Happy Trailerversary to us, year TWO!

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Happy Trailerversary to us, year TWO!

It’s our trailerversary! Two years of travel in the bag. We are celebrating with some locally sourced salsa and a siesta in Mesa, AZ. Milestones are cause for celebration because they are not easy to achieve, and this year has certainly had just as many challenges as triumphs.

Most recently, we had the rather unpleasant experience of road trouble; the trailer achieved its first flat tire. I have extensive experience with bicycle flats, which can be fixed in less than 5 minutes, and some experience with flats on cars, which can be fixed in the range of 30 minutes to 8 hours (depending on how willing you are to wait for AAA in order to avoid a car jack). This flat tire was nothing like that. Read on to hear about our new aeration system (a 6 foot gash in our floor)! 

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Hi! We're FT travelers who still somehow manage to fail at work-life balance

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Hi! We're FT travelers who still somehow manage to fail at work-life balance

We’ve been terrible about updating this blog, and today we'd like to place the blame for our silence squarely on the beefy shoulders of work. Work has truly bulked up this fall, and I for one suspect steroids, but It’s so hard to turn work in while it continues to bring home the gold. And I’m sure Paul feels as I do, that while we’re horrified by this metaphor and also by the gratuitous machismo of work moving in to our otherwise cozy lives, we put up with it because, this is America, and what else can we do?

Read on and I'll lighten up on the work-as-meat-head metapho, while also telling you all about my job!

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This land is your land

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This land is your land

Hi! We’re back in California.  Oh, we didn’t really want to be back in California, but it turns out that’s just where the travel nurse jobs congregate. This means that after 10 short weeks, we had to turn our obnoxiously red truck around and drive back across the country. Here’s our recommended course of action:

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IT’S OUR TRAILERVERSARY!

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IT’S OUR TRAILERVERSARY!

We’ve now been living in the house on wheels for a full year! At the moment, we’re parked in the Sacramento Delta, about an hour and a half outside of San Francisco and clear across the country from where we started. It has been a stormy January in NorCal and listening to the rain plink plink on the trailer roof reminds me of our very first night in West Virginia. Read on for some reminiscing, recapping, and to hear about the parts of trailer-life that I thought I would hate, but don't.

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Verdant vs. Vile: Keeping the Trailer Clean

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Verdant vs. Vile: Keeping the Trailer Clean

Ive said that Oregon is lush, fertile, verdant, but then the mold began to take over and I stopped feeling poetic about the PNW.

The situation came to a head when I discovered a pair of shoes, unworn for 5 days, completely covered in mold. I am not an allergy prone person, but it turns out, mold is rather potent. The shoes had been next to the bed, and I had awoken each morning with increasingly painful headaches and clogged sinuses. A cursory investigation revealed that everything hanging in our closet had become moldy. Unused backpacks were covered in a green film. The freaking windows were moldy. I have a high tolerance for gross, and it turns out that moldy windows is my low bar.

We went into attack mode. Here's our step by step on mold battles:

 

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    OREGON, ORESTAYIN

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    OREGON, ORESTAYIN

    Sometimes we meet nurses who were travelers, but they fell in love with a place or a person and decide to stay at that assignment permanently. That is not what happened to us. Oregon is nice, we like Oregon, but we do not love Oregon.

    Read more to hear exciting radio, food, and weather updates!

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    Long Winded Excuse for Not Blogging in a Month

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    Long Winded Excuse for Not Blogging in a Month

    However busy the ER has been during Paul’s time on, his time off has made our Idaho life feel like a series of long weekends. I love a long weekend, who doesn’t? While Southern Idaho is not about to make the Lonely Planet’s list of must-see destinations, our long-weekend lifestyle has allowed us to explore a lot of wonderful just-beyond-local destinations.

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    The Love of a Grocery Store

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    The great thing about trailer-life food shopping is that it is exactly like stationary food shopping. 

