Travel

Until Later, AZ

wildboom

It seems just as soon as I got here I’m on the road again. It’s become a pretty exhausting constant in my life. There may have been one stretch in my life during COVID that I lived in the same place for a decent amount of time, but even that was broken up with army training and a road trip of over a month. Besides that stretch, I haven’t lived anywhere longer than six months since I was in college in 2017. It’s become a fact of my life, but that doesn’t make it any less tiring. This time I am leaving Arizona for Army training in Michigan which will lead to more training in other locations and then eventually to a deployment which will help to continue the theme.

My time in Arizona was spent during the hot summer months, but I still enjoyed it as much as I could. Working outdoors I got to see lots of great sunrises and sunsets. Once during monsoon season, I got to see a desert wash flood to the size of a major river. I had driven past it several times and never seen anything it in besides dry sand so I never imagined that it would completely fill and flow so heavily that you could row a canoe down it!

I was blessed to make good friends at work and outside of work. With friends from church, I had pool parties, watched fireworks, went on hikes, ate Sonoran hotdogs, and went to a Diamondbacks game. I made more friends training at jiu-jitsu and doing the Murph workout on Memorial day at a Crossfit gym. It’s amazing I made such good friends in such a short amount of time, and I’m blessed to have people in Arizona praying for me and anticipating my return.

Despite working outside in the heat all week, I still often went on hikes and explored Arizona’s nature in my free time. One of my favorite trips was going to Mount Lemmon in Tucson. It was 20-30 degrees cooler up the mountain and there were trees! After going so long without seeing trees that really made me happy!

I left Arizona and drove over 2,100 miles in two days to get to my family camping trip in Pennsylvania. It was a brutal trip with one night of three hours of sleep at a truck stop, but it was absolutely worth it to see my family and especially all four of my beautiful little nieces. It’s crazy to think my oldest niece is already 11! I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas for my work training and this upcoming deployment will have me missing them for a second straight year. That coupled with the fact that I live on the opposite side of the country and can’t visit them whenever I want really made me realize how precious these moments really are. It’s so interesting to see my nieces developing their own personalities and it’s also interesting to hang out with my brothers as adults. I really admire both of my brothers, but on paper, they are very different. Clifton is an electrical engineer working for a software company. Jon is a musician in a band and a worship director at a church. Despite those differences on the surface, it blows my mind how much we have in common and how we view life through a similar lens. I think it has a lot to do with my Christian upbringing from my parents. What we view as most important in all of our lives is a constant and I think that gives our relationships a mutual foundation and a greater appreciation for each other. I’m very thankful for great parents who raised us right. I am just so blessed to have the family that I do!

The camping trip was filled with hiking, paddle boarding, campfires, card games, and a lot of laughter and fun. When it came to my last day, I started to get quieter and more introspective as I knew my departure was approaching. I had to leave before everyone else so I could get to my army training and when I left, I gave out hugs to everyone in the parking lot of a hiking trail while trying to keep my emotions in check. It felt different than any other goodbye because I have very little control over when I can see my family again. The army will change its plans on a whim, and I will tag along for the ride. It’s a lot easier knowing I have the full support and prayers of my family behind me.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” – Proverbs 17:17

Until Later, AZ

New Home in Arizona

wildboom

I have now spent about a month in Arizona working at my new job here. I feel I arrived at just the right time to ease myself into the extreme temperatures of summer especially since my job duties are performed primarily outdoors. We are starting to get days approaching 110 degrees! Before I started work, during my first week here, I was lucky enough to have two of my Army classmates come and hang out and help me get settled.

The three of us went to a comedy club and did some bar hopping in Phoenix. We went to Tucson and ate delicious Sonoran hotdogs after hiking some trails in Saguaro National Park. We made it up to Lake Pleasant as well and did some cool hikes with some amazing views as you can see if the photo above. It was really great to have some good friends around to explore and settle into a new place with. This area appears to be a magic spot for fast food as well. Texans swear by their Whattaburger and Californians swear by their In-N-Out and I just so happen to live in a town with both!

Work has been an absolute blast and I am learning every day. I wish I could share a little bit more about it here, but a lot of what we do is sensitive so I won’t mention a lot but the picture below is just one of the many times I have had amazing views and hikes while getting paid!

