Tag: roadtrip

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Must-Visit Outdoorsy Communities

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The best places to live are those that mix a life surrounded by the great outdoors with a great community. Many of the places that offer endless opportunities outdoors do not have the support of vibrant communities, and many great communities are far from the great outdoors – the places on this list offer the best of both worlds. These are smart, cultural places that center around outdoor recreation – consider seeking them out on your next road trip… or even for a travel assignment if you consider yourself lucky.

Boulder, Colorado

Up playing in the hills surrounding Boulder – easy to get off the beaten path fast.

The ol’ Colorado standard. Set just West of Denver, some consider Boulder America’s Biggest Mountain Town. Boulder is inhabited by a huge number of the world’s elites in skiing, rock climbing, cycling, and triathlon. Boulder is close enough to almost any-kind of outdoor recreation you could crave while also having a large enough community to find the creature comforts you need just outside your door.

Boulder’s outdoor community centers around the Flatirons – a series of 5 jagged peaks jutting out of the ground. The peaks are around 8,000 ft from sea level, of course town itself is a mile high. The bigger mountains are less than an hour away in Rocky Mountain National Park and there are 14,000 foot peaks nearby in almost any direction. For entertainment, Red Rocks Amphitheatre is close by and brings in some of the biggest names in music to play concerts each summer. The venue is highly unique – the amphitheatre is open air, naturally formed, and set within several large crags of red rock. If you need the big city, Denver is only bout 45 minutes away.

Bend, Oregon

Downtown Bend, Oregon in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains. Industrious people self-making everything.

I recently visited Bend, and it blew me away. Bend is surrounded by huge (HUGE) mountains. Mt Hood looms in the distance at over 11,000 feet (7,707 ft of prominence from the surrounding land). Mt Hood is home to six separate ski areas including year-round skiing on glaciers (available limited time only, while supplies last). While Mt Hood is the pinnacle of outdoor activities in the area, Mt Bachelor is closer and more accessible to Bend – it offers much of the same recreation on a slightly smaller scale. Many of the mountains in the area are volcanic and, therefor, dramatic in their look – steep slopes that standout from much of the surrounding high-desert.

Second to the impressiveness of the mountains, is the very impressive local beer selection… I’ve never seen so many different beers in my life. Breweries abound – many brands you’ve heard of, many you haven’t. But beer isn’t all that Bend makes. If the end of our society came today, Bend would go on. These people are self-sufficient in making everything. Coffee, bread, gluten-free dairy-free bread, locally-sourced everything, local clothes companies, Hydroflask water bottles – you name it, Bend makes it. I definitely see the appeal of Bend.

Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

I’ve never been to Tahoe (hence no photo), but I hear it’s awesome. Suddenly, I have about half-a-dozen friends living around Lake Tahoe. I personally equate Tahoe with skiing – there are 12 ski resorts in the area with Squaw Valley and Heavenly being the two biggest. But Tahoe, being a huge lake, offers many summer-time opportunities that other mountain communities don’t have. Boating, wind surfing, and everything else you can do with miles of open water. But Tahoe’s greatest strength might be its location and ease of access to everywhere else. Heading West, you’ll end up in Sacramento, wine country, and San Francisco. East will send you into Nevada with quick access to Reno and Carson City. South shoots you straight into the Sierra Nevadas and with a few hours of driving, Yosemite Park. If you’re spending time in Nevada or Northern California, make sure your next ski trip or summer lake trip includes Tahoe.

Montana, The Big Sky State

Montana is huge. The mountains are huge, the lakes are huge, the sky is huge. This is in Glacier National Park in far Northern Montana.

I don’t know how they’ve done it, but the sky is truly bigger in Montana. I have rarely seen landscapes as majestic as your average commute in Montana. My only experience with Montana was a roadtrip that entered in the south through Yellowstone and exited North to Canada through Glacier National Park – every single mile between felt like I was still in a national park. We stopped at Chico Hot Springs, just outside Yellowstone, and enjoyed their massive outdoor pool fed by natural hot spring water – the stars at night were perhaps the most I’ve ever seen (on account of the sky being so big). In the past, the hot springs were a spa for the sick in the early 1900’s. I couldn’t help but think that there is something special about that place and that the water does indeed have to be healing. We stopped into Bozeman for a quick meal while on the road and found it to be a fun, happening college-town. Other small cities in Montana have their own unique personality and have a lot to offer as well – Missoula, Billings, and Whitefish all offer outdoor recreation in the wilderness that stretches out in every direction. Get to Montana where the Wild West is alive and well – you will not be disappointed.

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All That Junk

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For a traveling Physical Therapist supposedly living some sort of minimalist lifestyle, I have a ton of stuff.

There's our slick little trailer. Super-easy to tow. Perfect for us, except that we have no place to keep any of the stuff inside it.

There’s our slick little trailer. Super-easy to tow. Perfect for us, except that we have no place to keep any of the stuff inside it.

