Must-Visit Outdoorsy Communities

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.

A Working Vacation

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!

Places in Time

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work today and heard a segment that caught my ear. I grew envious of the author in the piece who had lived on a remote Alaskan island for two months to study the island’s history and write a book about it. I thought, “Man, I wish I had a job I could just take around to a cool places like that.” I then laughed hysterically at myself, because I do have a job that I can take where ever I want – if that remote Alaskan island ever needs a PT, I’m there.

I hear about peoples’ travels to far out and cool places and immediately want to be there. The only problem is that I can only be in one place at one time. Working typical 13 week travel contracts, a person can only see four different places in one year max. When I first started out traveling eight years ago, I had a short list of places I absolutely had to live in – Hawaii, Alaska, and a ski town. Three assignments, you figure you can chisel that out in nine months, right? Wrong. It took me six years to get to those three places.

We took 4 weeks off for our wedding and honeymoon including this zip-lining in the Dominican Republic. You're absolutely free to take whatever time off you want between assignments, but no PTO.

We took 4 weeks off for our wedding and honeymoon including this zip-lining in the Dominican Republic. You’re absolutely free to take whatever time off you want between assignments, but no PTO.

There’s so much time in travel PT that people don’t account for. If a three month contract is going well, it’s not unusual to negotiate a contract extension (typically another 13 weeks at a time*). Sometimes, particularly in home care or far-off places, the facility will request that the contract be six months instead of three. Usually a contract is longer when there are anticipated costs to the facility like an extended training process or extra relocation expenses. Living life 13 weeks at a time can get really manic, so most of the travelers I know who have traveled for a while have found a way to slow the pace of the constant 13 week shuffle. For instance, those of you who read often know that my wife and I spend half our year returning to the same seasonal jobs in Colorado. Returning to the same jobs provides us a little stability  while leaving 7 months each year to be true traveling therapists. Other travelers I know make a habit of extending their contracts whenever they can – their typical contract is not three months, but more like six or nine after extending their contract a time or two. One thing to know about extending contracts is that you do have a year cap on how long you can work somewhere before giving up your “traveler” status. I’m honestly not sure what determines this, but I do think it has to do with the IRS, tax home, and not being able to continue to receive tax-free per diem and housing.

*If you do negotiate a contract extension, always ask for a raise, even if it’s a small one.

In addition to extended contracts, the other place I’ve lost a lot of time over the years is between assignments. When I say I’ve “lost time,” I only mean that I’ve completed fewer traveling assignments because of all my time off. Most agencies don’t offer paid time off (PTO) unless you’ve done a few consecutive assignments with them. The bad news is you likely won’t get paid for your time off. The good news is that nobody else has a stake in your time off, and you can take as much time as your bank account can tolerate. I spend a lot of my time between assignments visiting family and friends back home, but I also use the time between assignments for some of my best adventuring. There were a couple years where I was ending up with 10+ weeks off per year! Luckily I’ve reeled that in a bit and tend to only have a week or two between assignments.

So far, I’ve talked about two positive things that can account for unanticipated time – prolonged assignments and vacation time. The third way your next travel assignment can be delayed is because you can’t find a job. I’ve written recently on the discussion board about staying flexible as a traveler. The more flexible you are, the less likely you are to remain unemployed. The only times I have ended up unemployed are few and far between – and I’ve never been more than a week without a job. Should you ever find yourself in a position where the job you want is just not popping up in time, re-evaluate and see what your other options are – other adventures await! There are great opportunities available in travel rehab, the only reason you would ever remain unemployed for a sustained period of time would be your own stubborn solidarity to a particular city or a particular practice setting.

Arriving in Juneau on our boat/roadtrip back from Alaska in 2012. One of the coolest uses ever of two free weeks between assignments.

Arriving in Juneau on our boat/roadtrip back from Alaska in 2012. One of the coolest uses ever of two free weeks between assignments.

As you plan to take on traveling as a career, or even for just one year, there will be many places you’ll want to see. You can’t see them all at once, so allow time to get to where you want to be. There will be positive experiences that keep you in areas longer than you intended, and there will be obstacles to getting exactly where you want to go. But, with a little patience, you can turn  traveling therapy into one of the greatest life opportunities ever.

When my wife and I started traveling, we thought we’d travel for two years. We eventually saw everywhere on the original list of places we wanted to see, but haven’t shaken the travel bug yet. Eight years later, we still think two more years will do the trick. Yeah right! Maybe we’ll find our way to that remote Alaskan island someday.

Friends in Places

Recently, I’ve done really well at getting a blog out to you almost every other week (::sound of me patting myself on back::). The winters in Colorado are just too much damn fun to be sitting around writing on my silly website. That leaves the 7 months when ski lifts are closed to be productive and get some marginally decent writing done. The past several weeks, this blog has been quiet…. A clear sign I’ve been having too much fun outside of ski season.