Getting to this point though was a journey and with many new friends made along the way. There isn’t a whole lot I feel comfortable saying about that here since this is a public platform, but I am so appreciative of my friends and I know every one of us is excited to be out finally doing the job. During training, we had our opportunities to build some morale with some cookouts, hikes, and workouts. The best is yet to come!

I’ll wrap up with some stories from my personal life. For starters, the motorcycle in the picture below was stolen on my first ride out here in Arizona. I went out on some BLM land out in the desert with fun trails and great mountain and desert views and I was having a blast until it decided to break down… I ended up having to push it over a mile out to the road and then I went to get my truck and I came back an hour and a half later and it was gone! I filed a police report and looks like insurance is going to pay out at least something so that is good. It was a pain in the but with all the problems it had running sometimes, but it was my first bike and it was a fun one! I’m just excited now to buy a better one!!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with some personal thoughts. Sometimes I get caught in feelings and the best way for me to reason through them is to open up the notes app on my phone and just write. This is something I wrote lamenting on my time working in the military and in the government. I’m not sure what provoked it, but some days I feel like a square peg trying to get jammed into a round hole.

“Spending so much time in environments of teaching or training to the lowest common denominator has ruined me. Rules and ceremonies meant to keep the lowest denominators in check have stifled my creativity and my intrinsic drive to achieve for myself. Instead, I have learned I can get away without my max effort. I just need to reach a predetermined bar set by someone else with no knowledge of my capabilities. What could I be without the expectations that I would go awry without such rules to keep me in check? Where would I be if I aimed at what I thought I was capable of rather than what others told me I needed to achieve?”

I think specifically the last line, “Where would I be if I aimed at what I thought I was capable of rather than what others told me I needed to achieve?” is very poignant. I don’t think I am guilty of this in all aspects of my life, but sometimes I do get caught in this trap especially at work or in the military. Just having that thought on paper is a good reminder I am not what the standards are, I can be more than that. You have to have something to aim at, and sometimes other people’s targets aren’t based on who you actually are or what you’re capable of. Instead, it’s up to you to aim high.

New Home in Arizona

Southwest, BABY!!!

wildboom

I’ve spent over five months in the Southwest and it’s been a great experience, but it can feel boring at times, especially when you look around and all you see is flat land and knee-high brush plants. I miss trees! However, all it takes is a couple of hours drive and you can get a greater appreciation of the diversity in this part of the country. The three photos above are from a drive I took to Las Cruces to visit a friend and to go to church in person for the first time in a long while. The first picture is from the high-altitude mountain passage in Cloudcroft, NM. The second photo is from a quick stop at White Sand National Park where you can see beautiful white sand for miles and miles! The last photo is of the jagged Organ Mountains that overlook Las Cruces. Las Cruces as it turns out is actually quite a nice city with a big university and lots of nice shopping and things to do. I didn’t think that existed in New Mexico besides Albuquerque or Santa Fe!

Some classmates and I took a weekend trip to check out Carlsbad Caverns National Park! We did the hike down into the caverns and it was pretty awesome to roam around down there and see how massive these caverns really are! Reading about the history of the discovery was interesting as well. Some rancher’s teenage son discovered the entrance while riding his house looking for stray cattle. He ended up doing most of the discovery of the caverns himself.

One of my most recent trips was out to Amarillo, TX to visit my old high school friends Hans and Orie. Hans was called to be a pastor in Amarillo. It’s a special call because there isn’t currently a church there. I showed up for an evangelism weekend and I got paired up with Orie, Han’s brother, and we walked the neighbor spreading the word about Jesus’s love for us and about the new church they are starting. Hopefully, our effort will reach people’s hearts and that congregation can grow! There was a group of college students spending their spring break helping do the outreach as well so that was super fun to work with them. I’m starting to sound old myself saying this, but it is so refreshing to see so many young people at church! We had a lot of downtime to explore and eat out at some good restaurants. I had some great tacos and I had an awesome time exploring Palo Duro State Park with Hans and Orie! It is actually the second largest Canyon in the US behind the obvious Grand Canyon.

Time is flying and I only have two weeks left in New Mexico! After finishing training here I’ll be moving to Arizona to around the Phoenix area! While here I’m thankful for the friends I’ve made and for all the opportunities and good times visiting friends and seeing the Southwest!

Southwest, BABY!!!