Enter Island

A hike in the Haleakala National Park on Maui. Insanely beautiful bamboo forests.

A hike in the Haleakala National Park on Maui. Insanely beautiful bamboo forests.

As I write this, the sun has recently set and I’m sitting in the house Kate and I rented today. Our landlord will soon return to Seattle, but for now, he’s our quazi-roommate staying in the separate studio attached to the house. He’ll be finishing up a few house work tasks before eventually returning to Seattle. Nice guy, interesting guy. Apparently he’s a lawyer by trade, but has spent some time working in Denali National Park. At some point, he bought this house out here on the most remote of the publicly accessible Hawaiian Islands and clearly enjoys all the great nature activities here. He has two large lockers of camping and snorkeling gear in the garage collecting dust that he has encouraged us to use, so that’s a real bonus with this short-term rental. There’s also a mountain bike thrown into the deal that he spent part of yesterday afternoon fixing-up, JACKPOT! I’m sure we’ll get some more stories out of him before this is all over. Before getting on island here yesterday morning, we spent 5 days hiking, camping, and relaxing on Maui. My visits to Maui in the past have always been short, usually over a long-weekend from Honolulu, and usually packed with as much activity on as much of the island as possible. This time around, we concentrated the trip on two main areas of the island with a few days at each place, and we were really able to soak it in and relax. In coming from the Big Island, Maui was actually an increase in pace. More cars, more traffic, more busy, more tourists – my disdain for tourists is really quite impressive considering my living the vast majority of each year as a tourist in various tourist towns. I fear for my reintroduction to the mainland in 3 months – if Maui’s pace is too fast for me, I can only imagine the shock a city or metropolitan airport would bring.

Man, I hate tourists. We camped wright by the beach, it was really peaceful in the morning and evening hours.

Man, I hate tourists. We camped right by the beach, it was really peaceful in the morning and evening hours.

I’ve grown used to the small 9-seater planes we have been taking between islands. This trip to Maui was the 4th time flying by small plane in the last several months. To sweeten the deal on Mokulele Airlines, legs between islands are $50 flat rate and free from TSA searches and waiting in a line of any kind. It’s definitely flying with all the airport hassle removed. Yesterday, however, we did not fly, we took a ferry boat over to Molokai from Maui early in the morning. We rushed off to look at the house and then were able to quickly and truly settle back into relaxation-mode. Maui is slower paced than Oahu, the Big Island is slower than Maui, and Molokai is the slowest by far. The past 36 hours here have already been an experience. Afternoons have been filled with empty beaches and sleepy, small-town diners and bars. The land here is dramatic and beautiful. This afternoon, we took a walk up a small dirt path from the beach we were on. We knew the dusty red path would lead us to some secluded beaches down the shoreline that are inaccessible by car. During a short walk down the path, we saw wild turkeys and a bunch of deer. The deer here are cool to see, but are not-native and highly damaging to the vegetation. The damage to vegetation ultimately leads to a whole other chain of erosion events and has big negative affect on water quality and sea-life. Luckily, these deer are tasty, so local hunters are able to put a significant dent in their population. Our beach-stroll turned nature-walk got really interesting when it opened up to an abandoned beach formerly occupied by a resort company that used to run this part of the island. As Kate and I strolled down the beach looking at the decaying buildings set a ways back from the water, incredible views in every direction, and crystal clear water breaking over shallow jet-black lava rocks, we somehow both failed to see the 500 lbs monk seal sleeping in the sun that we were literally about to trip over (when I say “literally,” I mean it). Kate was about 3 feet from the huge monk seal and his partner when in an instant we and the seals all realized the others were there. The huge seals rolled over and Kate and I did a super-speed reflexive sprint about 10 yards up the beach. I’m not sure about the true ferociousness of a monk seal, but I know they can move faster than you’d think and can pack a wallop with their teeth or tusks or whatever it is they have. As we cautiously circled to the other side of the seals at a distance, we watched the seals, they watched us, and it seemed like everyone understood that all four parties involved were equally surprised. There’s only about 1,100 of this species left, and here we are just running into two of them on a day at the beach… crazy. We continued a short distance down the beach and saw some fish and an eel swimming in a tide pool – nearby, there was a “lahge lobstah” shell dried out on the beach. This beach, departed only a short distance from humans was just totally saturated with life. Kate and I had been in the sun long enough, and headed back to the car. As we passed the seals, the huge one let out a bark at us, I think just to see how fast we could move again.

Taken as we approached Molokai on the Molokai Princess Ferry. A dramatic island.

Taken as we approached Molokai on the Molokai Princess Ferry. A dramatic island.

I can’t believe we haven’t been here two days yet. We’ve experienced a lot in our short time here. It will be a wild 13 weeks for sure. Work starts tomorrow morning! But for now the night is pretty quiet except for the roosters I can hear clucking around the neighborhood. More updates and pictures to come soon – I can’t believe I didn’t bring a camera on that walk today. Oh well, next time.

Home is Where

“Where do you live?” It’s a simple question that is likely to be asked at the start of a conversation with any stranger. It’s a question that is easy for most people and that the asker expects a quick answer to.

For any traveling healthcare worker who has been at this for a while, it’s a loaded question. My mind races over a series of responses, “I have an apartment in Maine, but I’m rarely ever there.” “Well, the IRS says I live in…” “I live part of the year in Colorado and keep going back there.” I usually settle on the most simple response, secretly hoping the conversation will change topics, “I live here right now, but I move a lot for work.”

But, NO! They can’t drop the inquisition, it always continues on, “You move a lot? Well where’s your home base? Where are you from? When are you going to settle down? What does your wife do?”

