Randi with an i

I got my Red Card! What’s a Red Card? Plus: A breakdown of incident management and wildfire terminology.

June 21, 2022 Randi

So, I got my Red Card!

Which reminded me… you guys probably have NO idea what a Red Card is.

And… you probably have NO idea what I’m talking about half the time when I recap my Forest Service PIO (huh!?) experiences on Type 1 incidents (what!?) like the Backbone Fire and the Tunnel Fire.

Ah, the joys of working for the government!

During my stint in the Peace Corps, I ended up writing a quick blog post explaining all the acronyms, initialisms, slang and jargon I commonly used during my service… and here on my blog.

So, I’m going to do the same for my current job.

This one’s a long one.

The things I’ve worn most: Spring 2022

June 20, 2022 Randi

Heheehe I’m back to let you all know that I still wear the same pair of Prana hiking pants.

Every day.

Kidding.

Kind of.

I’m in the process of revamping my “Things Randi Likes” page to include all of the things I wear on a weekly basis — my Danner hiking boots, Prana hiking pants, Lululemon Energy bras and Luxtreme Wunder Under leggings (RIP), Patagonia base layers, etc.

I just got a lil distracted by fire season… hope it’s understandable!

Which means… I have to get a little more creative now because I can’t simply cycle through the seasons going like “mhm yes, Birkenstocks and Lululemon Sculpt tanks this summer, Timbs and Levis Wedgie jeans this winter.” Oh no. I have to find NEW things to wear.

So. Without further ado!

Paddling Clear Creek Reservoir

June 20, 2022 Randi

If you’re a northern Arizona resident with a paddle board, kayak, pack raft… any kind of recreational watercraft, odds are pretty high that you’ve been to Clear Creek Reservoir.

(Hey, have I mentioned that I bought a new inflatable paddle board?)

Riiiight before the Pipeline/Haywire/Double Fire complex broke out on my forest (more on that later), I had the chance to head on a day trip to Clear Creek with a few of my friends. It was (unsurprisingly) a blast.

We have a garden!

June 19, 2022 Randi

I’ve been a little hesitant to post about this because, well, what if everything goes wrong… but so far (fingers crossed) we’ve gotten seedlings started and transplanted, and some crops are taking off!

Which means… we have a garden!

I BOUGHT A PADDLE BOARD! Sunny days and sunsets on Lake Mary

June 18, 2022 Randi

I first tried paddle boarding (and paddle board yoga) during my unemployed summer in Michigan while I was looking for anything and everything COVID-safe to entertain myself with.

I fell in love IMMEDIATELY, and would have bought a paddle board right away if it were not for the pesky logistical things like… yunno, planning my move to an apartment. In Arizona. With little room to store a paddle board and few places to actually take said paddle board.

My two really good friends Vandy and Breanna, who live in Seattle, bought paddle boards sometime around the start of the pandemic, too, and seeing their constant social media posts around all the lakes, sounds and bays in Seattle did absolutely nothing to dissuade me.

So, after almost two full years of indecision, I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a brand new inflatable stand-up paddle board (iSUP) earlier this month!

A review of our first Flagstaff CSA share program (+ what we made with our produce)

May 28, 2022 Randi

After an entire spring season of straight-from-the-farm local produce pick-ups, our CSA share has come to an end.

I wanted to take a second to share a little bit about our first experience with the Flagstaff CSA program — and share some of the recipes I threw together with some of the produce I received.

And, it’s already fire season. The 2022 Tunnel Fire

May 11, 2022 Randi

Well. Fire season came earlier than expected this year on my forest.

I know it’s not really a surprise. Most of the Southwest is in a 1,200-year drought, and we’ve been discussing preparedness levels (basically how many resources we have and how adequately those resources can support the number/scale/type of wildfires we’re dealing with) internally for the last several weeks, now.

On April 19, I got the call from our dispatch team that the Tunnel Fire — located about 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff — had rapidly expanded due to wind.

The fire went from a few acres to a few hundred acres to a few thousand acres in the span of a few hours, prompting rapid evacuations and the assembly of a full team of incident-qualified personnel.

The Tunnel Fire ended up as a Type 1 incident, which means we had to pull out all the stops and pull in a specialized Type 1 Incident Management Team trained to respond to large-scale and complex wildfires.

(P)update: Yukon’s Valley Fever and congestive heart failure treatment

April 16, 2022 Randi

It’s been a minute!

I’ve been so busy with wrapping up my detail in northern California, onboarding for my new part-time gig as a yoga teacher here in Flagstaff, getting ready for fire season here in Flagstaff and fundraising for Ukraine that I haven’t had a chance to give an update on Yukon.

My experience: YogaSix Bridge Training

April 4, 2022 Randi4 comments

Good morning!

In case you missed my recent post… I’m a studio-employed yoga instructor again! I recently accepted a job offer with YogaSix’s new Flagstaff studio, and starting TODAY, you can book my Monday and/or Wednesday night power classes. I’ll be teaching “Y6 Power” (my own fast-paced vinyasa sequence) 6 p.m. Monday, and “Y6 Hot” (YogaSix’s 60-minute set sequence) 6 p.m. Wednesday. So exciting!

The classes are also all free to the public this week (three class max limit if you aren’t a studio member) while we settle in and work out the bugs and kinks in our new studio.

I wanted to take a second to talk about Bridge Training — aka, the training that all new YogaSix instructors are required to attend — and what my experience was like.

Namaste: I’m a studio-employed yoga instructor again!

March 31, 2022 Randi

Hellooooo!

I haven’t really been posting about too many weekend adventures lately because, well, I haven’t had too many weekend adventures.

Instead of hiking around northern Arizona, I’ve been busy practicing yoga, building playlists, designing sequences and refining cues because…

…I’m going to be teaching studio yoga again!