Old Sacramento

My little sister came to visit a while back and we spent the afternoon exploring old Sacramento. 

Super nice day. 

It is a really cool area. Lots of candy shops and places to eat. 

We walked around and looked at the old train station. 

We visited a couple antique shops and then ended the day with an ice cream cone!

Wish my sister lived closer! It was nice to see her, even if it was only a short amount of time. 

Cactus

I think the prettiest thing out in the desert are the cactuses or cacti. 

I had never seen big cacti in person and I was fascinated with them. 

I made my dad stop the truck multiple times so I could jump out and photograph them. 

We even had to pose by a few... 

I also found some little desert flowers. Beautiful against the blue sky. 

Mom exploring. 

Parker, Arizona

Sunday in Arizona amazingly enough did not include Hubby fixing anything. 

We headed toward Parker Arizona around noon to head to a place we had heard of called the Desert Bar. It was about five miles off the main road on a four-wheel drive road. 

Not everyone made it in.... 

It turned out to be a  really cool place. There were abut 200 cars there when we arrived. This place was run off of solar and you could tell it was made by hand. Great food and live music every weekend. 

You had to walk through a covered bridge to enter. 

We kept hearing rumors about how awesome the helicopter tours were so my dad suggested Trevor and I go. Neither of us had ever been in a helicopter, and we were really excited. 

Selfies in the helicopter! 

It was only 8 minutes long but it was so awesome! The helicopter was very small, Hubby sat in front with the pilot and they didn't even have doors. 

Views from the helicopter. 

After the ride of a life time we found a front row seat and watched the band play. They were really good, playing old rock classics. I think the most entertainment was watching all the old people get so into the music, just dancing away. 

On the way back to camp we stopped for a quick snack. Really Good, Fresh Jerky. 

Also stopped to check out a, well I'm not sure what to call it. I think it was a mix of a swap meet and look at all my garbage out for display. This guy had everything for sale. Rocks, old bop-it's, broken appliances, and I could go on forever. 

It was a short weekend trip but very fun and memorable. We will always have lots of stories to tell from this weekend! 

Road Trip to Arizona

Last weekend my parents picked us up on their way down from Oregon for a quick road trip to Arizona. 

Quick for us. They are still there... us young people had to go back to work. 

*Disclaimer: this story is told from the point of view of a UNmechanically inclined girl*

It was quite a trip down there, what was suppose to be a 10 hour drive turned into about 22 hours. 

We left Friday after work and drove as far as we could, we found a rest area at 1 AM outside Riverside, CA. After a few short hours of sleep we got back on the road. Ten minutes later, around 7 AM we were on the side of the road. The back axle on the trailer decided to come off. We tried calling a couple tow trucks but nobody wants to come haul a 40 foot fifth-wheel trailer on a Sunday morning. That's where my genius Macgyver husband comes into to play. 

The only thing that stopped the axle from falling completely off was a set of stairs. All my dad had for tools was a hammer and a chainsaw wrench. They jacked the trailer up, used wood blocks to get the weight off the axles and then pushed the axle back into place. 

As you can see from the photo below, the bolt broke. They used a bunch of nails to replace the bolt, then duct taped and roped it all together. That got us down the freeway to a napa, where hubby proceeded to buy the tools my dad didn't bring and the bolt to correctly fix the axle. 

A few hours later, we arrived at our destination... Quartzsite, Arizona. 

Not a whole lot there during March.... I was told that this place was filled with thousands of retired people in their motor homes and the mecca for swap meets. In March, there are just a few stray retired people left. We still had lots of fun though. 

After setting up camp, my dad, hubby, and I decided to go on a quick trip through the desert exploring on the new UTV. 

The odometer on said zero when we left camp, three miles later we had to pull the fire extinguisher out. The winch was not installed properly which led to a electrical fire. We were stranded out in the middle of the desert, with about 30 minutes until dark... I started running through the desert back towards the main road. It was about a 10 or 15 minute hike back to the gravel road. Did I mention I was wearing TOMS with holes in the toes? Not great hiking shoes. Once I made it to the main road panting because I am horribly out of shape, hubby called and said he got it working again. So I ran for nothing.... 

While waiting for the boys to come pick me up I took a few selfies and admired the beautiful sunset. 

The next morning my dad was drinking coffee out of the perfect cup... 

It says "If it ain't broke, it ain't ours"

Pretty much sums up our Saturday! 

This hubby of mine saved the day with all of his genius mechanical mind skills! 

Don't worry... Sunday (blog post coming soon) was much less uneventful in the break-down department.