Lightening Round

Grand Illumination Night is a uniquely Martha's Vineyard holiday. A group of a couple hundred small Victorian cottages called The Campground (different than the campground we live at) all hang lanterns on their houses and illuminate them at the same time. We've done some homecare in these houses too - neat, weird little places.

Grand Illumination Night is a uniquely Martha’s Vineyard holiday. A group of a couple hundred small Victorian cottages called The Campground (different than the campground we live at) all hang lanterns on their houses and illuminate them at the same time. We’ve done some homecare in these houses too – neat, weird little places.

I’m going to do now what I do every time I get crunched for time and realized I haven’t posted in over a month, whip off a quick stream-of-thought blog about what’s been happening in my life recently out on the open road. Life right now is in a camper in Martha’s Vineyard, so it makes for pretty easy writing, but it will be a brief one. Don’t expect great grammar, don’t even expect good spellign.

Life has been fast paced and it’s been tough to keep up with the website. There’s been a lot of you reaching out on the discussion boards who are just getting into travel, and we have some good discussions going – so keep it up! I have a couple of half-written blogs for you, but they are posts that require a little more thought, so expect those in a couple weeks. The main thing keeping me busy has been this dang 1/2 Iron Distance Triathlon that I have been training for since I arrived here on the island 4 months ago. It is going to be held right here on the island in just a week and a half, so the end of this crazy, time-consuming training is near. I’m really looking forward to it. The 70.3 miles will cover the entire island and some beautiful vistas, but the training has been ridiculous, so I won’t be doing another one anytime soon.

Living in a camper has been great. I was kept very busy when we first moved in. There were a lot of little repairs that needed to be done. Water heater work, re-sealing some seams, and installing a screen room were the major low-lights of the work. After a few weeks of maintenance and finding out what it’s like to be a homeowner, we settled in and evenings after work have been filled with dinner on the deck and typically a campfire. There’s a lot of things I like about living in a camper, including being minimalist in my consumption of space and energy. The main attraction to the 5 months of camping is being outdoors. I have spent many, many hours on the deck and by the fire. There will a be a couple blogs soon related specifically to living in a camper, so I will digress for now.

Kate working wicked hard on the Vineyard. As I try to claim I've been too busy to write a blog....

Kate working wicked hard on the Vineyard. As I try to claim I’ve been too busy to write a blog….

Being on an island has lent itself to a lot of beach time. Sunday is the big beach day around here. We’ve been captured by friends who throw us in the back of their truck where we drive out onto the beach and create a wagon-circle-type caravan – except instead of keeping women and children in the middle of the circle for protection, there is various grilled meats. Not a bad use of the weekend, every weekend.

Kate and I are both working for a home care company out here. The expected productivity is reasonable, and, being on an island, the driving distances aren’t too bad either. Regardless, it has been BUSY at work. With the seasonal bump of tourists and residents work has been in high-season mode for the last 2 months – Martha’s Vineyard goes from a year-round population of 15,000 to an estimated 170,000 people on island last week! There are signs of the work load letting up a little bit soon. It truly has been a great job.

Just another Sunday on the beach. Great fun carting friends, games, and meats out to the beach for an afternoon of relaxation.

Just another Sunday on the beach. Great fun carting friends, games, and meats out to the beach for an afternoon of relaxation.

The weather has been just absolutely awesome here. We have had about 3 rainy days in the last 2 months – good news for us camper dwellers, and us beach goers. Despite the dry summer, the island life lends itself to insane humidity and with humidity, mildew. Not to wish the summer away, but I’m about ready for some cooler weather so I can stop washing the walls. The campground has really quieted down this week along with the rest of the island. Last night was hoody-weather, but I know we have another month left of solid summer as exhibited by the return of 80 degrees and muggy this evening (peepers peeping like crazy in the trees, love it!). With the change of the seasons, the campground will close and we’ll have to move into an apartment for one month before returning to the mountains of Colorado for the winter.

Expect some more thoughtful and thought provoking posts soon. Among my topics will be new grads traveling, how to select where you want to go as a traveling therapist, and, of course, #CamperLife.

Border Town

We’ve been traveling pretty frequently across the border to Canada. It’s real close where we are up here in Presque Isle, Maine.