When Kate and I moved into a camper this summer, we brought a concise amount of stuff with us from our seasonal life out in Colorado. We typically leave our ski and winter gear in a small storage area, this year we left some additional stuff knowing we’d be living in the small confines of a camper. Living in a camper went awesome. Having just a couple suitcases worth of clothes and very little other belongings was a great way to simplify and organize life.

Kate and I had a ton of stuff stored at her Mom’s house up in Maine – and we needed to get the majority of it out. We ended up leaving a few canisters of clothes and other things at her Mom’s house, but were able to regain ownership of a lot of stuff that we never actually missed. Originally, we thought we’d rent a Uhaul to make the trip, but after looking at prices, we reconsidered and bought a new trailer for just a few hundred dollars more than the price of renting one for the week. We filled the brand new 4′ x 6′ trailer to the brim with pictures and knick-knacks from childhood, college, and our wedding. An entire pick-up truck worth of stuff including several boxes of text books from PT school found its way to Goodwill. I would love to have the luxury of time and space to bring the books with us and try to sell them on Ebay for some easy cash, but we only had a few days to get on the road headed west and no space at all for the books to tag along – they had to go. Following 5 months in a camper, we were of the minimalist mindset and did a good job of tossing away A LOT of stuff. Regardless of our success in eliminating as much as we did, we headed to Colorado with our SUV and trailer both full to the brim.

Several weeks, and a couple trips to the storage area later, we have all of our stuff safely inside our hospital-owned condo in Colorado. Life appears mostly normal in our condo except for a persistent stack of plastic bins hanging out. I move multiple times per year, what on Earth do I do with old photo albums, framed diplomas, and my most favorite DVDs and books!? These things have no place in my current life, but I think I would really miss them some day if I were to throw them out. On the other hand, what if a camper becomes a more regular part of my life, or if we move into a small home without much room for storage – then these things that I like having, but rarely miss, will certainly have no place in my life. The idea of a perpetual storage area seems like such a waste.

Rad. Traveling Physical Therapist

Doesn’t everyone bring a totally rad pair of skis from the 80’s on any good road trip?

So, for now, we have one car-load of stuff that travels with us – this is the stuff we actually “need” in life. We have a 4′ x 6′ trailer and a 5′ x 5′ storage area of other stuff. Admittedly, a good amount of the storage area is dedicated to ski equipment and other forms of winter recreation, but the volume of stuff remains overwhelming. So, what am I to do? I have much more stuff than I truly need, but most of the things that don’t have a utilitarian purpose in my life have some high sentimental value. In talking with a few friends, it seems most people have a couple boxes of similar stuff despite efforts to whittle it down. For now, I suppose I’ll keep going through the photo albums and memory boxes to try and identify the difference between important memories and junk that holds little value. It seems that the only time I see this stuff is when I’m trying to pare-down. So, maybe the process of elimination is exactly what puts the objects with out any real purpose to use. For now, the process of going through and reducing the clutter is exactly what allows me to crack the binding on these old albums and enjoy them.

I do look forward to sorting through old photo albums and newspaper clippings that I have long forgotten – reliving memories that may be lost without these little reminders tucked away in a closet or storage area. Should be a fun winter exploring all the knick-knacks, but let’s hope that there’s a lot I can part way with, because it’s not all going to fit in the 5′ by 5′ storage area at the end of this winter.

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Onto the Next Travel Assignment

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hoboblockBeing a traveling Physical Therapist requires frequent, and constant change. Week 13 or whatever is the last week of your contract will inevitably be your busiest. Hopefully work slows down a little bit that last week as you discharge a bunch of your clients and transition others to different therapists, but life outside of work gets busy. That last week is full of organizing, packing, working on logistics for travel to the next assignment, and often time actually interviewing for and nailing down your next job (and, if you’re really dense, you’ll try to write a blog this week… brutal).

All the chores outside of work on the last week of an assignment make it a stressful week. I’m currently 3 days from my next move and finding myself relatively relaxed. Clearly I’ve learned something over time about making the transition from work to road trip to work. But what is it? Here’s my reflection on the things you can do to take the crazy out of your next job change.

Acceptance

Accept it! This week is going to suck. At work you’re doing a ton to discharges and transitioning patients to other therapists. Embrace it, every waking hour this week you will be working or packing or planning. The only way everything gets done is by finishing one single task at a time, start chipping away.

Goals

If you can identify one group of things you have to accomplish each day, you will break up the burden. To take everything on in one day is too much. Today, I wanted to take the recycling to the dump, get the tail light on the car replaced before the drive out west, and get out one last blog before disappearing on vacation. Boom! Done! I got stuff done today, I feel accomplished, and I’m a few steps closer to being ready to jump in the car and be on my merry little way.

Say Goodbye Efficiently

Yeah, it’s very unsentimental of me. Get over it. You will get requests from friends, co-workers, and mysterious others  for one last hoorah, a chance to say goodbye. The more saying “goodbye” you can do the week before your last week, the better. Get out ahead of your friends and start inviting people to dinner before it’s your last week. You’ll have a blast, you’ll get to spend some good time with friends, and it won’t take precious hours out of the time you need to be packing. If you get stuck in the last couple days tight for time, invite friends over to hang out at your place while you putter around packing and cleaning – if they can drink your wine and eat your food, you don’t have to move it.

