The Weekend of a Lonely Bird, 3-wheeled Car, Feathers, & Faces in Sacramento

I am just now recuperating from a memorable weekend in Sacramento!  Wow, so many good times were had.  Arch, Tonya, and I had an incredible laughter-addictive girlie-weekend.  This trip was meant to relieve some stress and I think that was successfully accomplished!  Yay!

Let me start by saying we flew Allegiant Air- that is a whole story in itself but later I will give you the short story of Allegiant Air!  It was Friday afternoon when we boarded this aircraft and it was announced that TSA was going to be boarding along with us for random security checks...hmmm.  At this point, Arch and I looked at each other with a questioning look.  WTH?  So as we pass the lady who took our boarding passes, she points down to Arch's carry-on bag and yells to the TSA agent, "You want that one?" Arch pauses and I increase my pace down the jetway. "oh crap" I thought...luckily they let her pass on by. 

As we arrive Stockton Metro Airport, our adventure begins.  Tonya, who is Arch's long time friend, who is also our Sacramento-resident tour guide, meets us at the airport to take us to our rental car!  We are about a 45 minute-drive from Sacramento and all I could see when we get off the plane were meadows of green pastures.  I was not used to seeing California this way.  I was more used to traveling to Southern California with the traffic, smog, and tall buildings. 

Maybe an hour later, after a pitstop to the nearest Starbucks, we pull up to Avis Rental Car (which was part rinky-dink car dealership lot and part car rental place), and I spot this blue car! 
Wow!  Please tell me this is not our weekend rental?  But lo and behold I look to the left and we spot 5 Latino Men pushing a Ford down the lot...or please don't tell me that ONE is our car!  Are we in the Twilight Zone yet? We had Arch's husband fooled for about a day and a half telling him that the little blue 3-wheeled car was ours for the weekend.  And he was a bit concerned that the thing didn't come with helmets!!!  It may not have came with helmets but it did come with a rock to ludge under the tire to act as our emergency brake!!! lol

We were grateful that our hotel room was nice, clean, and comfortable!!!

That night we ate at The Hot Italian, a pizza and pannini bar, a swanky place with ultra-hip seating and a really cool atmosphere.  Arch, Tonya, and I met up with Lia who introduced us to the owner and brought us some wine.  The waiters/waitresses wear these really cool tshirts that have italian words on them & we spent pretty much the whole night trying to translate!  We "mangi-d" (or is it mangiare) on a pesto pizza and a prosciutto pizza, but the best part was the dessert!  I may have had a glimpse of heaven- this heavenly baked bread with hazelnut spread sprinkled with powdered sugar and topped with berries is called Zucchero!  It definitely is to die for!

After dinner, clearly came dancing!!! We ended at Faces!!  Click on the link to learn about this awesome dance place.  We got there when it opened and stayed until the lights came on- but in Cali- you know everything closes at 2am- unlike the wee hours of the morning in Vegas!  But it was all good!  Faces is packed with just that, many different faces from many different sexual orientations and 3 or 4 awesome dance floors packed full of free love!  They even have an outdoor pool!  Our favorite was the video lounge- where they played R&B and Hip Hop videos.  I met a handful of friendly faces at this venue!

On Saturday, we strolled through Old Sacramento, got a glimpse of the Capital Building (breathtaking, BTW), and ate lunch at Fat City.  The ambience was historical and antique furnishings filled the place.  We sat next to this humongous card catalog sort of thing way back in the restaurant. 

What was a bit eerie was when an old gentleman offered to take a picture of all 3 of us in the back corner of the restaurant, the photo was extremely dark and not too visible, and mind you, there was enough light and NO, it wasn't a camera defect.  But all the pictures taken at our table were fine.  We asked the old man to take numerous photos of us and they all came out the same. Hmmmm....

The funnest time we had was inside a costume mansion called Evangeline's.  I think we spent a good hour and a half in that place and then came back for seconds on Sunday afternoon.  A variety of hats adorned our heads while in Hat Land and I left Old Sac with a peacock feather hairpin, that was screaming, "oh bring me to Vegas, dahhhhling!" See picture but don't mind the bags under my eyes, I was functioning on 5 hours of sleep if even that. 

ALso some crazy socks walked away with me from Sock City- who would've thought I'd buy $40 worth of socks!!!  Oh I can't forget to mention the Rocky Mountain Caramel Apple that we purchased on Saturday afternoon but didn't get eaten until Sunday afternoon.  We initially requested to not have it cut, for fear of it turning brown through oxidation, but for reals, we could not locate a good sturdy knife to cut the darn thing which was our reason for returning to Old Sac on Sunday!  We snacked on our traveling apple and 2 Malibu & Pineapples that afternoon!  It was great!!

So among other eventful things that happened, our stress-free weekend was capped off by getting back on the Lonely Bird- The Allegiant aircraft!!  I call this the lonely bird because it was the only plane that flew into Stockton "metro-port" business park.  It wasn't an airport, it was a business park!!!  The terminal had one gate, one security check, one check-in counter, one gift shop, one restroom, and a crowded room full of crazy amish looking people.  Why was I the only one to be patted-down and go through the extra long measure of security inspection in the crowd of people?  Was I the only one with a bellyring and a shirt with metallic adornments?  I guess so.  So after everyone boarded the plane, the employees of the terminal all went home and left the place looking like a ghost-town.  See the picture of the terminal from my wing-view seating!

One hour in the air = a mini bottle of Chardonnay for me + a mini bottle of Cabernet for Arch! To top it all off some crazy pictures of downing the bottle mid-air...(still awaiting the photographic evidence from Arch)!

Everyone needs one of these getaways!