The THE Series

The THE series. Of all our travel assignments this one has been the toughest to find THE housing, most unique in finding THE jobs, and longest of THE roadtrips. We left our apartment in Aspen 4 weeks ago today, we have put 4,500 miles on the car, racked up 8,000 frequent flier miles, and will finally move into our new place in one more week in Anchorage.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I feel like one role of this site is to develop a knowledge-base of travel healthcare experiences in an environment not influenced by recruiting companies. Everything Kate and I have been through over the past 6 weeks needs to be shared with other travelers, and can be used as a template for how-to and how-to-not.

Expect in the coming weeks the THE series: THE housing, THE job search, and THE first few weeks (a working title). Thanks for tuning in, travel safe.

The Perfect Day.

Big Horn Sheep near the end of Jasper National Park. There were dozens of the guys on the side of a cliff… more pictures to come!

Via Twitter and Facebook I recently promised a quick update… so here I am. I am going to try to keep it brief and to the point. In advance, please forgive any spleling or grammar errors, I’m in a little hurry to get off the laptop, and all the French road signs have fried my little American brain. 🙂 I hope that when this trip is over, I can motivate myself to write about some of the adventures we’re having. If history is any indication, I will lose motivation and this current blog will have to suffice.

Let’s set the tone. Tonight, Kate and I are tenting near the beginning of the Alaskan Highway, about 140 miles inside Northern British Colombia. We’ve avoided camping until this point, but today was milder than previously and the $110 “Motor Inn” across the street seems unappealing. We’re sitting at a picnic table munching at a road-dinner and I have a La Fin du Monde beer cooling in the remnants of a snow bank behind me. UPDATE! I have a La Fin du Monde beer in my hand. For those of you not familiar with La Fin du Monde, it’s a Canadian beer that is considered one of the better craft brews around and costs youan arm, a leg, and your first born to get a glass in the U.S.  Seriously, I bought a 750 ml (22 oz?) bottle of this stuff for cheaper than a glass of cheapo wine would cost back in the states. The beer, the tent, the road laundry going in the campground laundromat, and this picnic table all remind me of the incredible adventure we’re on. When we hit Mile Zero of the Alaskan Highway today in Dawson Creek, BC we had already drive over 2,300 miles to get there, after the 140 miles into BC, we have about 1,500 left! But, I’ve strayed from the point, I wanted to briefly write about yesterday, which was an awesome day.

Jasper National Park sign in Jasper. The Red and White flying in the background. There would be people in the picture, but they were all watching hockey.

To explain yesterday, I need to start the day before. We had intended to visit Glacier National Park in Montana and drive to Calgary where we would stay the night. Glacier, while beautiful none-the-less, was minimally-open. The local town, St Mary, MT, was all but a ghost town. We managed to grab a coffee and Power Bars in the local grocery store which had opened for Saturday only. Anyways, our scenic trip was cut short, but left us with some awesome pictures and a moose sighting. Because our time was short in Glacier, we arrived in Calgary early and decided the only logical step was to drive onward to the town of Banff. So, we did. Banff is one of Canada’s (and North America’s (and the world’s)) great ski towns. We expected to find it in off-season mode like we had found Aspen, Grand Targee, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky before it. Disclaimer: we didn’t actually go to Big Sky, but we were near it and I assume it was empty. Instead we found a large ski community gearing up for closing day at its biggest resort, Lake Louise, and expecting another 2 weeks out of another local mountain. There was only one choice: Ski. Nothing really mattered: conditions, needed travel miles under our belt, cost, nothing. We were going skiing. So after a mostly restful night’s sleep in the expensive ski town/YWCA’s version of a hostel, we headed out skiing. It was a great day of skiing that rivaled any spring skiing I’ve done. Huge open bowls, decent soft snow up top, and even a few fresh tracks. WOOOOO!

I swear this isn’t fake. Seriously.

The rest of yesterday was a beautiful drive through Banff and Jasper National Parks… a must for anyone passing through mid-to-Northern Alberta. Saw many glaciers, huge mountain peaks, moose, elk, caribou, and big horn sheep (not a single US plate). This post will have to do for now, future posts depend on internet availability, time, and motivation. We’ll be in touch!

 

A Month in the Mountains and a Day in the Desert

It’s been longer since my last post than I like to let pass between blogs. I hope it’s a fluke and not a developing pattern.

Settling [back] into Aspen has been great. Familiar friends, familiar hang-outs, and a familiar job. It’s a lot like coming home, but home usually has more snow… When there’s no snow in Aspen, usually summer, lots of locals check out Moab, Utah. Since the ski conditions stink and we’ve never been to Moab, Kate and I made the drive out to Utah this past week and had a good time in the desert.