Be Good

Everyone knows you’re busy, but do take the time to do the right things. Wrap up all your paperwork at your job. Close cases that have been left inactive. Clean up your work space – effectively tie up all your loose ends and make it seem like you were never there. They say the best referees in football are the ones you that you don’t notice are even there, same goes for travel therapists.

A Time for Rest

When the opportunity arrives, take a break. I very frequently find I reach a point where I have done what I need to do for a day, and rather than stopping, I press on. You’re a traveler. Hopefully you’re living this lifestyle to experience different places and cultures. When break time comes, get out to that restaurant you meant to go to one more time, or go enjoy one last sunset at your favorite vista. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the town you’ve lived and worked in for thew last few weeks, take one last chance to soak it in.

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I think that’s all I have tonight, folks. Most of my bags are packed, but I’m doing home care, so the car has a lot of work stuff in it. I need to finish work before I can start packing the car.

From here, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, we’ll make trips to Maine, Florida, and Italy – for family time and fun – before driving out to Colorado for the next assignment. I’ll post pictures on the travels as I go, but you may not here much from me for a few weeks.

Enjoy where ever you are!

 

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A Working Vacation

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Now is as good a time as any to mention that I really don’t know what you people want me to write about. I try to mix it up but there are 400 or so of you out there every month, silently reading my blogs. So, if there’s a broad type of post you’d like me to write about, here’s your chance to let me know. In the meantime I’ll continue with my completely random stream-of-thought ramblings about travel therapy tips, my personal experiences, and more PT-politics issues than I should rant about on a site that is supposedly dedicated to travel therapy.

The view out the front window at the hut. Pure relaxation and solitude.

The view out the front window at the hut. Pure relaxation and solitude.

This time around, we have a simple travel blog. Hopefully it’s a fun catch up of what I’ve been up to for the last few weeks in the prolonged move from Colorado to Martha’s Vineyard (an island off of Cape Cod).

Kate and I wrapped up work back on April 25th and immediately hiked into the woods for a couple nights in a hut in the snowy Aspen back country. The hike was meant to be 6 miles in, but we inadvertently took the scenic route and turned it into a 10 mile hike – it was well worth it for a couple days and nights of really deep relaxation in solitude without another human around for miles. Upon our return home to our hospital-owned apartment, we busted our butts to get packed for the remaining 2.5 weeks off of work.

We eventually got packed, stowed our winter gear in our usual storage area, and hit the open road. With a final destination of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, we promptly headed 6 hours West. Kate was taking the second half of her Dry Needling training in Salt Lake City, which seems like a very intense weekend of learning. Learning the skills of dry needling sounds wonderful, but 3 full days of being needled by other beginners sounds awful. Anyways, Kate worked really hard all weekend, and I just played – some hiking, brewery hopping with a good SLC-based friend, watched some horses and boxing on TV, and I found a small traveler’s gem called “The Heavy Metal Shop,” seems pretty self-explanatory. All good things must come to an end, and we needed to start heading East.

Great view of the city during my hikes in SLC while Kate was working hard at her course.

Great view of the city during my hikes in SLC while Kate was working hard at her course.

We hammered the 45 hour drive to the east coast, made it in 4 days including one very long all-day, all-night drive from Indiana to Maine.  At 3:30 in the morning, we stopped outside of Boston to disconnect and drop off a trailer at Uhaul. The world is a weird place between 3 and 4 AM, I think it’s the way the end of some peoples’ day collides with the start of others’ day. Eventually at 7 AM on Wednesday, we rolled into Maine where we would spend time with family, and occasionally zip down to Boston to have some time with friends. 11 days to go before starting work – sounds relaxing, right? No. Wait… Hell no! We had the task ahead of buying a camper to live in for the summer.

Light houses are definitely a prominent tourist attraction here on Martha's Vineyard. So, being tourist, we got right out there the first weekend looking at these things. "Yup, there's another light house."

Light houses are definitely a prominent tourist attraction here on Martha’s Vineyard. So, being tourist, we got right out there the first weekend looking at these things. “Yup, there’s another light house.”

Several days later, we bought a camper in Southern Maine and towed it with our Toyota Highlander, which we have named “MacLeod” (there can only be one Highlander) – MacLeod barely handled it. Transmission fluid heat warning lights and a general struggle up hills were the pertinent symptoms – I set a speed limit of 60 mph for the rest of the time towing the camper and emptied the full sewage tank to lose some weight, no more warning lights. Who new they were throwing in 40 gallons of free sewage with the camper!?

We got the camper back up North and had a few days to visit with family but mostly worked like heck to get the camper ready for move-in. Washing, vacuuming, scrubbing, and caulking would fill the majority of the week before hooking the camper back up to MacLeod and getting down to Martha’s Vineyard. On Friday, we took the short ferry ride from Cape Cod to Tha Vineyahd and have spent the rest of the time setting up camp and moving in. I’ve been dying to share more about the camper, but I’ll save it for a (preview-of-coming-attractions) blog devoted completely to the camper life. Spoiler alert, space is tight in a 21 ft camper.

