A little sunshine and snow

We finally saw the sun after two weeks of clouds and fog. It even warmed up to 40 degrees! Work is finally starting to make sense.  I had a breaking point on Tuesday when I had several grouchy patients tell me I didn't understand what it was like to be an old person. I even had one lady say "you are the worst one" and another lady said "oh no, not you again".   The only kids who ever gave me a hard time about treating them were my kids with Autism.  Jonathan also got the stomach bug and was out of work one day.  By the end of the week though the same ladies came around and became quit pleasant.  On Thursday I was given an unexpected out patient to evaluate and treat.  It was a lady with bilateral elbow fractures...not sure what part of I used to be a school therapist they didn't understand.  I had to use a goniometer to  measure elbow flexion and extension which I hadn't done since graduate school.  Lets just say this will be a learning process for me!  We finished out the week by throwing a "party" for my bilateral lower extremity amputee patient who is discharging.  He had told me he was done with therapy on Thursday when he was given the notice that he would be able to go back home.  Since I knew we would still have to treat him on Friday I got him to agree to coming to the therapy gym first thing in the morning for a going away 'party' and 'surprises'.  I got him to 'show me how' to make an egg white sandwich in our therapy kitchen.  This is what he had said he makes for breakfast every morning at home.  He had told me he liked to shoot guns so I had our director bring in her kids nerf gun and we set up an obstacle course for him to move his electric chair though and shoot at targets. I'd say it was a success.


This weekend we ventured into Washington State to go snow shoeing.  We are only about 45 minutes from the border.  We went through Washington Wine country on the way out.  Our views through the fog consisted of vineyards, cows, and green mountains. When we got up to the top of the mountain the sun came out. We went up to White Pass Washington where there is a ski and Nordic center.

We did a hike around a frozen lake and even walked on the Pacific Coast Trail which is similar to the eastern Appalachian Trail. 

Here is the lake in the summer:

And here is the lake we saw:

I thought I'd give a tutorial on how to dress for winter weather as I have learned over the years.  Coming from the coast of NC I never really had to dress for cold and snow.

The trick is to layer. For the undermost layer a long sleeve polyester blend shirt and leggins will do. I got my shirt years ago on Sierra Trading post which is an online outdoors store.  For socks you really want to wear some smart wool to keep your feet warm and dry. I choose to wear REI smart wool knee socks.  On top I have two additional layers. One is a fleece pullover from Old Navy and then a windproof rain jacket.  Mine is a Marmot Jacket. My show pants came from Target in the kids section at the end of last session. I paid $14 for them.  Since I'm petite sometimes I can get away with kids gear and clothes which makes things cheaper.  I did see some snow pants at Walmart for $40.  I recently invested in some snow boots at the Merrell outlet in Park City, Utah for $35. Lastly you need a good pair of water resistant gloves and a hat. My hat is knit with a fleece liner.  I brought along a knit scarf but quickly sheded that layer.  Your temperature constantly changes when snow shoeing.  When hiking more vigorous sections your body temperature increases but when you stop for breaks it quickly cools off.  Its important to ventilate as much as possible when you heat up.  My jacket has zippers under the arms to allow increased circulation.  At time I even took off my gloves when hiking!    

To get an insight as to how much snow was on the ground we took a picture of the picnic area which was basically covered. Jonathan pretended to warm his hands by the fire pit.

The sights of fur trees covered in snow was beautiful and they smelled awesome too!

On the way up/down the mountain we saw crossing signs for Rams but never thought we'd actually see some but then sure enough one was just up the mountain past the sign!

Make Shift Home

We have officially survived our first week in Pendleton Oregon and have finally unpacked our bags for the next 12 weeks.  Our apartment came furnished and is much bigger and nicer than we were expected. It is actually a 2 bedroom although only furnished for one. Our 2nd bedroom is a nice storage area for our boxes and bags.  It was very strange unpacking our cars and seeing what made the cut for the trip. Prior to beginning this trip we packed away the bulk of our life into a storage unit. After the storage unit was full it became a real life game of tetras to see what would fit into our cars and when it came down to the wire some things ended up in the trash.

Our apartment is an old renovated building in the heart of downtown.  The building was originally built in 1919.



 It even has an old elevator with the gate door. This along with our dolly made it very easy to unload our cars! It is somewhat creepy though because while you are waiting for the elevator you can see the ropes moving the elevator up or down through the glass door.