    Even when we’re traveling between gigs, we make coffee in our coffee maker and we drink that coffee from our favorite mugs as we prep our normal breakfast in our every-day kitchen. We never have to resort to awful road trip, rest stop food. We buy perishables and keep them in our fridge where they stay cold while we drive. It is far more delicious and economical than trailer-less road trip food.

    But--the terrible thing about trailer life and food shopping is that travelers can never fall in love with a grocery store.

    Have you been in love with a grocery store? I have...

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    Idaho According to Idahoans

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    Idaho According to Idahoans

    Here are statements that Idahoans have presented to me as facts which I have yet to substantiate:

    1. In the lower 48, Idaho is the sate that has the most land that is the least inhabited. Much of Idaho is totally inaccessible by road.

    2.     Idaho has the 2nd highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Recently a teacher was fired for using the words 'penis' and 'vagina' in public school, in a sex ed class, which is optional by the way.

    3.     Jerome county (our current home) is the most irrigated county in the US.

    This seems plausible, there are canals everywhere and children are not allowed to play in them and what’s more is that it seems like children really actually don’t play in them. A true irrigation miracle and mystery!
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    Between Job Adventures: Arizona to Idaho

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    Between Job Adventures: Arizona to Idaho

    Some of the very best parts of travel nursing are the times in between gigs. It's a forced vacation every 3 months.  During anchored life vacations you are either a) driving through familiar roads to local destinations or b) paying the big dollars to fly someplace exciting. In contrast, travel nurse vacations start from a relatively new location (Southern Arizona)  and bring you to an even newer location (Southern Idaho, what are you about?!?).  

    There was SO much to see and do in Arizona and Utah, we had to pick and choose. Here's a quick photo-romp through our adventures.

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    In Da Club: 55+ Social Activities

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    In Da Club: 55+ Social Activities

    Paul says I write too much. I can't help it. I can't bear to leave anything out. This is an attempt at a brief "club" update.

    Hardy Hikers: This is the only club that both Paul and I have joined. The hiking group heads out twice a week and goes between 8 and 16 miles each time. They are mostly Canadian and hard of hearing, so we hike along and shout at each other. I tried to teach them“stinky pinky” a rhyming word game, and they liked it but they kept trying to rhyme things like ‘rock’ and ‘hop’ or ‘poodle’ and ‘park.’ Most of them were electrical engineers or lab chemist, professions that did not prioritized word play.

    Bonus Treat: The full post includes a video of my choral debut

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    Step 8: Choosing an RV or Camper

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    Step 8: Choosing an RV or Camper

    This post is step 7 in the steps you need to take in order to become a travel nurse. It’s time to choose a trailer!

    We should probably mention that there were other options for housing; agencies will offer company housing or help you find a place nearby. We weren't that excited about living out of a suitcase or staying in hotels for months at a time--and while some of the company housing is probably very nice, the travel trailer gave us the freedom to take our home with us wherever we went. Plus, without the company housing, most contracts will throw in a living stipend which will cover the cost of the campground easily.

    Different Camper Species

    When we first started looking at trailers, we knew nothing. We had always been tent people. We did not know the difference between a Class ‘A’ RV and a camper. Now, we are experts and for the ignorant and foundationly anchored, here’s the quick breakdown

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    Oh, to be 55

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    Oh, to be 55

    There was a lot riding on our first placement. I was (am) still a little unsure of what I should be doing while Paul is at work. Plus our trailer was (is) still a new and unfamiliar gadget.

    We hoped to be close to outdoor adventure, but close to amenities, and close to Paul's work, but in a location that didn't feel like a glorified parking lot. We knew we'd have to make some compromises, but then we somehow got ourselves a spot in Tucson's premier 55+ retirement community and we didn't have to make any compromises at all.

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    We quit our jobs and moved into a trailer

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    We quit our jobs and moved into a trailer

    At the end of December, Paul and I quit our stable jobs in Chicago to hit the open road. We'd been dreaming of travel nursing for years, and finally decided the time was right to take the adventurous leap. Neither of us had ever spent even a single night in an RV/Camper/Travel Trailer before.

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