The first weekend we were here, we just went for a drive in a loop that crossed over into Canada and came back in up at the Northern tip of US Rt 1. Although I grew up with a couple trips to Quebec City being my exposure to Canada, I was surprised how French it is just a few miles from my current home and work. When we drove up to Alaska last spring via Western Canada, English was the only language I heard spoken. We drove through the large city of Calgary, rural areas with a couple Canadian national parks, skied in British Colombia, and camped multiple nights in the Yukon — I don’t think I heard a word of French during that long road trip. Turns out when you walk into a restaurant just across the border here, 30 minutes from where I’m living now, the hostess greets you in French, realizes you’re a little stunned, and then flips the switch over to English. French is the default! Back in high school, I took a lot of French, and Kate took French and grew up with some French speaking in her family. So, we’re not hopeless, but someone speaking Québécois Français at a normal pace totally loses us.

This past weekend, instead of heading northwest with all of the French speaking folk, we headed southwest into New Brunswick. That’s right, southwest. To Canada. SOUTH. We are so hopelessly far North. In the southwest direction, we are back to English speaking Canada. Definitely a lot of French being spoken by other tourists around us in New Brunswick, but all the store clerks went straight to English as the go-to language. It was a cool weekend. We camped with some co-workers on the Bay of Fundy, home to the highest tides in the world. Did a lot of grilling, smores making, and sampling of the local breweries. (Note: When in the New Brunswick Liquor Store, some things while in six packs are priced by the bottle…. if you think you’re getting a good deal on a six-pack, it’s priced by the bottle. YIKES!) On the way home, we stopped by a local winery for some tasting and took a good hike in Fundy National Park. A great weekend in a “foreign” country.

It’s been a pretty good assignment up here. We have quickly reached the ½ way point of the 13 weeks we will be here and time is flying. Time to start looking for the next job and make some licensure decisions. Yuck, hate that part. But, we hope to spend the 4th of July weekend off vacationing on Prince Edward Island. I think P.E.I. is the Cape Cod of Canada… we’ll see!
Enjoy some Canada-centric photography by entering the slideshow below through clicking on anyone of the thumbnails.

Alaskan Ferry Trip

Every experienced traveling health care worker should consider an assignment in Alaska. The Alaska Marine Highway (AMHS) has to a part of the travel plans!

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Our first ship, the Kenicott, this was bigger than our second ship, but smaller than our last.

When Kate and I were preparing to head up to Alaska from our annual winter assignment in Colorado, we researched the ferry up to Alaska and missed our window to book tickets. Hoping to travel in late April or Early May, I called to AMHS at the beginning of March, but found all the slots to bring our car along filled up, we knew better on the way back and scheduled several months out. Now is as good a time as any to describe the clientele and lodging on the boats of the AMHS: This is the mode of transport for inter-village travel, retired fisherman, vagabonds, gypsies, hippies, and general rapscallions. So, as a traveling PT, you’ll fit right in.

We stayed in three different types of “state rooms” on our three ferries. The “state rooms” are as small as a 5 foot by 8 foot closet containing a card table that miraculously converts into a bunk bed. The ritzy-er state rooms have their own bathrooms and just a little bit more space.  Now, the regular ol’ rapscallions, they prefer the no-accommodations-version of this ride. All over the boat, people lie out in their sleeping bags, setup tents duct taped to the deck, and generally get by on sleeping where and when they can.

Arriving into Juneau, our first major stop of the trip.

Arriving into Juneau, our first major stop of the trip.

There are 11 ships that cover 3,500 miles of “highway”. The AMHS has been awarded the title of “All-American Road” which apparently is very prestigious among the country’s scenic highways and byways. By all normal standards, the network of ferries serving the coastline of Alaska is just another interstate highway. Many of the towns the AMHS services have no other roads to them and can only be reached by sea or air. Because there are no other ways into these towns, any type of vehicle you can imagine gets driven onto the car deck of the ferry. I drove our over-packed car onto the car deck and saw an Alaska Airlines tarmac vehicle, smaller boats, multiple prison laundry vans, and a bunch of assorted hippy-wagons. …an eclectic group of vehicles for an eclectic group of people.