Here's the ferry we brought the camper over on. We saw it out offshore headed to the cape, in the background.

Here’s the ferry we brought the camper over on. We saw it out offshore headed to the cape, in the background.

So, here I am, hooked up to the wireless internet signal that comes from a box strapped to a wooden post out back of the camper. Inside, I am surrounded by more belongings than should exist in a camper this size. We’ll be living on this camp site for the next 6 months, so I suppose the abundance of supplies is warranted, but we have some organizing to do.  It’s a chilly night, so the propane heater is kicking on and off. Work started two days ago, and so far, the most challenging thing about living in a camper is getting work clothes out and getting them unwrinkled. At 3:30 AM this morning I was walking around the campground trying to find out where a smoke alarm was going off, the detector was outside an unoccupied cabin and fog was setting it off – weird time of day. If wrinkled clothes and a stray smoke detector are my worst problems with living in a camper, I’ll easily take that trade off for a summer full of nights by the campfire.

That’s all for now. You’ve got some blogs about home care and camper living coming up, so if you want me to write something different, you better let me know!

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Preview of Coming Attractions

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Matha's Vineyahd

The Cape and Islands

So much to talk about. There is a lot going on in our world right now. The normal hecticness of finishing up the assignment and end of ski season parties has been compounded by actually knowing where we are going in May. Usually at this time of year, as the winter season wraps up in Colorado, we’re discussing where we would like to go for the spring and just starting to get some leads from our recruiters. But, this year, we locked down our May to November assignment in March, a true luxury. Normally, 2-4 weeks ahead of an assignment is good lead time to get everything set for the next assignment, but we have been graced with a full 2 months to get ready for our summer doing home care on Martha’s Vineyard. There seems to be a lot of confusion about exactly what and where Martha’s Vineyard is.

I grew up nearby around the Boston area, so I do know that Martha’s Vineyard is an island off the coast of Cape Cod – Nantucket’s next door neighbor. There once was a man from Nantucket…. um, nevermind. Anyways, Martha’s Vineyard is an island, there is no actual vineyard that I am aware of. I’ve only ever been there for one day as a kid – I seem to remember it being a fall day with pretty lousy weather – Kate has never been there. An unknown adventure awaits!

Housing is coming together pretty well for us despite running into a few challenges along the way. We originally were looking into houseboats for the summer, but there’s a lot of logistical challenges to how long you can stay in one harbor, what to do when a storm comes, and whether you are actually allowed to live on your boat at all in certain places. Basically, if you plan on working a 5-day-per-week job on land, it gets really challenging logistically to live on a boat. So, we shifted our focus to finding an apartment. At first glance on Craigslist, apartments looked very reasonable for rent – unfortunately, all the rent rates I was seeing were weekly rates. It quickly became clear that finding a reasonable place to live without having half a dozen other roommates was going to be a real challenge.

Dear Champ, Hey there Champ, Kate and I need to talk to you about something. We had some great times out there on the road - some of our more memorable times in all our years of traveling. But, well, it's time for us to move on and get another camper - something newer, something sleeker, something a little more "liveable." I know you'll understand, we'll think of you often. - James

Hey there Champ, Kate and I need to talk to you about something. We had some great times with you out there on the open road – some of our more memorable times in all our years of traveling. But, well, it’s time for us to move on and get another camper – something newer, something sleeker, something a little more “liveable.” I know you’ll understand, we’ll think of you often. – James

Kate and I have long dreamed about living in a camper since riding around in our old RV “Champ” every weekend during our assignment several years back in Anchorage, AK. It turns out that Martha’s Vineyard has one campground and we have locked down a campsite for the summer. The only problem is, we don’t own a camper yet. Our main logistical problems will be 1. Finding a camper small enough for our SUV to tow, but big enough to live in for 6 months. 2. Reserving a spot on the ferry to the island not knowing the exact size of our camper yet. 3. Figuring out how to watch as many Red Sox games as possible without cable!

I’m really looking forward to the adventure of living in a camper this summer. At some point we’ll have to make a decision whether to sell the camper at the end of the summer or keep the adventure going. I guess whether we keep or sell the camper depends on how much we like it. In the meantime, the end-of-season parties are wrapping up here in Colorado. Work parties, ski mountain parties, and just party parties will keep us busy over the next 3 weeks before starting the road trip back “home” to New England. The first leg of the trip going back East will be to head West for a dry needling course in Salt Lake City! After that, I hope to grab a couple baseball games in random stadiums along to route and couch-surf with a few old friends from the road.

Stay tuned! Lots of adventure and fun ahead!

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Two Weeks of Shampoo

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The last few weeks around this blog have been a little too serious for my taste. Time to stop taking on all the problems of the world and get back to the nonsense and fun about being a traveler.

