THE Journey

Oh yeah, it’s getting back to that time again. Time to road trip. Let’s face it, the reason we go to work on assignment every morning is to pay for this very expensive habit we haven’t been able to kick yet… TRAVEL! I really do think the bi-annual cross country trips have become two of my favorite parts of the year. I don’t know why I enjoy them,

Glacier

On the road trip up to Alaska in Glacier National Park.

I despise packing everything into the Accord, I hate long days in the car, but I guess I love the whimsy of quick side trips to places not listed in Fodor’s and feeling the reality of just how big this country and world are. Too deep? Don’t worry it won’t last.

Don’t get me wrong, meow. I love the time we spend on assignment in a wide variety of locales and the excitement of truly living in and absorbing a place’s culture. Enjoying the adventure here in Alaska is exactly what is to blame for the long time between writings over the past few months. But, the truth is, I’m usually looking forward to the next trip and destination.

On the trip from CO up here to AK we had really wanted to take the ferry that comes up through the inner passage with whales, glaciers, and general awesomeness. We got started too late, missed the opportunity to book, and instead were forced to take the coolest road trip of our lives. If you followed my Facebook and Twitter through the trip, then you know some of the highlights. The 4,000 miles took us from a Brian Mulligan course in Denver through some of

British Columbia

Camping in British Columbia. A beautiful night, but I think we were pushing the season… brrr, chilly!!!

the most beautiful and desolate land I’ve ever seen.  It hard to briefly share the whole trip and experience because some of the best parts of the trip were where there was very little at all. The hundreds of miles between tiny villages amazed me.

The road trip was a great time but a long way to drive. This time around, we have our ferry tickets booked and will getting on the boat headed south 4 weeks from now. We have done a lot of fun road trips over the years of travel PT and I remember a particularly fun road trip that Kate and I did with four other classmates from Boston to L.A. while traveling out west for clinical rotations. This road trip excites me as much as that epic trip back in 2005. This time, our itinerary will take us to three of the four corners of this country, and I can’t wait.  These road trips are my best chance to post some good picture and stories, so stay tuned as November and December grind on.

 

The THE Series

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

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

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

The Perfect Day.

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

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

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

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

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

I swear this isn’t fake. Seriously.

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

 

Roadtrip Reflection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading!

Transitions

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

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

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

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

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

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

James

ROADTRIP!

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Ahhhhhh, the open road.

I’m just getting settled at my new assignment in Newport, Maine. We drove in from Aspen from Tuesday to Saturday where I had a full refresher course of the fine art of turning a 2,000+ mile drive into something enjoyable.

One thing I remembered to enjoy was those unexpected “life experiences”: As we approached our hotel outside of Chicago that we found on the AAA iPhone app, we found it several miles down a dark access road paralleling, but not accessing, the main interstate. As we got closer, we found it sandwiched between two, ahem, Gentlemen’s clubs. The following drama of finding our way safely back to the highway, finding a new hotel at 11 PM, and eventually settling in to our far more comfortable (and far less grimy) hotel was an adventure that while not enjoyable at the time is a unique experience that does not happen during most peoples’ commute.

That next morning, we were able to stop close to our hotel to check out Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. This is the spontaneous touristing that falls in your lap. Our visit 45 minutes off the highway drive to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown New York the next day is the other kind of touristing. While I’m talking about it, Cooperstown is definitely a pilgrimage worth taking for any baseball fan. I wish I had a few more hours there, a really cool place (except for all the Yankees fans 🙂 Aha! Go SOX!).

Road trips. I love ’em. In an occupation where the destination is definitely what it’s all about, this was a journey worth enjoying.

James R Spencer, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS

Current Location: Newport, ME