5 Things To Check Off Your To-Do List This Memorial Day Weekend
This article is sponsored by Northern California Honda Dealers.
Sacramento is as busy as a beehive in the spring, and the three-day weekend Memorial Day offers the perfect time to get a jump on that summer to-do list.
Drought Prevention
Sacramento is blessed with some of the best soil conditions in the nation for growing fresh fruits and veggies and planting the most beautiful gardens. And given drought restrictions, more attention than ever will be focused on water use. As a solution, Emigh's Hardware now features the synthetic lawns that everyone is talking about. According to Bill Maynard at the City of Sacramento Parks Department, "community garden plots are still available." Now is the time to grab a plot and plant it. Come see the rain barrels too, now placed in the Fremont Community Garden in midtown. These rain barrels are becoming very popular as drought prevention measures.
California State Fair
Whip out the calendar, mark the best event dates for you and your family between July 10 – 26, and get those California State Fair tickets! If you really wish to get ahead of the pack, you can go ahead and order your tickets now. Be sure to check out the Blue Ribbon Season Pass and Family Fun Pack. And what would summer in Sacramento be without "The World's Oldest Triathalon", aka Eppie's Great Race? Mark your calendar for Saturday, July 18, 2015 for the the 42nd annual race. Register on the site and pick up your registration packet on Friday, July 17 between 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. at the Old Spaghetti Factory to run, bike, paddle or simply plant yourself as a spectator along the Sacramento American River Parkway Rancho Cordova route.
Explore Sacramento
With all of its rivers, open fields and hiking paths, Sacramento is a great place to grow up. The city also supports many structured activities for kids at Funderland Park, Fairytale Town, the Sacramento Zoo and the Sacramento Children's Museum in Rancho Cordova. The older kids especially love the California Railroad Museum and may do well at any of the Soil Born Farms day camps. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has fun educational programs, too, including everything from fishing in the city and hunter education to classroom aquarium education and archery programs. Sacramento's Parks and Recreation has its 2015 catalog ready to go and Sacramento County Regional Parks is home to many activities as well, including the new-ish sport of geocaching. Buy your seasonal pass and plan your events with a special events application.
Safety For Everyone
"Safety for Everyone" is the name of a concept developed by Honda to describe its safety standards that meet and surpass government regulations, resulting in new safety technologies for everyone. For example, rearview cameras are now standard on all 2015 Honda vehicles, and better help the driver see what's behind him when going in reverse. Honda Sensing includes a Collision Mitigation Braking System™ that will help bring a Honda to a stop should it detect an unavoidable collision ahead, and an Adaptive Cruise Control™ helps drivers to maintain a constant following interval, so drivers don't have to manually change their speed.
Additionally, a Lane Keeping Assist System™ helps keep the driver in his lane, and a Lane Departure Warning detects unintentional lane departures by alerting the driver. Honda LaneWatch™ helps to reduce the passenger-side blind spot when changing lanes—when the driver turns on his right turn signal, the view is magnified nearly four times the area than the mirror onto a Display Audio screen. Lastly, Forward Collision Warning alerts the driver when it determines the driver is at risk of collision with a vehicle detected ahead.
Given all these newer technologies, it just may be prudent to purchase a new car just for the safety upgrades alone. Featured financing programs are currently as low as 0.9 percent with special programs for new graduates and members of the U.S. military.
Rotate Seasonal Wardrobes
Memorial Day Weekend is also a great time to sort through your closet and pack away heavier fabrics you won't be wearing until fall or winter. Or, has your favorite button down become worn? Before going this task on your own, you might consult with experts on how best this can be done. Erika Shupe of Large Families on Purpose shows how she accomplishes this twice yearly task in her article "Rotating Seasonal Clothes- Large Family Style". Shupe has a detailed sorting process she uses before storing out-of-season clothing for her. Her husband and their 9 children move their clothes into cardboard boxes that she labels and that stack nicely on top of each other and fit on their shelves in the garage. Of course, if this is not something you can see yourself doing on your own, give a call to the organizers at California Closets.
Karen Hansen M.S. Earth Sciences, has been writing about earth and the environmental sciences for Examiner.com since May of 2010 in addition to having been an educator and consultant who has facilitated over 200 courses for a private university. Karen loves to learn and write about clean disruptive technology and policies and the people on the planet too. She lives and works in Sacramento, CA. You can find her work at SF Solar Energy Examiner, SF Environmental News Examiner and Environmental News Examiner