Our first glimpses of Waikiki on our puddle jumper over from Molokai. In the group of tall building by the shore (Waikiki), the building we living in during 2010 is the furthest to the left.

Our first glimpses of Waikiki on our puddle jumper over from Molokai. The building we lived in during 2010 is center of the picture, but the furthest to the left and small in the group of tall buildings near the shore.

It all started when we moved to Molokai 4 weeks ago. After one weekend on Molokai, Kate and I could see the lights of Waikiki calling from across 26 miles of open ocean. 4 years ago, we had a 6 month home care assignment over there and lived in an apartment 3 blocks from Waikiki Beach. The job on that assignment was one of the worst travel assignments I have ever had. A quick review of my blogs over recent months and years will reveal several passing mentions of that job and my rehab-oblivious boss. But, the combination of my Craigslist-surfboard and the 5 minute walk to the waves of Waikiki made the assignment easily bearable. Early on in the assignment we made friends with a few other travel PTs. We spent all of our non-work hours kayaking to small offshore islands, hiking, singing karaoke, and eating at a delicious underground sushi bar. It was pretty awesome. Over a few months, we added one friend’s significant other and some new travelers joined the group. We reached peak form in month 5 and had – as the kids say, “a frickin’ blast.” Somewhere along the line, we discovered Honolulu’s best deal ever: a catamaran called the Na Hoku II – they would let you on for a local’s price of $25 and sail for 2 hours around the shores off Waikiki, with a free open bar. Our Saturday habit quickly became beach/surf, then booze cruise on the Na Hoku II, then sushi, then if still upright we would sing karaoke (and eat more sushi). Every week was a countdown to Saturday. We got to know the characters on our weekly routine – to start the afternoon, Captain Crash would drive the boat out of harbor while playing The Booty Song, to end the night at karaoke, an old local man named Uncle Ron would sing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. During the hours between The Booty Song and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, we would have a blast. That was the summer of 2010, We. Had. So. Much. Fun!

Diamond Head keeps a watchful eye over Waikiki. As seen from the blurry eye of the Na Hoku II.

Diamond Head keeps a watchful eye over Waikiki. As seen from the blurry eye of the Na Hoku II.

3 weeks ago, we somehow got the whole group back together in Waikiki. I can’t think of another group of friends that could all get back together in one place without somebody missing. Traveling PTs from the summer of 2010 came from the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Molokai, and Waikiki to be together for 48 hours of AWESOME. We hit all the old haunts: we had our afternoon on the Na Hoku II (minus Captain Crash) and made it to late night sushi/karaoke – complete with Uncle Ron still singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. We started mornings with killer brunches and finished our nights sharing memories of our old times together. Kate and I eventually made it back to our 9-seat puddle jumper headed back to Molokai for work on Monday morning.

We only had a short time back on Molokai, because just ten days later we had a trip planned to Colorado for a really great friend’s wedding. I grew up with the groom as my best bud. Eventually, when he and another close friend said they were moving to Aspen, Kate and I said, “We’re coming too!” The wedding in Breckinridge was beautiful. The weather was perfect. The foliage was at its peak for the 10,000 ft ceremony. But, that is NOT what I found myself talking about during my return to work earlier this week. Because of my friendship with the groom during our move cross country together, we shared many friends throughout different phases of life. At the wedding, I saw friends from growing up in the suburbs of Boston and also from my new, seasonal life in Colorado. Kate and I got to swing by our winter-time job to catch up with some fantastic friends, and had a bonus night out on town. We bumped into people we didn’t expect, but were happy to see them and had… a frickin’ blast. Having fun with a bunch of friends is what I remembered and was sharing with patients at work this week. What a great time with old and new friends! I apologize in advance for the abundance of ski videos the HoboHealth Facebook page will be posting this fall as a result of my one weekend in Colorado.

We got the band back together. Here's the whole 2010 group together enjoying a brunch in 2014. A great time.

We got the band back together. Here’s the whole 2010 group together enjoying a brunch in 2014. A great time.

So, what’s the point? This post is not long excuse for why I haven’t written in a few weeks. Sure, I’ve had fun this month and haven’t been able to write as often, but this post is meant as an example of the life I’ve chosen to live as a traveler. I sometimes think of the sacrifices I make to enjoy the places I get to live. It turns out that some of those sacrifices are made up in my own head and I’m getting the best of both worlds.