Night time temperatures were originally predicted to be around 30 degrees on Thursday night. Based on Friday’s reports and the layer of iced formed on the inside of the tent in the morning, I estimate a low more like 5. I feel like the extra money to get the zero degree sleeping bag 4 years ago was finally worth it. I knew I would need it at some point!

After waking Friday morning, we chipped as much ice off the tent as we could and headed to Arches National Park. The trip was very cool and the land was beautiful, I’ve included some pictures you can click on below. We bought our annual pass for the National Parks while at Arches, so hopefully I’ll have lots more (at least 80 bucks worth) to share with you from the National Parks System over the next year. I definitely want to hit either Yellowstone or Yosemite. I’ve never been to either and would like to go to both.

Meanwhile, back in Colorado…

We got in total close to a foot on the mountains this week. In addition to the snow, I’m all revved up this week to watch the Broncos take on my New England Patriots. It will be an emotional and hopefully happy Saturday night. I’ve found that even the real Coloradans find Tebow a bit of a joke, so I hope we can put the Kabbash on this 2011 passing fad. Tebowing!? Seriously… GO PATS!

That is all, I’ll try to write more frequently! Enjoy my pictures below, I think I got some good ones.

James

 

Roadtrip Reflection

Starting off in Portland, Maine. Day 1 of the road trip.

We have really evolved in the way we road trip. We have our two small carry-on sized suitcases packed with most of what we’ll actually need on the trip. This way, when we pull into a hotel at night, we can swing open one car door grab all the bags that we need without unpacking half the car. We were also lucky enough to have an extra case of wine from our wedding with us. Bonus! As the end of each driving day approached, we’d check our Best Western app, make a reservation, grab our two road trip bags, uncork a bottle of wine, and relax.

Lincoln’s Tomb in Springfield, IL. Worth a stop if you happen to be swinging through SW Illinois.

Improving our organization on road trips is one example of the logistical improvements we’ve made past 5 years of road tripping, but we’ve changed our whole approach by allowing more time to travel.

When we left Maine last Wednesday, we really didn’t know where we were going between Maine and Colorado (the sunshine state). All we knew was we had 10 days to get to work. We did pretty well chipping away small amounts of mileage each day and were lucky enough to stumble into a bonus weekend with friends in Chicago. I think previously we would have planned each stop ahead of time to decrease stress of the trip, but have actually found less stress through not planning. By having a vague idea of what our trip looks like, but nothing set in stone, we are able to better roll with the punches of hitting traffic, finding an area of hotels too expensive or sold out, or just feeling tired and not wanting to drive any further for the evening.

As we come out of the plains of Eastern Colorado, we start to see the Rockies.

As we got towards the final few states of the trip, we were arriving just a day or two later than if we had rushed the trip, but felt more relaxed, better fed, and generally just more energized. Of course some of the miles through the flatter states got long and urged us to keep pushing on, but it was a nice trip.

Visits to friends and wineries kept us relaxed, sane, and safe. Now we’ve gotten settled quickly in Aspen, have one ski day under our belts already, and are looking forward to starting work next week.

Thanks for reading!

Transitions

Snow fell last week all across New England, and the throngs of facebook updaters shouted the end of the world in full CAPSLOCK. Not me. Not I. Not us. I ran outside at 1 in the morning in suburban Boston wearing my full Beetlejuice Halloween garb and started pelting my friends in their heads with snowballs.

It’s go time. Time to move again. Time to pack up and get myself to a ski town. Snow is falling and time’s-a-wastin’.

I love/despise moving all at the same time (Is that lespise? Sounds French). Road tripping half way across the country and catching some sights along the way is spectacular. Weeding out the old clothes for the thrift-store pile and trying to jam everything in the back of my Accord is not spectacular. Do we move every several months because we get excited about our next destination or is it because we get tired of where we are? I don’t know, but I know I like it. We are getting better at moving. I now own a home brew set-up in Maine and I have one in a storage area in Colorado. Not having to lug all that along really lightens the load.

Next week Kate and I move back to Aspen where we’ve spent three of the last four winters. It’s kind of like going home now, and I’m fired up. We also get to take some pretty cool trips along the way. We’ll shoot to Mexico for a week, fly on over to Florida for Thanksgiving, and then return to Maine for the long drive. Looks like we’ll have a few extra days to make the drive, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to try out our new L.L. Bean ultra-light tent in a National Park somewhere. Bottom line: I should have some fun stuff to write about soon.

Just wanted to offer a preview of coming attractions, express my excitement for the coming ski season, and share my discontent for living out of a sedan. I think I’ve accomplished these goals, so I’ll sign off now and get back to packing.

Next time I write, I should be on the open road. Hey! Put down that chalupa and drive safe.

James