I’m continuing my quest to check off every National Park within driving distance of Flagstaff.
My friend Sara (who I met at the Trib) came to visit last week, and we took Presidents’ Day Weekend as an opportunity to book a hotel in Moab and spend two days hiking through both Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.
Well, we made it! After a hectic cross-country move where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, I’m here in my new apartment in Flagstaff.
It’s been a few months now so I’m mostly settled, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek of my unit.
You guys know I love decor. (I’m a Libra.) And — since I haven’t really had a stable living situation in a while and am spending all my time in my apartment due to COVID — I knew that I really wanted to go all-out to make my rental truly feel like my home.
Love it when I wake up and Joe Biden is president.
Three-day weekends were made for adventuring, right?
I’m trying to make a habit out of making my government-granted three-day-weekends into longer trips. You guys know me. You know how much I hate how little vacation time we get here in the United States. You know how good I am at cramming as much as possible into a short trip. (See: Tulum, Berlin, Seattle, etc.)
So, the idea of driving somewhere eight hours a day for a day trip during a three-day weekend? Doesn’t sound all that bad to me. (That’s what I did for New Year’s weekend, if you happened to miss that post.)
Luckily, my coworker Jane has the same sense of adventure (she’s an RPCV too!) and she was also down to drive out-of-state to a National Park for MLK weekend.
However, life (AKA: COVID) had other plans. While we had planned to do either Bryce Canyon up in Utah or Joshua Tree over in California, COVID cases were amping up and travel restrictions were put back into place.
So, we decided to take a day trip up to Page instead.
Guys, I did a crazy thing. I passed firefighter training!
I know, right? WHAT?!
New year, New Mexico!
Well this has been a really fucking weird holiday season.
Well, my anxiety has subsided enough that I’m back at it again with the “life lately” posts!
Where’d we last leave off? Chicago? Oh boy. If you don’t know or remember, my “life lately” posts were kind of started as a way to talk about some of the smaller moments that have happened throughout the past few weeks/ months. Kind of minor events and things that aren’t really worthy of their own blog posts. New restaurant excursions, new recipes, new purchases. That sort of thing.
Now that I’m settled into my new home in Arizona, I figured I’d start them back up again, on a quarterly basis. I’m not sure how interesting they’ll be because we’re still in a pandemic, but I have a few small things to share so let’s go ahead and give this a try.
Alright. Well. We’ve reached the point of quarantine — for me — where I’m starting to go stir-crazy.
Quarantine started off eh, OK. Still wouldn’t recommend it or anything, but it wasn’t bad. At first it was a fun two-month-long all-expense-paid vacation to the United States. Then it was a two-week work-from-home Netflix binge spent smoking a ton of weed and eating a ton of nachos on my sister’s couch. Then it was five months of unemployment, dog cuddles, daily runs in the park, endless amounts of time to read, camping, kayaking, and outdoors time with my mom and sister. Then it was a cross-country move to Arizona.
Now? I’m alone. I know exactly three people in the state of Arizona — all of which are my coworkers — and I’m working remotely 98 percent of my time. Everything is closed, it’s impossible to meet new people, and — because I’m living alone — I spend a lot of time with just my thoughts to keep me company.
No. I do not like that. No.
OK, I’m being a little dramatic. I FaceTime with friends back in the Midwest a lot. I’m still learning the ins and outs of my new job, and because I’m endlessly curious, I spend a lot of time Googling very niche topics. I’m still studying Ukrainian and Spanish, practicing yoga every day and reading books. I was in the Peace Corps, ffs, I’m good at keeping myself company.
But you guys know me, and you know that I am never satisfied unless my schedule is jam-packed with work, volunteering, yoga teaching, freelancing, brunch dates, fitness classes, language lessons and association board meetings.
Basically, I have a lot more free time, and I’m really sick of spending it all doomscrolling.
So… I got drunk and ordered a ukulele off the internet!
…Because the world DEFINITELY needs another white girl who plays the ukulele.
In my recent post about Hilton-hopping down in the Valley, I mentioned that I took a day trip to Saguaro National Park during my Thanksgiving weekend.
I just wanted to share a quick post (that’s mostly photos) of the few hours I spent wandering around in the desert among the cacti.
