Hey!
My posts are going to probably continue the same pattern that I’ve had for the past few, at least until I’m caught up. A lot of this is just a mental export for myself over the last few years. Ready for July?! Almost. I forgot one last thing that happened at the VERY end of June.
We had been wanting to get into a hybrid-type car for some time. Why? Well with all of the travelings back and forth to California, occasionally Oregon, etc. we figured it would be a good idea to get a hybrid. We looked around and after pretty much giving up on finding a house in Arizona we made the decision to purchase a Prius. Something to know is that any time we get a car, we want all of the bells and whistles it has to offer. It was hard to find a loaded Prius- and we came across this one by accident. We liked the car but were not sure of the color – there was this car they just got and they showed it to us before even cleaning it up. At the time they mentioned that if we traded in our car we could have it for a certain amount (I don’t remember how much, over 10k though). We left and after seeing that the model we looked at had pretty much every available option we returned and said we were interested.
When we returned to the dealership they had marked up the car some 7k higher than what they told us the price would have been. We said we would ONLY be interested if they honored the price they initially quoted us. They ran it up the ladder and they agreed that since they offered it to us at a lower price, they would honor it. Sign sealed – delivered. We checked out on one of the last days of June but didn’t actually take possession of the car until after our 4th of July trip (since we were going to California). Anyway here are some pictures we took when we first got her:
So July was a pretty laid-back month. We were able to travel to California for the 4th. Before the 4th we went to the science museum to go see the Space Shuttle Endeavour (saw it once while it was traveling through Downtown LA but not since it got to the museum). We also took a trip over to Parkfield, CA which is the self-titled “Earthquake Capitol of the World” and even crossed the marked area of the San Andreas fault. On the way back from that we went to the James Dean memorial too. For the 4th we traveled over to a beach in Santa Barbara to watch the fireworks.
After the fireworks, we headed back to Mesa but not without some pit stops. We visited the Saltan Sea during summer (hot and very stinky) on our way to Salvation Mountain. Don’t know what that is? Click here for some reading on it. The place needs to be maintained a little better but the person who made it really did a great job. It is larger than you think and seems to go on forever. The main downfall is that this place is located in the middle of nowhere. You pull up and there are people who live all around the Mountain. Not religious, more like vagabonds. It was interesting, but if you go to visit my advice would be to go when it’s cooler outside so that you can enjoy being outside.
Towards the middle/end of the month, we went back to California to go to Calimigos Ranch with my parents (my dad had gotten tickets each year and we would go), as part of it they had a petting zoo (picture of a cute girl below), free food, and free rides. It was fun – we would also load up with tons of food (pictured below). We also took time to enjoy the sights of the city as you can see as well. Los Angeles is a beautiful city, like most places you really don’t have to look that hard to see it.
While in LA we also decided to go see the new Star Trek Beyond movie at the drive-in. Never a good idea – why? Well, it was around the time Star Trek: Into Darkness was released that we found out we were pregnant. But that was a one-time deal, it surely wouldn’t happen again so we had nothing to worry about. Truth be told, we were trying for another child but for whatever reason, it wasn’t happening. It was at this point that we had pretty much given up on the idea of having a second. Back to talking about the movie: It was fun until the power went out and we had to get a “come next time on us” pass. It is ironic as a movie called “Lights Out” was also showing at a different screen, but our night was literally Star Trek, lights out!
This was all going on while there were raging wildfires near my parent’s house. In the picture below it’s not more than a couple of miles from where they lived. INSANE. In some ways, it felt like I was watching a movie being made.
Finally, we made our way back to Phoenix and ended the month with more storm chasing.
One noteworthy thing I can recall with these photos: If you look at the photo of the city that I took in LA – it was at this time that we were making an offer on a house in Mesa. It was notable because it was one of very few that we found in our price range. He called to tell us we didn’t get the house and that they accepted someone’s offer for the full price in cash. Our realtor was not wanting anything further to do with us and it was here (at Griffith Park) where we ended our dealings with each other. We weren’t happy that he wasn’t working for us and he just wanted a quick paycheck. Thankfully we ended the month with some super shots so we were able to take our minds off of those things for a bit.
August is next!
just Pray
note: this post was published on 07/14/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of July 2016 to keep chronological order.
