Kyle and I were excited for our first trip of 2019, visiting friends who live just outside of Phoenix. We’ve been visiting every spring for the past few years and it’s become somewhat of an annual tradition to stay for a long weekend. Sometime last year, our friends purchased a 4-seater RZR (ATV) so we were planning on spending an entire day out in the desert 4-wheeling, sight-seeing, and searching for gold. And of course our other full day would have to be spent hiking!

Friday was spent just traveling. It’s amazing how much time is required for a simple 1.5 hour flight. Most of the day was gone by the time we arrived at our friends’ house outside Phoenix. An hour or two later, we drove back into Phoenix to have dinner with some of their other friends who were also in town and that somehow completed an entire day!

On Saturday, Nicolette had to work so Ryan took me, Kyle, and their son Cason out in the RZR to bum around for the day.

Side note: Nicolette is an AMAZING photographer and you should absolutely book her for your wedding or other occasion! She has traveled all over the world photographing her clients. She came to Colorado not once, but TWICE, to photograph our engagement and elopement. She is also a fantastic hair stylist and did my hair for both of those sessions as well!

But back to this trip! Our friends live right on the edge of the Phoenix metro area, with public desert land right in front of their house. This is super neat in general, but this also means that the 4×4 trails leading into the desert are easily accessible directly from their neighborhood. I assumed we’d have to trailer the RZR to a trailhead, but we were able to drive directly from their home into the desert.

We followed 4×4 trails for about 2 hours, and eventually drove along Castle and Cow Creeks up into the mountains where we found a pretty spot to have lunch and look for gold. We had borrowed a few metal detectors from Nicolette’s dad and the boys were convinced that they were going to find a giant gold nugget.

We didn’t luck out and find any gold, but we did find some old car parts and cool rocks and minerals. We were almost ready to head home when Ryan spotted a pill bottle in a hole in a rock wall 10-12 feet off the ground. We could see a dollar bill inside! Buried treasure?

Nope! A geocache! The boys held Cason up but the bottle was wedged in too tight and he couldn’t get it, so Ryan pulled up the RZR and climbed up to pull it out. We left everything inside for the next person to find, as well as a bright blue piece of chrysocolla we had found. It was fun finding a geocache without even trying!

After that, we packed up and headed back home to get ready for Sunday’s hike!

Monday was another travel day, but finally we were back home and cuddling our dogs. A successful long weekend in the desert!

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Chelsea

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