3/12.
Well, most of March was pretty well documented over here.
I spent my first two weeks of the month exploring Venice, Rome (and Vatican City), Florence and Pisa.
Then I spent my third week of the month at Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy, teaching S-203 for my day job.
Then as soon as I got back from Prescott, it was off to Monument Valley for a girls’ weekend.
With all that said, I only have a few odd photos from my phone’s Photos app to share this month.
I returned from Italy just in time for Flagstaff’s biggest snowstorm of the winter. My flight got in at midnight, and Ryan had booked a hotel for the two of us in Phoenix that night. We started our journey to Flagstaff the next day, just in time for all the roads up to Flagstaff to completely shut down.
We ended up spending our night on the floor of his Hotshot station down in Blue Ridge until the roads could open back up the next day.
I will say, at least the snow was pretty for a few days. Here’s a photo I took the morning after the storm outside Ryan’s station.
Ochi — a desert-raised northern breed — has been alternating between loving the snow, and preferring to hide inside beneath the blankets.
Ryan and I spent a recent Friday afternoon wandering around downtown, and stopped at Dark Sky (the Atmosphere side) for mushroom poutine and beer.
It’s always so nice to come back to the studio after an extended amount of time away. I taught a Disney-themed class last week, and the turnout was incredible! It’s free-flow week (to coincide with our three-year anniversary) so classes were really busy.
It was an absolute blast!
I started the tattoo removal process for one of my tattoos! It was a difficult choice. I originally my behind-the-ear Deathly Hallows mark to match with a long-lost close friend right before the midnight premiere of the final Harry Potter movie, and while I’ve absolutely loved it for the past 15 years, it hasn’t aged well at all (both physically and socially, we support our trans family around here), and it’s become close to unrecognizable. I had my first laser treatment on it last week, and hopefully it’ll start to lighten up and fade in a few months.
One of my good friends, Jake (Jakersfield for short) was in town for a recent weekend. I had some weekend plans subbing a few classes at the studio so I couldn’t do too much, but I was able to meet up with several friends at Cornish Pasty for drinks. Jake, Mel, Adwait, Nate and I all met on Reddit shortly after I moved here (along with John and Jane, who have both moved away) so I really, really appreciate when I get to get together with all of them along with all the SOs including Mariel, Lexie and Davita.
I spent about a week driving around with a nail in my Jeep’s tire until I discovered it and was able to have it replaced. If you have a newer-model (JL) Jeep you get it- the tire pressure sensors always get wonky during changes in temperature and elevation, so I got in the habit of ignoring all my tire pressure sensor alerts.
It’s a Jeep thing. /s
This is the third nail, in the second tire, in the past three years, which is a huge bummer! But, I needed new tires anyway, so at least the timing wasn’t the worst.
I checked out a few new-to-me restaurants in Prescott during Wildfire Academy, including Lazy G Brewhouse. I had a blonde (Sunshine Blonde) and a salad, and both were great.
I recently tried a new vegetarian taco skillet recipe, and it was a household (aka: Ryan) hit. We used an ear of fresh corn instead of frozen corn (always trying to eliminate plastic waste where I can) and topped it with avocado, sour cream, green onions and tortilla chips. It’ll definitely be a regular staple in our easy-one-pan-dinner rotation now that I’m back in the office full time.
Overall, March was great! Definitely busy, but busy in all the good ways. I don’t have too much planned for April now that we’re heading into fire season, and my Incident Management Team (IMT) goes available next week (assuming I don’t get RIFed at work, always a concern lately).
More next month!
