or paddle board.

This abandoned canoe didn’t look so safe…

Living in the city, as we do, we really appreciate the view of a night sky full of stars. I’ve never taken photos before of the night sky and I really wanted to try while we were here. The images aren’t amazing as we weren’t in the right area to get the Milky Way, but I still like what I got. I’m definitely hooked and can’t wait to try again.

Both of us really wanted to visit Zion National Park. That had been on our bucket list for a while. We did get to go through, but honestly, it was such a let-down. The Scenic route was closed, no shuttle busses running, the park was completely overcrowded. We drove up Mt. Carmel Hwy - once you’re on that lane, you can’t go anywhere but with the crowd. We went up and through the tunnel - very cool - and finally found a spot to pull over and get out and look around. What we saw was lovely and unique, but we both had our hearts set on walking through the water at the base of the Narrows. We did enjoy the much cooler air above the tunnel. The rocks there were perfect for exploring, reminded me a lot of the New England Coast of all places ( the formation and layout of the rocks/boulders). We tried multiple times for a selphy but no luck. You’ll have to take our word for it that it was pretty up there.

So that’s just a little bit of our trip. We stopped at got lots of fresh produce, cactus jelly, and cactus wine at farm stands. The wine was a bust. The others, pretty good.

I’m hoping we have another opportunity to travel and explore together next year!

artwork by @saraj8ne

Adventure During #pandemic2020

I’m located in the Las Vegas Valley and travel throughout Nevada, Utah and Arizona