Things are winding down on this assignment. 11 weeks are gone and only 2 remain. In a non-traveling life, I think months and years would start to blend together for me, but the constant change in job and location helps to keep my memories of events organized. If I lose track of when something happened, all I have to do is think about where I was living, and instantly I know when it was. When did the Red Sox play the Rockies in the World Series? I was living in Colorado Springs, so it must have been 2007 – Go Sox! This constant change also creates constant deadlines – projects must be completed before any big move, i.e. Christmas cards must be sent before this assignment is over, otherwise it will be mid-December before I’m situated and organized again.

The sun set a couple weekends ago. This has been a great assignment and moving on will bring more adventure but is bitter sweet.

The sun set a couple weekends ago. This has been a great assignment and moving on will bring more adventure but is bitter sweet.

As the time has gone on with being a traveling PT, I’ve become very good at estimating time in unusual situations. For instance, it takes about two weeks for me to memorize the light switch arrangement in a new apartment. Until two weeks has passed in a new place, I am likely to be found late at night, in the dark, feeling my way around the walls trying to find the right switches. I realized recently that I’m constantly thinking of all kinds of bizarre things in terms of time.  A Costco trip at the beginning of each assignment will be filled with estimations about whether each package is big enough or too big for the whole assignment – I’ve gotten good. Two large jugs of maple syrup (32 oz each) will last 3 months. We somehow ended up with too much maple syrup on this assignment, now we’re really having to eat/drink a lot of the stuff – woe is me. 🙂

Now that I think about it, this assignment has been a tricky one for managing the amount of products we have. We’re really isolated here on the island of Molokai, and there’s no major chain stores (except for Ace Hardware). The barge comes in only twice a week with supplies and most of the stores are locally owned and small. Most of the things we’ve been buying are limited in selection and you have to buy what’s available whenever you need it. I thought I was going to run out of body wash and spotted some on sale a couple weeks ago. I jumped at the opportunity to get a decent price. As the days tick down, the original bottle is still managing to hang on and I’m realizing that with a little conservation I probably could have made it through without the new bottle. Now, with all this extra body wash, the inclination is to try and burn through the bottle fast, make every shower a super-soapy-sudsy event. But, that’s not sane, I’ve really had to step back, use the normal amount of body wash, and realize that it’s alright if I leave a couple bucks worth of soap at the apartment when the assignment is over. Man, I thought my powers of soapy-estimation were better than that. Luckily, we’ve just learned that the travel PT starting the week after us will be moving into our apartment, it makes me feel better about leaving some extra supplies behind.

Time for me to run, we’re having hamburgers tonight, gotta start to eat down the beef supply in the freezer. I’ll write again next week before this assignment is done – the deadline is approaching fast.

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Tips for Road Trips – Make the Miles More Fun and Sane

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I find myself on long road trips at least twice a year. I work my winters in Colorado to be close to the mountains and, more importantly, to be on my skis as much as possible. In the summer, if possible, I like to find an assignment by the ocean. The trek from Colorado to open ocean is a long drive. I’m from Boston originally, so I’m frequently headed back to the Northeast. I love the adventure of long road trips, but they can really wear you down.

Here are some things you can do to make the trip more healthy, comfortable, and, most importantly, fun. There’s nothing better than enjoying the ride and pulling into port relaxed and ready to hit the ground running.

Eat Right.

This is by far the best thing you can do to make yourself feel better over the course of a long road trip. If you truly make the effort to eat healthy along the way, you’ll hit your destination feeling better all over. On my first few major road trips, I fell victim to greasy highway food, fried snacks, energy drinks, and beef jerky. OK, I still fall victim to beef jerky, but if I keep the other temptations in check, a little dried meat won’t hurt – it’s become a road trip ritual! A hallmark of my early travel career was pulling into the next assignment with an upset stomach and feeling really greasy. Eating right is by far the most important thing you can do to feel normal when you arrive at your next assignment.

Order the Salad

Most highway rest areas are going to have a place you can order a salad. If you can’t find a salad, there’s usually some sort of healthy wrap option. Granted, you’ll occasionally find awful stops without any salad, wraps, or even those woeful gas station fruit cups, but if you order a salad every time it’s available to you, you’ll feel better all over and experience less sugar-crash than eating easier and more tempting options.

Skip the Energy Drinks

It’s a road trip – you’re gonna need caffeine. But, please, please, PLEASE, skip the energy drinks. I’ve seen some strange things in highway truck stops, but few stranger than the 32 oz “BFC” by Monster Energy. Who knew such a thing needed to exist!? …that’s a lot of beverage. Energy drinks really take their wear on my stomach. An energy drink here and there may not be the worst thing, but over a several day road trip, your occasional energy drink can easily become a 1-2 a day stomach-smashing habit. Energy drinks lead to all the “no’s” of road tripping: stomach upset, sugar crash, and a tough time sleeping when you need to. Stick to tea or even coffee. I know coffee can wear down your innards as well, but not like that carbonated stuff will. There’s some great widely-available iced teas out there that are made with minimal added sugar and with an actual brewed-tea base, stock up on a few of those for the ride for when you need a little bump.

Seek out the Continental

Continental Breakfasts aren’t known for their nutrient value, but it’s free. If you have a free breakfast available to you that may have some fresh fruit, yogurt, or bagels, this is a much better option than popping into the quick mart at the gas station just before the highway. Given two hotels of similar price and quality, go for the one with breakfast included. It’s the most important meal of the day, and I’m convinced that one of these days I’ll figure out how to correctly use the make-it-yourself waffle machine.

