A couple of weekends ago I went camping for the first time in my life. Really, the very first time ever. I mean, no big deal right? Wrong! I was excited but the nerve-wrecking part was that we were going to be off-site camping, aka backpacking. There wasn’t going to be any cozy restrooms, electrical hook-ups or any of the usual comforts of living in civilization. Just us, Rusty, a campfire, our tent and the desert.
Recently I’ve been going through my photo passport aka hardrive which is literally thousands of photos deep. It’s such fun looking through almost but not really forgotten memories and bringing them back to life, in the current moment. Back in 2008 we vacationed in Spring Green, Wisconsin at a magical place known as House On The Rock. The short version is it’s an unusual architectural project of Alex Jordan, Jr. whose father was a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The famed architect was never a fan of his father’s and despised Alex’s plans for HOTR but believe me, this place is not to be missed! Continue reading
It’s literally been 10 years since I last hit the slopes, can you believe it? Snowboarding was once one of my biggest passions, or I mean… biggest obsessions. Ever since late elementary school, my family would go up to Northern Michigan every winter holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, President’s Day, etc.) to spend time at the mountains. I started off skiing but eventually decided I wanted to snowboard. Once I made my decision, I didn’t turn back! I used to spend literally hundreds of hours on the slopes over the course of 6 years – wind-chapped nose, red cheeks, purple-bruised booty and all. (Yeah, total nerd!)
After our fun in Prescott, the boyfriend and I headed south to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. We were planning to meetup with our friend Spencer and his gf Andrea, who live in Phoenix, so I decided it was the perfect time to stay at The Saguaro, which I’ve been dying to check out. The bright colors of their Palm Springs location caught my eye when I was in the desert earlier this year for Crafting Community and just had to know what this new boutique hotel was all about.
The hotel is beautiful, with bright pops of color everywhere, art from local artists adoring the walls and great eateries on premises. We caught Happy Hour (Thurs-Sundays 5-7pm) at Distrito which was killer. Plus, I’m just a sucker for a good margarita – $5 a pop at that! We also got the nacho libre to hold us over until dinnertime at Windsor. I have to say, some of the best $5 nachos I’ve had in a while. #yum!
For the boyfriend’s birthday last month (holy crap, has it been that long?!) we took a little journey down to Arizona for a few days. We had some airline miles to use up and an itch to go to the desert. Plus, the boy’s amazing grandparents live down there and always show us the coolest places we’d never know about. I was dreading the heat but luckily Prescott is located in the mountains of Arizona, where it actually snows during the winter, so it wasn’t as hot as being in Phoenix.
His grandparents drove us through some really questionable roads – SO much fun – giving a whole new meaning to off roading for me (oy, vey!). We traversed through the backwoods of Prescott that intertwined with the Prescott National Forest. I was completely fascinated with the huge line of potted mailboxes next to a “neighborhood” directory made completely of carved wood. I clearly had stepped into another world. Oh, and not to mention the Pink Car Road, marked by this pepto pink bug shell (which looks to have a bazillion gunshot holes in it) – a local relic of sorts (read here about the mishap encounter it had with some kids last year). We ended the day with a visit to a few lakes - Watson Lake and Goldwater Lake to be exact – which were both absolutely picture perfect!
