the last few days

My last few days in New Jersey were a whirlwind of seeing family and friends, a last minute field trip with NRCS to look at glacial landscapes, dog/apartment sitting at my brother's, and putting off packing as long as possible. It went quickly, and there were so many people and places I wanted to see, but I'll be back.

These last few days in Arizona (well, first few!), I have mostly been a lazy bum trying to recover from the time zone change. For as much as I love traveling, I am actually pretty terrible at it. Only two hours difference, and I feel like a complete zombie.

I have a lot of small projects that I'm going to be working on while I'm out here: applying for jobs, taking two courses online through Bottineau (Urban Forestry and Arboriculture! good thing it's two tree courses, and there are about two trees in all of Mohave County...), learning to bake bread, learning how to operate a French press and cold brew coffee, getting better at running, probably other things.

This morning I took a nice long walk to scope out a running route. I got sort of lost in the sense that I didn't end up where I meant to, but didn't really not know where I was. It was a nice walk, despite how windy it is-- it does actually get cold in the desert at night, so it was a chilly morning here, and the "breeze" (yeah right, NOAA) was really howling in my ears. I might give myself a few days to get used to the altitude before I actually start running. It's about a 1050 foot difference, which is really not much, but consider the fact that I grew up pretty much at sea level. My ears pop constantly when driving around NJ. My ears pop when I go down the street here.

During my walk, I was lamenting the vegetation. I was just really missing the smell of something green. It just smells like sand here. But, I was feeling thankful for the beautiful views of mountains that completely surround this place. I do miss a lot of things about home, but I'll find little things here to get excited about, too.

Suggestions for projects, new things to learn, and things to look for are welcome... in fact, encouraged!