So I live in Flagstaff, Arizona, as much as I live anywhere. Eight days out of fourteen I live in the wilderness somewhere, conserving the hell out of it. The rest, I spend in a little desert college town straddling what I have been informed is the historic Route 66. The town itself is home to about 66 thousand souls, so not tiny but pretty petite. There is a lovely walkable downtown replete with outdoors stores, bars and...probably other things. Look, I like what I like. It is actually quite pretty.
Picture ain't mine (lower left for credit) because I'm an asshole who doesn't photo the place I live, but it looks like this
Here's the thing.
So, my organization is largely composed of 18-22 year olds, because when you say "work in the woods for food and housing" it is mostly kids who think that's a good idea. The field staff itself tops out at (with one awesome midlife crises exception) about 27. So, add the couple hundred of us to the population of Northern Arizona University, and the downtown district ends up functioning basically like Pleasure Island out of Pinocchio, all drunk children smoking cigars and shooting pool. This feels...somewhat regressive to me.
Luckily, I get to live in the woods most of the time. Here's some pics!
Joshua Tree National Park in CA
Picture Canbyon, AZ
Cibola Wildlife Refuge, AZ
There's also some pretty cool stuff around Flag. At seven thousand feet elevation, it's in a high desert, so it's still dry as all fuck but cold, with more ponderosa pine than saguaro. It is also spitting distance from some real, honest to goodness mountains- more Colorado than Maine here. I went up Humphreys a little bit back, Arizona's tallest peak at a couple feet short of fourteen thousand.
I can see my house from here! Also, every one of yours.
So those are the highlights. I'll start throwing up more pics of my adventures in nature preservation/conservancy soon- for now, enjoying a poor man's sabbatical in sunny Portland OR over the holidays.