Make Time for Meals, Real Meals

Time management will become a theme here. My first Boston to Colorado road trip was in college during the summer of 2004. Two buddies and I took turns sleeping in the backseat of my parents’ car (after mine broke down less than 20 miles into the trip) while the driver pounded Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper until he physically couldn’t drive anymore. We made the non-stop trip to Colorado Springs in under 36 hours. We were toast at the end of that trip. Of course, at the time, I thought it would be a once in a lifetime trip. It turns out he three of us would repeat the trip two summers later on the way to west coast clinical affiliations. This time, we brought 3 more friends with us and made the full trip from Boston to Huntington Beach, California – Coast-to-coast. We stretched it out and took 3 weeks to enjoy the journey (more on this later). After many, many more cross-country road trips, I have learned to build in time for things that matter.

Take time, every day, to eat one real sit-down meal. It’ll take 45 minutes to an hour extra, but you’ll feel better nourished because of it and ready for the next leg of the trip. Also, if it’s a decent option, Order the Salad.

Pack Some Snacks

Throw some carrot sticks in a zip lock, bring along a container of cashews, throw in a couple pieces of fruit you like. It took me a lot of road trips to figure out this simple thing: if you bring your food with you, you’ll rely less on service station food. Fortunately, there’s usually some food left over at the end of an assignment. I’ll pack what I can for snacks out of the stuff left in the fridge and stop by the grocery store the night before I leave for a few extra healthy foods. When you’re sitting around all day (driving), it’s natural to want to snack to occupy yourself – better a healthy snack than a bag of Fritos.

Travel PT Road trip

Our loaded car on a brief side trip to Glacier National Park. We arrived in the off season and had the park totally to ourselves. The national parks always make awesome side-trips.

Enjoy the Journey

It’s a really hard thing to do, but set a couple extra days aside so you can enjoy the ride. Afterall, “it’s about the journey, not the destination.” Fortunately in the case of travelers, the destination is also part of a larger journey, but I digress. Bottom line, take your time, build in side trips, and enjoy these road trips that can either be a hell bent charge to reach the end, or they can be some of the coolest memories of your life.

Root, root, root for the away team

One thing I love to do on long trips is to catch a road game. It’s a lot of fun to go cheer for your home team as the visitors. Check out your team’s schedule ahead of time and see if there’s somewhere you might be able to catch them while you’re both on the road. If you can’t catch your own team, just find a game that interests you, it’s cool to see different stadiums and it really breaks up the trip.

Side Trips

“If you aren’t taking side trips, you are not on a road trip. You are only driving.” -I just made that quote up, but I like it.

There’s the quirky roadside attractions: The Corn Palace, a 30ft Van Gogh, World’s Largest Ball of Yarn. There’s winery and brewery tours – better done AFTER a day of driving. And there’s the endless list of museums and halls of fame. My list of must make stops if you’re driving near them includes: Lincoln’s Tomb (Springfield, IL), Graceland (Memphis, TN), Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, NY), The Bourbon Trail (Kentucky), and add a day for any major national park you drive by. Skip the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not worth it, sorry Cleveland. America has thousands of roadside attractions that are worth pulling off the highway for – check ’em out!

Exercise

You may have to get up a little earlier in the morning, but some light exercise will make a great impact on the way you feel sitting all day. I personally enjoy a few mile run in the morning, but many of the campgrounds and hotels I stay in are right by the interstate. The added excitement of cars bombing by in an area not known for runners is a little too much for me. My second choice for a workout is the dinky gym in the hotel with a single cable and a stationary bike – enough to get the job done. However, frequently, my best choice is about 30 minutes of room-based exercise.

When I’m doing my in-room workout, I focus on hitting every body part to get the blood flowing, and I like to throw in a few postural exercises. When I say postural, I mean working the upper back and core and stretching out the chest – skip the push-ups, they are over-rated and will tighten your pecs, encouraging you to hunch over the steering wheel for the rest of the day. Work that upper back and scapular muscles by laying on your stomach and raising straight arms in front of you, to the side, and behind in 3 sets of 10 for each position, this will hit a few different group of muscle in your upper back and between your shoulder blades. Stretching the front and working the back helps you pull your shoulders back and over time will promote better posture and mechanics for you. I like to throw a few leg exercises in as well – lunges and wall squats are my favorites in the hotel room. Work the core with some slow bridges (laying on your back with knees bent and lifting your hips off the floor while tightening your abs), and you’ve completed a basic, but good exercise program to get the day going. Now go crush that continental breakfast without guilt, and good luck with the make-it-yourself waffles.

Travel PT Yellowstone Road Trip

The things you’ll see on a road trip…I spy a heard of buffalo out my window.

Use Your Resources

Apps (All mentioned are free apps available for iPhone and Android!)

OMG apps! There’s so many that can help you burn those miles of road with more ease.