The Alaska Marine Highway is awesome. I came away from 6 months in Alaska feeling really good about my experience, but also feeling like I had missed some sort of “bush” experience off the beaten path. Anchorage was great, and, as they say, “it’s only 15 minutes from Alaska.” But, there’s a less accessible part of Alaska… the majority of Alaska… that I hadn’t seen yet. Pull out a map sometime, check out exactly how far away Alaska is and how big it is. Alaska is north of much of the Yukon. Alaska is 2 times bigger than Texas. There’s enough coastline in Alaska that at low tide it’s 3 times bigger than Texas. Overlaid on a map of the lower 48, Alaska touches both Disney World AND Disneyland. Alaska is really far away, and Alaska is really big.

A bald eagle grabbing a snack somewhere between Sitka and Ketchikan.

A bald eagle grabbing a snack somewhere between Sitka and Ketchikan.

The trip on the state ferry fulfilled all my needs for exploration and Alaskan solitude. We traveled 10 days on three different boats down the coast of Alaska and through the inner passage past British Columbia. After a rough ride across the gulf of Alaska and a few short stops in small villages, we arrived in Juneau and had a couple days to explore. Having our car with us, we were able to drive around. We enjoyed dinner at a cool little restaurant on Douglas Island which is connected to Juneau by a bridge. We only saw Douglas in the dark, but it apparently is home to a community-run ski resort, seems like a really cool place. Back in Juneau, the next day, we enjoyed an awesome hike in the snow above Mendenhall Glacier, stopped by Alaskan Brewing Company for some samples, and had a shockingly authentic time at the Red Dawg Saloon. At the Red Dawg, we walked in on about a dozen rowdy locals who at the time had their glasses raised in the air for a toast. They welcomed us for a couple beers and talked our ears off…. Funny people, funny place. At 3 AM we got back on the ferry and spent the day cruising down to Sitka, a town of about 8,000 on the Pacific Coast of Southeast Alaska.

We were lucky enough to have a friend in Sitka, who, much like our friend I mentioned in the previous blog, is doing a stint with the Native Corporation Hospitals. Gio has it good. He lives in a picturesque log cabin just out of town and occasionally gets to make some trips out to the bush by small plane to treat patients in secluded Alaskan villages. Gio took us around and gave us the ultimate locals’ tour of Sitka. Two times we went to Whale Park, an area of town with a view out over a cove. Both times we went, like advertised, there was a pod of orcas far out in the water, but diving up and down, spouting water up into the air. We also took a day hike up through the snow for a scenic view of town and it’s volcano on a neighboring island (Mt Edgecombe). To cap it all off, we stopped at Baranoff Island Brewing Company on the way back to the ferry. Great beers – in a small town – on an island – a long way from everything. Who knew?

The last leg of our ferry trip was 3 days with only one quick stop in Ketchikan. We enjoyed a make-shift turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and eventually made it into Bellingham, WA. What a trip. A must do. Put it on the list.

I’ve added some photos below of some of our pictures on the trip. Click on one to open up the gallery. Enjoy!

 

Alaska Wrap-Up!

We are again on the edge of an epic road trip. Kate and I are celebrating the first of 37 days off from work and really excited for the upcoming trip as we pack up and get ready to hit the road. This trip is going to be a really neat way to wrap up our time in Alaska. Before getting back to the lower 48, we will take a 10 day water ferry down the coast of Alaska seeing glaciers, sea life, and stopping in a few smaller Alaskan towns along the way.

Today, I really just wanted to share with you some of my favorite memories from the last 6 months. Alaska is a must-do for any experienced travel healthcare worker. As I’ve shared previously, getting set-up here was tougher than most assignments, but the adventure and experience was well worth it.

During our time here, “Champ,” the RV we bought for chump-change, became our access portal to weekend adventure and camping without fear of rain, cold, or bears. Champ drove us as far south from Anchorage as Homer, a small coastal town at the tip of the Kenai Penisula, “where the land ends and the sea begins.” Down in Homer we met up with a nurse friend, Anna, that I had met on assignment in Colorado. She has found her way out hereto the great north the way a lot of other nurses and PTs have, working for the Native Hospital Corporation… If you’re open to being in Alaska for a couple years and paying off some loans, look into it, but that’s a whole other commentary for a different time. We knew Anna had adventurous plans for the weekend, but the end result was the coolest weekend this summer. The weather was perfect, 70 degrees and flat seas. We hopped on a water taxi that took us across the bay to a marked trailhead on a rocky and secluded beach. Feeling like we were exploring untouched land with bear spray strapped on each of our hips, we hiked into a glacial lake with ice bergs floating in it that had recently broken off the glacier at the opposite end. Past the lake, we hiked out to another isolated trailhead on another beach where we had tied off kayaks to paddle a couple miles over to the town of Halibut Cove. On the way to Halibut Cove, we paddled our kayaks across the flat bay seeing sea otters at close range, halibut swimming right underneath us, and giant starfish latched onto the bottom in more shallow water. Before taking the water ferry back to Homer from Halibut Cove, we explore the isolated community of 37 people that I think is best described as a super-rugged artists’ commune. One girl managing an art gallery told us about how in the winter she takes her snow mobiles across the bay to play hockey on the glacial like we had come from. Now that’s Alaskan.