The other cool thing about our building is we have a key code to open the outer door when makes me feel like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City!

The nursing home which we are working at is in the next town over which is about 30 minutes away.  On our first day of work we were pretty nervous especially me since I my prior experience has been working with pediatrics but I kept telling myself that we would really be spending most of the day in orientation.

When we arrived we were given about 20 minutes of orientation and a schedule of a full day of patient care. On Wednesday we were given a "talk" about the importance of seeing patients for their full therapy time for billing purposes.  I spent multiple sessions that day in patent's room's who were reporting complaints of a stomach bug.  Guess what I got to experience that night?  I had not thrown up in 7 years! I was really missing all my sick time I had built up at my last job in which I used none!  The next day was a full day of sleeping for me and trying to regain bodily fluids.  I did make it back on Friday and had 7 hours and 20 minutes of patient care scheduled for an 8 hour day. My last two patients had the stomach bug so I left them alone and so ended the 1st work week. 

Our first weekend we took it easy to recover and get more settled.  We did our usual weekend chores such as grocery shopping and cleaning but tried to explore the town a little more as well. We are still trying to figure out the ends and outs such as where to eat, what times/days are places closed, and so on.  I don't think we have seen the sun all week so hoping that will come out this week.

The Oregon Trail

Our route: http://goo.gl/maps/lQjc3 

Day 1 Sunday: Raleigh to Meridian Mississippi

We left with our entire life of ‘stuff’ crammed into our two cars.   We each had a large bag of road snacks given to us by Jonathan’s parents and Courtney Webb.   We also had walkie talkies.  We drove through North Carolina, South Carolina, and through part of Georgia before stopping in Atlanta to have a late lunch/early dinner with our friend Austin.  Just before stopping we both hit a wall of fatigue.  When we arrived we were greeted with cold carbonated drinks, a spicy bloody Mary, and the best breakfast casserole ever! After some much needed rest from driving and refuel of hot caffeinated drinks we headed back out.  We crossed through the state of Alabama through the dark. There was multiple traffic construction throughout the state for good reason as the roads were roughly paved and made our cars sound unusually load as our tires sped across the pavement. All in all we had driven about 11 hours.  When we finally arrived at the hotel I was never so happy to get out of the car and take a hot shower.  After settling into our room I checked facebook and saw a photo our friend Emily had taken that morning before we got into our cars. The caption underneath said it was posted 14 hours ago. That was a surreal moment realizing how long the day had truly been but we had survived our first day.  

Day 2: Mississippi to Texas

We crossed the Mississippi River with little thrill. In my head we were going to take a steam boat to cross it but it was just a boring bridge.  When we crossed into Louisiana we found that instead of counties they have parishes. We also entered central time. For lunch we did stop at a hole in the wall Cajon restaurant called Herby Ks. We had some crawfish etouffee and a shrimp Po’boy.  

The most exciting thing about Day 2 is that when we got to Texas we got to see our new little niece Gracie!  I sat down a few feet from her and she smiled and army crawled right to me. She was so little and made the cutest little sounds! I got to give her a bottle and read her a bed time story. It was also nice to see my brother Sam. This was the best reward for driving 9.5 hours. For dinner we had Texas BBQ. 

Day 3: Texas to Moriarty New Mexico

This was the hardest day of our journey by far.  Before starting our trip several people had warned us about the pain of driving through Texas but we thought since we had broken it up it wouldn’t be as bad.  We were not mentally prepared to spend 8 hours just getting to the border.  The roads were long, flat, and barren. Occasionally we would pass through a small town that was so depressing it looked inhabitable. For the first half of the day we drove through scattered showers. 

There were no exit signs or road signs letting us know where we were or how much longer we had to be there. At one point we did pass a sign about Indian rock paintings but when we rode out to see them the sight was closed. On the way back to the road I was looking back and forth still trying to find the Indian paintings when I noticed something sitting by the road. It was a huge animal and it was looking right at me.  I stared at it for several seconds before it registered that it was a buffalo and not only that there were two of them sitting side by side!  Jonathan quickly snapped a picture before we got back on the road!