A decent GPS app is a must. On my day to day I use Google Maps for navigation, but not on road trips! Waze (incidentally, now owned by Google), is a GPS app with some flare. Drivers live-time report road hazards as they drive. The app will alert you as you are approaching debris in the road, traffic and detours, or even the routine abandoned car in the breakdown lane. The alerts are handy and will help keep you safe. If I need to compare the time between a couple different routes or the time added by detouring to a different city, I use MapQuest. I find MapQuest to have the best options for adding and deleting stops to your trip and easily seeing the difference in trip length.

Beyond the generic GPS to get from point A to point B, there’s thousands of apps that specialize in finding particular services. I mentioned Urban Spoon already for finding food. That’s just my personal favorite, there’s other out there that will do the same job just as well. For finding hotels I use the Hotels.com app to book low prices, but the TripAdvisor app to look up hotel reviews. I also use TripAdvisor for reviews of road side attractions to see if they might be worth stopping. GasBuddy is an app that displays gas station prices including information on when a user last updated the price. GasBuddy helps prevent showing up at closed stations with an empty tank and helps find the cheapest gas every time. I’ve found a couple apps out there for RV users and even for tent camping to review and book campsites – Good Sam is a very popular service and app for RVers.

Grab a Buddy

With a little bit of planning, you can work a lot of friends into a single road trip.

If you’re lucky enough to know someone who needs to go in the same direction as you, it’s fantastic to have a co-pilot (to operate all those apps for you). The right friends will even fly-in to enjoy a segment of your road trip with you. I once had a friend fly in to enjoy a weekend in Vegas mid-road trip – what a weekend! There’s a lot you learn about yourself while alone on the open road, but having some company makes the miles fall away much easier.

Couch Surf

I stay with friends whenever I can. On a road trip last fall (of course, from Boston to Colorado), I was able to stay just one night in a hotel on a three night trip. Night number two I spent with friends in Chicago – we went out for dinner and enjoyed catching up. I then woke early the next morning and put the pedal to the metal to make a house party in Denver the next night – way too much driving for one day. But, visiting, eating, and partying with friends made the miles seem less like a chore and made the whole trip feel more like a vacation. I would gladly drive two hours out of my way to crash with a friend rather than stay in a musty hotel room. Think of your next trip and get on the horn to see who you can crash with.

Buy Local

Buying local is one thing you can do while passing through a place to do a little good while you’re there. Your money will do it’s part to help the local economy. Also, from an environmental standpoint, if you’re buying local, less goods are having to be shipped places using less gas to get them there. We’re already burning enough gas zipping back and forth across the country with overloaded cars, no need for everything we buy to do the same.

Eat and Drink Local.

To back up for just one moment to the eating well topic, some of my best road meals have been at local, small town bars and breweries.  Small breweries have tasty beers you can’t get anywhere else and usually have great food, even in the most unlikely places. By blindly following my Urban Spoon app to tasty food I’ve discovered killer small town dives and explored cities I otherwise would have zipped right past.  At local restaurants and pubs, you’re getting a meal, an experience, and doing the local economy just a little bit of good.

Travel PT Road trip camping

Camping did not make the list, but it’s definitely worth a mention. When the weather’s right, it’s a great way to save money, meet a couple characters along the drive, and enjoy some of the great outdoors on scenic back roads.

DIY Local.

Enough road tripping and you’ll need a wind shield wiper, a headlight bulb, a quart of oil, or a new axle (different story for a different time). Try to use local mom-and-pop shops. Avoid the huge box stores. Keep the good people of Anywheresville employed by their fellow neighbors who are all helping to sustain their own community.

 

Finally, ENJOY!

Road trips should not be a chore. Enjoy your time out there on the road. The highways of America have a lot to offer in unique experiences and sights. Grab a buddy and a tank of gas, and go see everything you can!

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This piece was written in collaboration with Fusion Medical Staffing and originally appeared on their site at:

Getting There: Staying Healthy, Having Fun, and Enjoying the Ride

 

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Relax to the Max

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Kate and I finished our jobs on the Big Island today. A standard 13 week contract for each of us that flew by in no time. This is typically the time that we start packing bags for a sunrise flight to visit family on the east coast or throw all the bags in the car for a couple-thousand-mile road trip. This is typically hustle-time. But it’s different this time. As I relax and enjoy my pau hana (after work) drink, the bags are already packed and traveling the brief 120 miles to our next assignment. When we get to Moloka’i in 10 days, our car will already be there with a few weeks worth of Costco supplies packed in the rear. What to do in the meantime? Vacation!

We are spoiled rotten. We get to drive all over the country every year. Usually we travel by car and see some awesome sights along the way. Last spring we drove from Colorado to Maine by way of Key West (Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! 10/6/13), the year before, we drove from Colorado to Alaska and returned on 10 day ferry trip down the North Pacific Coast (Alaskan Ferry Trip 12/17/12). These trips are always cool and create awesome memories, but they aren’t relaxing. The road trips are many great things, but they are not a break. Logistics, highway food, cheapo hotel beds, and an occasional call to AAA are the common obstacles. In the next 10 days, we will deal with none of that. We will just RELAX. (don’t do it)

A song about relaxing by a band with a travel-themed name. Really the perfect vacation song.