Champ also took us as far north as Denali National Park where we visited when my parents visited in July. In the park, we managed to not see a single bear, but did see a caribou up real close. One of the things I love most about our national parks system is how quickly you can be way, way away from all other people. There’s a fact out there that goes something like: only 10% of visitors to National Parks ever go more than 1 mile from paved roads… that’s not the exact fact, but in Denali National Park with 7,370 square miles and one main road, you get the point. On the trip back down from Denali, we spent the night in Talkeetna, a fun outdoorsy town, but more importantly we spent the night all together in Champ. And slept like rocks. Anyways, that was another great weekend away in Champ.

My other favorite adventures that were a little closer to home were climbing O’Malley Peak which is one of the most prominent peaks visible from Anchorage, seeing the Northern lights from our apartment several weeks ago, and several weekend trips down to Girdwood including when we skied at Alyeska our first weekend here.

But, it’s time to go. We get on a ferry on Wednesday and do the ghetto version of an inner passage cruise before an all-corners of the country trip visiting family and couch surfing with friends. Eventually in mid-December we’ll land back in Colorado and do the usual and extraordinary winter gig back there.

Also, in exciting HoboHealth news, Amy Sheridan, a friend who has recently started working as a PT in Doha, Qatar will be sharing her experiences on this blog. I know Amy has stories for us, and I can’t wait.

Stay tuned, many, many updates in the next few weeks!

(Click the photos below to enlarge!)

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!

Let’s Break Some Stuff

 

Last week I went to Pumpkinfest up the street from where I living. I went with my wife, her young niece, and her mother. I expected a quaint family-fun-filled afternoon with little to keep me entertained. What I encountered was a high-fueled world of motorized legumes and high speed orange destruction that left me begging a 3-year-old to let me watch just one more pumpkin get fired through the side of a demolished pick-up.

I’ll keep it brief and let the pictures and captions do the story telling, but a little history first. Pumpkinfest (and Regatta) started within the decade and has grown steadily year-by-year. The pictures are from the second Sunday of the 10 day festival. While Sunday is the climax of the event, it does not include the “Pumpkin Parade” where dozens of 300+ lbs pumpkins are carted through town before the big events, and it most certainly does not include the last day’s “Pumpkin Drop” where giant pumpkins are smashed by dropping them from a height onto a car. Sounds cool,I would have liked to have seen it… but someone has to work in this town.

Enjoy the pictures.

-James

P.S. Click on the thumbnails to see the full pictures.

Off Topic Travel

A quick update on my current life: The new assignment has been started, a 500 sq. ft. apartment has been found, and I’m absolutely loving the views of Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

I started writing this blog entry in Augusta, Maine on generator power in the wake of Irene. I was surrounded by candles watching the movie “2012,” where (spoiler alert) the world ends… somehow fitting. I’ve moved on from that, out to the coast, where unlike landlocked Vermont, little effects were felt. But, Maine and the beautiful resort/retirement town of Boothbay Harbor are far away from what I’d like to write about tonight.

3 weeks ago, I honeymooned in the Dominican Republic. Punta Cana was a town I knew little about before booking our trip. What we found there was nice, comfortable resorts plopped on the far East tip of a 3rd world country. Tourism, the Dominican Republic’s top grossing industry, is well respected by the locals and frequently offers the best and highest paying jobs. Compared to U.S. standards, pay is quite low and hours are very long, but the added benefit of decent housing and health insurance draws a large pool of applicants.

We enjoyed our time in Punta Cana, but had a wider variety of experiences  during our time outside the resort gates and city limits. I’ve placed a few pictures here that I think will tell a better story than I could write. Click on the thumbnails for fullsize images. Enjoy, I know we did.