When we finally made it out of Texas we had another 2 hours to get to Moriarty. We had planned to stop here because there was a brew pub that would be a nice reward to an end to a long day of driving.  When checked into our hotel and had a nice hot shower before dressing into regular clothing and heading out. The internet was not working in the hotel so we were not able to look up information on the brewery.  When we arrived at the brewery we discovered it was closed.  The desk clerk at the hotel had suggested two restaurants but they were also closed and Arbys was even closed.  We went to a gas station to get a beer and found they did not sell beer.  The beer store was closed. Finally utterly discouraged, mentally fatigued, and physically drained we found a MacDonald’s drive through open and headed back to the hotel with our quarter pounders.  Once there we tried to get a bottle of water for the room because the tap water tasted funny but the drink machine was sold out of water! 

Day 4: New Mexico to Moab Utah

After spending 3 days of 10 hour drive time with little stopping we felt we needed to slow down some and see some slights to enjoy our trip. The terrain changed dramaticly from boring flat land to red rocks.  At one point we pulled over on the side of the road for a picture. 

We stopped at the Aztec ruins for about an hour walking around and taking pictures. The doorways were quite small in the ruins and Jonathan had a difficult time fitting through. 

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  We had originally planned to drive to Park City on this day but we made an executive decision to break the trip up a bit more so that we could do more slight seeing.  That night we stayed at a bed and breakfast which was much nicer than any hotel we could have stayed. Since neither of us have smart phones Jonathan’s parents found our bed and breakfast online and booked our room.

Day 5: Moab Utah to Park City Utah

We woke up that morning to an awesome home cooked breakfast of pancakes, strawberry slices, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. This was by far the best breakfast we had had on the journey so far.  There was another older couple also staying at the Inn.  The man was a retired chemistry professor and loved to talk.  We left the Inn and stopped at the Arches National Park just outside of town and did some hiking to see the North and South window and the double arch.  At one point we lost the trial and had to trudge through the snow to find our way back to the car.

As we neared closer to Park City the snow began to fall harder and visibility decreased. The road appeared to disappear under the snow and ice.   Our speed decreased to 16 mph.  I looked down at the dash and a terrifying orange blinking light appeared that resembled a car on windy roads.   I had never seen this signal before and quickly began to panic especially as my car continued to lose traction.  I called Jonathan in tears exclaiming that I couldn’t drive my car any further and that we were going to have to leave my car there in the snow. Jonathan pulled his car over on the side of the road as many others were also doing and walked back to my car.  Three college students got out of a car parked near mine and helped to push it out of the rut of snow without much success.  They informed us that a snow plow would be coming soon so that we were better off waiting to get back on the road after that.  They were not concerned about the blizzard at all.  Jonathan and I decided it would be better for us to switch cars as his Subaru is all wheel drive.  After making this decision we saw the snow plow coming and I ran back to Jonathan’s car.  As I was frantically making my way back to his car I saw multiple people calmly applying their snow chains and cables to their tires.  When I got back in the car and began to pull into the road I glanced at the GPS. We were 2.7 miles from the Park City exit.  At this point I thought of the long flat dry roads in Texas and suddenly missed that portion of the trip.  I slowly and carefully made my way through town and parked the car outside of the parking deck to await Jonathan to come take the bike off the top of the car.  In order to get my car back in the road a State Trooper had to nudge the back end.  After parking both cars in the parking deck out of the winter weather Jonathan and I proceeded to search for a bar and choose the first one which was names Oh’ Shucks we saw to have a drink and settle our nerves from the last 30 minutes of terror we had just endured.

Day 6: We hunkered down in Park City with our friend William and Chelsea to wait out the blizzard that was named Gandolf. It was slowly making its way across the northwest. We made a pot of chili for our hosts.  We also bought and learned how to apply tire cables to my tires. That night we went to the No Name Saloon where we got to experience heated benches on the outside deck.

Day 7: Park City to Pendleton, Oregon

Our last day of driving was somewhat nerve racking because there was still some winter road cautions for some of the roads. In some places we were forced to slow down to one way due to the lingering snow and ice.  The temperature was 9 degrees! At times our drive felt more like we were driving on the moon because all around was white craters with no sign of civilization.

When we crossed the border we stopped to take a photo next to the welcome to Oregon Sign.

Before reaching Pendleton we had to cross over a mountain range while the sun was quickly setting.  We arrived at our apartment at 5:30 pacific coast time. After bringing in the minimal we needed for the night we walked three blocks down to the Prodigal Son Brewery for some much needed dinner as our meals that day consisted of road snacks. We brought back a growler and tried to stay up as late as possible to acclimate to the time zone but only made it till 9:45.

50 hours of driving completed in 7 days we were finally at our destination!