I, again, try to keep the answer simple. Again, hoping the conversation can move along from this complicated topic, “Well my wife is a therapist too, so we move from contract-to-contract together. We’re both from New England, but we’ve been doing this a while now, so we have some fairly scattered roots at this point.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “This poor guy was expecting an easy answer. There isn’t one.” Traveling PTs don’t fit most people’s pre-determined mold of what a life, home,and job should look like.

There’s a whole host of issues, social and logistical, that complicate the home question both extrinsically and intrinsically. First is the IRS, travelers live by their rules and we do the best we can to try to maintain a life that fits their rules. Unfortunately, certain states have laws that complicate the picture by having loose standards for what a fulltime resident is and taxing people based on that status. I’m looking at you, Maine! I am certain that there is a traveler out there somewhere who has the perfectly wrong combination of living situations and who is taxed as a permanent resident by multiple states.

Don’t get me going on the system for forwarding mail by the post office. OK, do get me going. Every 3 to 6 months I head to the USPS website and submit my change of address forms. To their credit, the post office usually gets me my mail, but sometimes that mail makes a few stops along the way to reach me. I have attended weddings and received the invitation afterwards. Gad zooks!

The years since starting travel have started to really add up for me. I used to be able to intuitively know how many years ago I was in Hawaii, or how many winters I had spent in Colorado. When I showed up back here 3 weeks ago, I went around telling people it was either my 4th or 5th year coming back, I wasn’t really sure… WRONG! After some counting by figuring out what years I was in which apartment, I have come to the realization that this is winter number 6 (out of the last 7) that I am living out here in Colorado. How can we tell people where we live if we don’t even know!?

On the return, Saturday, 3 weeks ago, Kate and I quickly moved into the same employee apartment building that we have lived 3 years prior. On Sunday, we drove 1.5 hours to the local Costco and stopped by our storage area on the way back. It turns out that in our storage area, with all of our skis, 7 pairs between the two of us, was a ton of stuff that we have accumulated. Kitchen supplies, wedding pictures, snow tires for the car I sold this year, a painting I picked out of the trash at work 4 years ago, a bag of clothes to take to the local consignment store, beer brewing kit, computer printer, and our beloved 18 inch Christmas tree. I hesitate to say we keep a lot of junk here, because most of it has a purpose, but we do have a lot of “stuff” here. By Monday morning at 10, we had our ski passes and we were on the mountain where, by chance, we ran into a group of friends and skied with them all day. On Tuesday, Kate and I returned to work where we were greeted with hugs, a one-hour orientation, and quickly slipped into a seamless afternoon full of patients. Yeah, this is familiar, good friends, the old apartment, great job, and all my… “stuff.” Since the first year here, unlike many other places I’ve lived, people are willing to quickly include me in the small group they call “locals.” It’s tempting to call this “home” or to at least be less committal and admit that I live here, because I do have an established life here.

Back on the ski lift, a familiar conversation ensues, “Where do you live?”

“Here.” “… in the winter. This is my 6th season.”

The quick response, “Where do you go the rest of the time?”

Here we go again. Why doesn’t this conversation get any easier? 🙂

I used the word “inquisition” above, so this video seems pertinent. Until next time, travel safe!

 

Borientation

Travelers. We are trained and practiced in hitting the ground running under any circumstances. After a few assignments, every traveler realizes that all documentation systems are bad, but not equally bad, some are far worse than the others. Aside from a few operational issues, the job is the pretty much the same where ever you go, and it’s not too hard to blend into most teams quickly.

After a traveling on a few assignments, I realized a long orientation can be torturous. Given the choice of a HIPAA presentation, a JCAHO powerpoint, or walking on hot coals, I would take the hot coals in a hot second… besides, I’ve always wanted to try that.


 
Thanks for that, Adam Sandler

For a few assignments, I tried telling supervisors that I didn’t need much of an orientation. “Show me where equipment is, give me a quick run through the paperwork, and I’ll figure out the rest.” This tactic went well for a few assignments, and probably gave me a leg up during a couple interviews. But, it finally backfired last summer. I showed up to a private practice gig up in AK and had seven initial evals on the second day of work. Whoops, that’s too much work for the beginning of any assignment, I definitely over-played my hand.

So, now I’ve toned it down a bit – I have been accepting whatever orientation is bestowed upon me. There’s one phrase that I hear over and over again when I have a light caseload for the first week or two, “Enjoy it while you can.” I guess that’s the lesson I have learned. Orientation isn’t that bad. Easy work, easy money. If I’m allotted an hour for a test on JCAHO regulations, I can hammer it out in fifteen minutes and the extra 45 minutes will break even on a really busy day later in the assignment. Time for a fun side story: I once had four JCAHO audits in one year. Every one of my three facilities that year got audited while I was there, and, also, one of the staffing agencies I worked for was audited. I did an interview with the JCAHO auditor for the staffing agency. At the end of my interview, I got a chance to ask her a few questions. She said that there are over 300 staffing agencies accredited by JCAHO… that’s a lot and really amazes me.

Anyways, the strategy to just take whatever orientation is given to me has totally run-a-muck. I am currently in week 8 of a 12 week contract and finished my last orientation class just a week ago. To give my boss some credit, I am very well prepared. On the other hand, I have been completing online modules until today. I am officially done with orientation and will have only 5 weeks of work without any orientation.

There has to be some middle-point where in the future I can effectively express that I need some orientation, but also that I am seasoned and will be good to go early in the assignment. I haven’t found the happy-medium yet, but I’ll keep on trying.