2020 Summer Vacation: 1st & 2nd stops: Coopers Rock State Forest & Audra State Park

Posted by Da | Monday, July 20, 2020 | 0 comments

This year has been a very interesting year for our summer vacation. In what could have been a perfect summer vacation planning to Sydney Australia was totally changed due to the Coronavirus Covid19 pandemic.

Since Da returned home from his mission in Sydney Australia, he's always wanted to go back. Two years ago he started to plan to go back to Sydney on the Summer of 2020 to make a 20 year anniversary of mission. He initialized the planning with his companion, Robert Wilson, who also served in the same mission. So their family and our family started to save money aside for the expensive trip. Then in November of 2019, we finally purchased airlines tickets to Sydney as well as AirBnB rooming for the duration of the three week vacation. Our families also started to plan on our visit, where to go to reminisce all the places our mission took us so we can take our families, visit friends, and do all kinds of wonderful things and sightseeing in Sydney. Da started to contact all his friends that he is going back to visit them. Everyone was excited!

Then in January the Coronavirus Covid19 pandemic started in China. Most of the world didn't know much about it but it was spreading very fast in China and then it spread to Europe. We were concerned and kept a close eye on the virus to see how it continued. At the time it didn't impact US yet so we thought the virus can be contained and we wouldn't have a problem. By February it started to spread to US west coast and by the time March comes around it had already spread from the West Coast to East Coast closing down schools, retail/restaurants, churches, airports, and any type of gathering. Everyone was not allowed to go outside, except for food and emergency. I basically shut down the entire country.

Our hopes of going to Sydney were diminished and sadly we had to cancel our flights and AirBnD. Fortunately we got a full refund of the trip.

Another impact of Covid is that it delayed the deadline for filing taxes where it would be normally April 15th, the US government extended it three months to July 15th.

As the Coronavirus continues to spread, the areas where it first hit, west coast, was slowing down and seemed to be able to control the virus. So then we figured we can use the flight credit to fly to west coast and do a driving trip along the west coast since it's something we wanted to do after Abbey has finished filing taxes for her clients on July 17th. We can also visit relatives in San Francisco and then drive up north to visit all the sites and return home from Seattle WA.

Then in May Covid cases slowly started going back up again in the west coast. Da kept a very close eye on the numbers just in case he needed to cancel the west coast trip. The airline had a deadline of June 30th to cancel any flight for a full refund. So on June 30 Monday morning, Covid cases actually spiked up in the west coast and Da, once again had to cancel that trip too. No more flying anywhere.

So Abbey planned a our family trip on July 16th after she finished filing all her clients' taxes. We debated going north to Maine or west to see friends. We kept and eye on covid cases to see where it would spike the most. Gladly we didn't drive to Maine since cases continued to rise mainly in the coastal regions.

So Abbey planned to visit our good friends in Kentucky and Illinois. Along the way, she wanted to hike at the Coopers Rock State Forest, then camp at Audra State Park so I don't have to drive that long period of time. It was beautiful camping right next to the river at Audra State Park.

Going to visit Elaine and Uncle Jo created so many memories and visiting Kylin, Denise and her mom created many many great memories too!

So what turned out from a twenty year return to Sydney Australia with a two year planning, to a west coast trip, to end up being two week road trip that made many great memories too!