I sometimes get an uneasy feeling when I go back to hangout with friends from the “good-old-days.” I inevitably come to meet the NEW friend who is a neighbor of my friends, or a coworker, or a CrossFit gym-mate, or whatever. I guess the feeling I get is jealousy, but there’s also a feeling that I’m missing something by being away traveling; that me and this new guy could be really good pals if I were around more often. But, it’s really fun times like the last few weeks that I realize I’m not missing out. I’m off building relationships that are just as strong. These relationships are built on the traveling experience and only exist because of the Na Hoku II, knowing who Uncle Ron is, powder days in Colorado, and dozens of fun things between. Someday, I’ll get my chance to make a lifelong friend across the picket fence (or at least in the next RV parking spot over). For now I feel really good traveling and I’m having a really good time making great friends in unconventional places. I hope on this assignment that I’ll meet some good people who I can stay in touch with.

I’ll try to write more often. After all, it’s not going to get any easier to write with all the fun with friends coming this winter.

Travel safe!   …but not too safe… what’s the fun in that? 🙂

Enter Island

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relax to the Max

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!

Just Go With It

I’ve returned to my natural state. Everything I own is in a bag. The rear-end of the car is dragging on the tires from the weight of stuff that will ultimately end up in a storage container. Kate just got home from her last day of work with a bottle of wine. The corkscrew is packed away at the bottom of a box, but at least my camping gear is coming on the trip, so my Swiss Army knife is available. We’re each wearing different white Red Sox shirts as I twist the corkscrew portion of the Swiss Army knife into the cork and pull like hell while hoping not to splash red wine on either of us. Success! It’s going to be a good week off.

Map of lava flow hazard zones for Island of Hawai`i

The USGS’ Lava-flow Hazard Zone Map. I guess we’re supposed consider this when looking for housing? It’s going to be an adventure.

It’s been a wild ride to get this next assignment’s contracts in place. Actually, they aren’t really in place, I’m just going in on blind faith with fingers crossed. Kate got an assignment set in Kona, HI through a recruiter. We thought long and hard about whether Kona was where we wanted to go and what our other options were. When it became apparent that there were some more jobs around Kona and a couple opportunities for independent contracts presented themselves, we committed to Hawaii.

People ask me about independent contracts a lot. Let’s be clear, I am no expert on independent contracts, but I do have a little experience. Whatever I’ve done this time around is not the way independent contracts should be done. I’ve verbally accepted two PRN jobs with no idea what the pay is.

It all started well. I have had two different interviews at places that would like me to work for them. Seems simple enough from there, right? Let’s sign the contracts and get started with work. Unfortunately, neither of the jobs has 40 hours for me, but they both say they have 20-30 hours for me. We have talked pay, but I have no commitment from either job on exactly what the pay will be. I supposedly have a job offer in the mail from the private practice, and the hospital I have spoken with has cautioned me that they are run by the state, so “it can be quite a process to set-up a contract.” I’m antsy to have a contract in hand, but Kate keeps reminding me about “Aloha time.” Aloha time is the Hawaiian equivalent of “Don’t worry, be happy.”

The start of the Ironman Kona swim is right around the corner from my job. The locals call it “The Pier,” and I cannot wait to go get some open water swimming in.

Kate’s right, things are going to go fine, we always land on our feet. I have two places in Kona that want me to work for them and want me to start in under 10 days – that’s a pretty good situation. It’s Hawaii, they’re relaxed, and I should be too. No one else is worried, they expect me to show up on the 19th and start work. Nothing left to do but knock on wood, hop on the plane, and hope someone has scheduled me some patients when I get out there.

Remember, don’t do this. Be more business savvy than I have been. When talking finances of a contract, be clear, be confident. Because I have not been clear or confident when talking about the business parts of my independent contracts, there’s nothing left for me to do but wait and start working on my transition into Aloha time. Patience is a virtue, don’t worry brah.

To Be Continued...

Vagabonds, Vagabonds Everywhere

Balloon

Launch site of the first trans-Atlantic balloon flight – Presque Isle, Maine. Jonathan Trappe, who is really cool thinks this is really cool. It must be.

It’s been too long since my last post, so let’s get right into it.

I realized recently that one of the fascinating things about being a Physical Therapist and traveling is all the different people that we get to meet and get to know as we work with them. This thought started when a man showed up at the door of our cabin looking to rent it, because our landlord has left the “For Rent” sign out front. We got to talking about this first TransAtlantic Hot Air Balloon launch site which is just down the road. At this point, the guy introduces himself Jonathan Trappe and whips out his phone to show Kate and I why he finds the balloon memorial so fascinating. “I guess it’s just a small group of us that find that kind of thing really cool. This is my balloon,” he says while showing a picture on his phone of him hooked into a harness attached to a bunch of toy-like latex balloons floating above the clouds. I say to him that it looks like he’s pretty far up. He says, “Yeh, this picture is taken at 20, 000 ft above the Alps!” You gotta check this stuff out ClusterBalloon.com – There’s place down the street that Jonathan might rent. I hope he does, maybe we can be friends.

