Fifth Water Hot Springs - Diamond Fork Canyon (Utah)

Yesterday was Memorial Day.  My wife is always looking for an excuse to get my fat gut off the sofa and out into the wilderness.  So she decided to take us on a hike up to the Fifth Water Hot Springs - Diamond Fork Canyon.  It is about two miles up to the hot springs and the hike is all up hill...  You can ride a bicycle up the trail, but the trail is narrow in many places.  Make sure if you do this hike, do it early in the morning and take plenty of water with you.  We didn't take sufficient amount of water with us, but we were OK.  Yesterday was nuts.  There was an over abundance of people on the trail and at the hot sprints.  Parking was non-existent.

The hike up took quite a while.  I would venture a guess at 90 to 120 minutes.  The springs are interesting.  There is one water source where the water is very hot and then there is freezing cold water coming down from the mountain.  There are some of these pools where the hot and cold water mix.  What was interesting is the cold water was on the bottom and the warm/hot water was on the top.  If you mixed them together, you had barely warm water.  It is weird to feel cold water on you foot and on you knee you have 100 degree F water.  Just an interesting phenomena.  I wish I had some photos to share, but I chose not to pack the DSLR.  We packed the "water" camera, but I'm too lazy to pull the photos off it.

If you are bored and you want a good hike, this is the place to go.  It has lots of little waterfalls.  I wouldn't mind going back and taking my camera and spending some time on the trail photographing the water.  I like long exposure water photos.  They are cool.

Talking to your daughter

Today I worked from home.  My oldest daughter is graduating from high school this year, in about two weeks.  This last semester of high school, she only goes to school every other day.  Today was her "home" day.  During lunch, I talked to her about her future.  This is a rare opportunity.  My daughter is busy with school and work.  We rarely have an opportunity to talk unless it is after 11PM.  It was a good talk.  We talked about getting married and the importance of marrying a good person with similar values.  I also emphasized that you cannot change a person that you marry, nor should you think that you can change them after you marry them.  The only thing you can do is love them and encourage them to do the right thing.  I told her that you don't marry a project.  I'm not into projects.  I'm into having a wife and she should be into having a husband.  Has my wife helped me change?  Absolutely!  But she didn't make me change.  My wife and I have had honest discussions and based on those discussions I made changes in my life so that we can have increased harmony in our marriage.  The change is made out of love, specifically my love towards my wife.

This is such an exciting and wonderful time in life.  It is like the mother bird throwing the young ones out of the nest to help them learn how to fly.  Kids when they reach that last year of high school are ready to be thrown out of the nest.  You hope that you've trained them well enough to be self-sufficient.  You know there will be bumps and bruises along the way.  But you look forward to seeing them soar high in the sky.

In just a few short months, I will have 1/3 of my kids out of the house.  The house is gradually getting bigger.  In less than 10 years, we will be empty nesters.  Wow!