I haven’t written on here much at all about our next assignment, which, by the way, is going to be fantastic. I’ve been keeping a journal on the side. I’m not sure if it will become some sort of blog entry on here in the future, but for now, I’ll offer this brief summary of what we’ve gotten ourselves into: Kate and I will be the two Physical Therapists for the island of Moloka’i when the current PT goes on maternity leave. The only hospital on the island of 8,000 people typically needs one traveler following the recent retirement of one of their two PTs, but with the pending maternity, they will need two travelers. Kate and I will run the show for three months while hopefully grabbing a chance to explore one of the lesser known of the Hawaiian Islands. Moloka’i is less than 10 miles from Maui, but much, much, MUCH more rural and quiet. Moloka’i is one of the last unspoiled areas of Hawai’i and will be quite the isolationist’s travel assignment. A huge majority of people who live in Hawai’i have never been to Moloka’i, but many of the ones who have visited have shared their stories with me over the last few weeks. From tales of hunting wild African antelopes left over from a now closed safari park, to being trapped on a remote deserted beach for days, to the incredible kindness of (most of) the locals – everyone who has been to Moloka’i has a tall tale to tell. Perhaps in the future I’ll share some of the other stuff I’ve written about preparing for our trip to Moloka’i. To be honest, I started out quite skeptical and thought Moloka’i might be TOO rural, but I’ve come around and am crazy-excited for the next 3 months.

People do love their canoes on Moloka'i. Unspoiled beauty.

People do love their canoes on Moloka’i. Unspoiled beauty.

But, work in Moloka’i is 10 days away. The work of planning, and scheduling, and packing is done. We’ll wrap up our time on the Big Island over the next two days with some serious beaching. Then, we take a TSA-free puddle hopper over to Maui for 5 days of camping, hiking, and relaxation. Saturday morning, we’ll take the <10 mile ferry ride over to Moloka’i to let the real adventure begin. My biggest worry over the week will be preparing for a fantasy football draft on Skype with a bunch of buddies from school back in Boston (oh those goons). I promise many pictures over the next week and some unique tales from the upcoming assignment.

I have to run, the sun has set on the last day of Big Island work and I have to get to cooking this steak. 🙂 Aloha!

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A Little Ketchup

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One of the many beautiful sunsets this fall from our apartment looking back on Boston.

One of the many beautiful sunsets this fall from our apartment looking back on Boston.

Another travel assignment has flown by and I again have written far less frequently than I intended. I have a short list of meaningful topics I’ve been wanting to get to, but today you’ll have to settle for just an update on the travel life.

It’s been a great autumn in the Boston area. Kate and I got a killer apartment on the coast just north of the city and have made up for a lot of lost time with old friends. Lots of fun, a few shenanigans, nice cold evening sunsets, and being here for another World Series championship have made it a great fall! It’s raining right now, but its probably one of less than 7 days it has rained during our 3 months here. It’s been a fantastic fall… but, man, am I ready to get out of here and head to Colorful Colorado!

Highland Bowl

Highland Bowl, one more reason to get out and get acclimated… that bowl ain’t gonna hike itself!

This will be our 6th year working seasonal positions out in Colorado. I have worked for the same hospital out there for 5 years now – I am so excited to get to the mountains, see good friends and co-workers, start up the low-stress life of a professionally employed ski bum, and most importantly,get to laying down some powder turns. After a delay in finding a job for the fall, this contract is running a little later in the year than I’d like it to, and some weeks of the ski season are slipping by. I’m also losing out on some precious time for altitude acclimation that makes a huge difference for some mountain races later this winter – and just trying to keep up with the other locals around town – and not being out of breath sitting at my desk at work.

 

Accord

The ol’ Accord road tripping in all its glory.

I think part of my extreme anxiousness to get out there lies in a newly fine-tuned proficiency for getting ready to move. I have no bags packed, but I feel like I have been preparing to move for 3 weeks now. Just a few drawers of clothes to shove in bags and we’ll be packed up. To add to the ease of moving this time around, we have upgraded to an SUV. I sold my old Honda Accord that I had put 120,000 great miles on (plus 70,000 miles from its original owner). It drove some of the great roads in North America – made the trip up the Alcan Highway to Alaska, drove East through Canada to Prince Edward Island, and touched the Southern and Northern tips of Rt 1. But, for two people routinely moving cross-country multiple times each year, I can’t believe it took us this long to get a bigger car. I sold the Accord this weekend on Craigslist and I am driving a rental for my last week working in home care – 4 more days on this contract – head down, nose to the grindstone. Short-Timer Syndrome be damned!

I, of course, will be updating on the Facebook and Twitter (@hobohealth) pages all along the road trip, but this trip will be less of a meander out west than some of our previous trips. We will get to catch up with some friends in Chicago along the way, but otherwise this trip is going to be a straight-shot westward in just a couple long days of driving. Expect updates soon and travel safe! -James

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Alaskan Ferry Trip

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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!

DSC_5937

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!