Tag: Vacation

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THE Journey

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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.

 

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The Perfect Day.

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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!

 

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Roadtrip Reflection

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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!

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Patients! They’re everywhere, AHHHHH!

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The first story that has to be told from my recent trip to Tulum, Mexico is about the nice lady (a.k.a. crazy wacko) I sat next to on the plane.

As therapists, you see people who could use your services everywhere: the kid walking down the street using his crutch on the wrong side, the old man whose family is struggling to get him into the car, or just Aunt Ida chatting away at Thanksgiving dinner about her bunions. Aunt Ida aside, I try not to let my desire to get involved in these people’s lives take over. Aside from all the practical reasons not to get involved, there’s an ethical line that gets crossed when an off-duty healthworker starts injecting his/her opinions into a person’s private life.

Be careful, patients are everywhere and they want your PT brain.

While I frequently have to restrain getting involved, this past week’s experience was different… I wanted to run away. As I settled in for the 4-hour flight into Cancun, the lady next to me started telling me how she would be getting up frequently because of her debilitating back pain. I immediately recoiled into defense mode. How could I keep her from finding out I’m a PT? How would I read JOSPT without giving away my secret identity? I am not treating this  lady for the next 4 hours, this is my VACATION!!! ….and this patient was clearly CRAZY! Keep it to yourself, lady!

What went on for the next 4 hours was a delicate dance: She would ask me to get her carry-on down from the over-head. I would stash my PT magazines behind safety manuals in the seatback pocket. She would pace in the isles. Other passengers would uneasily wonder why. She would intermittently display her gabapentin bottle on the tray table. I would try to disguise JOSPT while reading by sliding as far to the opposite side of the seat as possible. She would talk on-and-on about her back pain, and I would nod politely.

When it came close to time to land, I thought I had made it through without revealing my secret, but there was one more test. My single serving friend had one more piece of information to make my blood boil. She was looking forward to her quick trip through customs and baggage claim. “You know, if you ask for a wheelchair, the airlines have to give you one.”

So, back in the terminal, as I stood in the hour-long customs line, I looked to the side and saw her cruising by in the wheel chair. She had won again, the crazy bird gets the worm.

Be careful on your travels this Thanksgiving weekend, patients are everywhere. Don’t trust Aunt Ida, I think she’s hiding something.

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Transitions

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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

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Off Topic Travel

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

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

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

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

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Living

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My priority in traveling is experiencing places the way they REALLY are. Some people do travel for the good pay, some do it to test out a place before moving there full time, some people just do it for a change. I think living in a place is so different than visiting or going on vacation there, and that’s why I travel.

I love going to places and joining the local running club, learning the local hikes that only the locals know, and going to the bar with the good deals. I thought of this most recently on an over-night back packing trip in Colorado’s 10th Mountain Division Hut System. It was the kind of trip that would never, ever happen on a week vacation to Aspen. In my time here, I have developed a life with my regular hangouts, favorite runs, and my own friends…. Very different from a vacation!

I guess there’s the flip-side too. There was a town I visited growing up as a kid. Awesome, rustic summer vacations, scenic vistas, and plain-old good times. After living there for 5 months, I found this place to be a trashy, sprawling demi-city, witha highly transient population that was really the kind of place surrounded by cool stuff with very little to offer itself.

Living somewhere is very different from vacationing somewhere. Not necessarily good or bad, just different. I guess places are like people, some you are really drawn to, others you can only take in doses.

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James R Spencer PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS

Currently: Aspen, CO

Moving to: Skowhegan, ME (in 3 days)