Kalysha Clark

Allyssa and I went grocery shopping today to get all of our food for the mountain. Each person gets a shelf and a space in the fridge, but I still wanted to pack light when it came to the food. I also wanted to keep meals simple because simple tends to be cheaper.  I was happy to find that food in Arizona is basically the same price as food in North Carolina. We did our shopping at a store called Fry's, which is wonder by the same company that owns Kroger (and apparently Harris Teeter as of recently). The bagger at the store was from Raleigh too, so it was nice meet someone from the same area.

All of our food, ready to prep.

Below is my grocery list:

• Bananas
• Tortillas
• Carrots
• Granola
• Doritos
• Velveeta Macaroni Cups
• Granola Bars
• Dr Pepper (gotta have my soda fix!)
• Mayonaise 
• Yogurt
• Chicken Breast Tenders
• Herb Butter
• Cream Cheese
• Bread
• Bagels
• Cheese Sticks
• Green beans
• Peanut Butter

Tucson, Arizona - I have arrived! It is very different from NC. The land is basically all flat, but has mountains all around. There are cacti everywhere, but the same cannot be said about grass.

For the next few nights, I will be staying with my "boss" Allyssa, (more about her here) at her professor's house, where she is dog sitting. They have two mutts. I'm excited to be around doggies.

Quandary. She's a little older and took some time to warm up to me.

Quinton. He was friendly from the beginning.

He liked me enough to nap with me.

Tomorrow, we will go to the University of Arizona to get the rest of my hiring paperwork finished. Then, we will tour the University, grab some lunch, and possibly tour the Desert Museum, which would introduce me to some of the native wildlife around here. She also invited me out to Happy Hour tomorrow night with some friends, so I'm excited to get social.

We are going grocery shopping on Saturday to get food for the mountain, where we will do our research for ten or so days before returning to Tucson for a break. There's a deal on Saturday's where you can get a 60 lb. box of fresh produce for $10 so Allyssa and I plan to split that for some of our groceries.

I also have to get some shots, including my rabies shot. This is actually really awesome because the rabies pre-exposure is essentially a necessity for careers handling wildlife and it's free to me under my employment! Awesome.

When we are up on the mountain, Allyssa said I will get some orientation, but will basically be thrown into things, so I'm interested to see how that goes. I always put my best foot forward and this will be no exception.

I will post more updates as I go.

Since I will have four days of free time every two weeks during the summer, I've decided to make some goals for myself to make sure I don't waste too much time!