I don’t know why this came as some sort of revelation to me that I get to meet a lot of people doing what I do – afterall, being able to be a social creature at work is one of the major reasons I got into PT in the first place. Now, I’ve been practicing for 7 years (which through some very rough math works out to 12,000 to 14,000 hours in the clinic), and I can think of a lot of really interesting people that I’ve been fortunate to meet. There’s a couple of patients I’ve treated that opened my eyes to some different and cool stuff. There was this Buddhist monk that would show up for her treatments in her burnt-orange monk robe we’d talk about the different veins of Buddhism. She’d tell me about how she was one of the first female monks in her particular denomination of Buddhism, how it was the most pure of the denominations, and how she brought it to the US several decades back. Just a fascinating woman, I don’t really remember all that much else about her, but she definitely sticks out in my mind as a cool person to have known.

There was this man in his late 80’s I saw for home care a few years back. He opened my eyes to the religion of Spiritualism. He was a leader nationally in the Spiritualist Church where they believe when people die they exist in the same world as us as spirits. To dumb it down: they believe in ghosts. And this guy was a medium who could communicate with the dead. He lived with this much younger roommate who was a tarot card reader. They were always making this soup that I can distinctly remember the smell of – It may have been some sort of mix of the soup and just the particular smell of their place that I remember, it was very distinct. I go over and work with this man a couple times a week. Somewhere inbetween he and the tarot card reader telling me fascinating stories and explaining more about Spiritualism, we’d sneak in a few exercises and some work to improve his mobility. He believed that anyone could be trained to be a medium — that you didn’t particularly need to have a knack for it. Besides this religion that fascinated me, he was just a sharp, open minded guy that I think of occasionally and wish I had kept in touch with. I did think to call him one day, but enough time had passed that I had changed phones and didn’t have his number anymore. Too bad, I’d like to know how he’s doing….. and take him up on that medium session he offered.

"Hey! Look a van with a New Hampshire plate. What are the chances out here in Alaska. On an unrelated note: Brrr, It's cold, glad we're not in a tent...."

“Hey! Look a van with a New Hampshire plate. What are the chances out here in Alaska. On an unrelated note: Brrr, It’s cold, glad we’re not in a tent….”

The travel really increases the amount of people from less-than-ordinary circumstances that pass through my life. When actually out traveling on the road or in airports, I don’t typically go out of my way to chat up people, I’d rather not deal with the inconvenience of them asking me where I live :-), but occasionally someone will creep into the daily interactions and stick as a memory. The only reason cluster-balloon-guy stopped in is because the “For Rent” sign was still up. If we had been well settled into a place for months or years, that sign wouldn’t have been out there and Jonathan wouldn’t have come-a-knocking. “New Hampshire” was the name dubbed to the couple on the Alaskan State Ferry ride to Washington who were driving a big van displaying a New Hampshire license plate and with a big aluminum canoe strapped to the top of the van. We first met them in the line of cars waiting to get onto the first boat out of the Anchorage area. The gentleman of the couple noticed our Maine plates and came strolling over saying something like, “Hey! Maine!? We’re from New Hampshire!” We continued to see this couple everywhere on the 10 day trip down to the lower 48. We saw them on the boat, we saw them out in Juneau on a 2 day stop there, and we even passed them on the highway headed out of Bellingham, Washington. My most amusing memory (of these people whom we never really got to know that well) happened one afternoon on the boat when seas were rough and water was splashing and blowing up over the top of the several story high ship. New Hampshire was hanging out nearby and I remembered they had been tenting out on the deck of the ship. It wasn’t unusual for people to tent on the deck of the ship, but this was getting late in the season and they had the only tent out there in November. The tent was tied to a railing after they were overhead paged on the boat to attend to their tent. According to the ship’s crew, it’s not unusual for winds to whip up, taking unsecured tents weighed down with gear right off the boat into the Gulf of Alaska. I was a little scared to ask them if their tent was out on the deck during this patch of rough seas, but I remember as things calmed a bit and no more water was coming over the top of the ship, Mr. New Hampshire stands up and very matter-of-factually says, “I guess I’ll go see if the tent is still there.” What a character, and neat people living a cool life, cracks me up.

Anyways, just because I feel like there’s supposed to be some conclusion here, let me say this: I like meeting people and I think PT and traveling is a nice combination that lets me meet some pretty cool people. We’re trying to buy a second car off Craiglist this week, that’s a process that lends itself to some strange people getting involved… should be fun!

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!

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!

 

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!)