Life is moving, the vibes are great and the time has been fun. I feel like since my last update, things just keep getting better for me here, I’m finding ways to enjoy the desert and having so many adventures. BUT the most exciting thing so far for me has been the weather, its slowly changing, and winter is coming! It has already snowed twice, enough to stick for the day and warm my Californian heart, but nothing too deep yet, hopefully soon though!

Besides snow, I have been enjoying work as a whole and I am starting to give programs again, which has been great and is my favorite part of the job! In addition, I have been getting involved with our ‘Dark Skies’ program and have been shadowing star party programs. The other week I manned a telescope on Jupiter and its 4 main moons: Io, Callisto, Ganymede and Europa. Although I was still learning all the information and didn’t have a lot to share, it was a fun experience to try something new and see how excited people got about seeing Jupiter up close!

I have been starting to really go out and adventure on my weekends, exploring the local areas and what the nearby parks have to offer. Over Thanksgiving week, I happened to get 4 days off, as my regular 3 day weekend coincided with not working on Thanksgiving day. And with no government shutdown in sight, I took off on a 4 day roadtrip! My first stop was Petrified Forest National Park, and it was a funky place. The wood was scattered everywhere in colorful patterns, there were a lot of restoration projects happening and beautiful short hikes through mesas and deserts.

I hiked over 8 miles in the park, and it was so nice to get out and see unique features that were practically untouched or removed by humans.

My second travel day I kept it pretty light, I explored some local national monuments: Montezuma Castle, Tuzigoot and Montezuma Well. These were all historic Indigenous sites and showed how people used to live in the arid deserts in the early 100s.

Day 3 was probably my favorite day of the trip. I finally got to visit Sedona, AZ and by recommendation of my colleague I took a ‘Pink Jeep’ offroading tour and it did not disappoint! In the morning, I visited Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a church built into the red rock cliffs of Sedona!

It was a beautiful structure and a nice stopping point in my morning. Afterwards, I window shopped in downtown Sedona and waited for my tour. The Jeep tour was awesome! It was built by the company in the 1960s into the red rocks, and Pink Jeep has the exclusive touring rights to take people out there. I got stunning views of the red rock canyon, we climbed rock faces and had daring adventures. What a time!

On the final day of my trip, I went up to Flagstaff for groceries and watched the new Hunger Games movie: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The movie was incredible, and I loved how it showed President Snow’s character development!

Maggie and Aiden have become pretty good friends of mine, we are the ‘weekend trio’ since we overlap so many days, we have a lot of fun on and off the clock!

On our recent weekend, we went down to Williams and enjoyed all the simple touristy activities. We rode the self guided rollercoaster, went to Bearizona, window shopped and hiked to a waterfall.

And in true fashion, what seems to happen when the 3 of us adventure together is a flat tire. NO joke, Maggie got a flat tire on her car, and we had to change it out!

We are all experts now in changing a tire and are ready to go for the F1 pit crew team! We have some more fun adventures planned ahead, but hopefully those will happen without any more flats! Until next time, Ranger On!