Christmas Boat Parade

Thought I'd briefly interrupt the cross country road trip posts for a quick festive post. Last week Sara, another travel nurse, and I headed down to Balboa Island in Newport Beach for the Christmas Boat Parade. First, if you have ever watched the shows The OC or Laguna Beach, being in that area is like being in a fake wonderland. You see things like the Fashion Island mall and lo and behold, there really at rich, collagen-injected, crazy-skinny women in there shopping with a small yappy dog tucked under their arms. And look! There's the Newport Beach Yacht Club where the Cohens were when Seth burned down his dad's office building in season 3! It's a bizarre experience, to say the least.

That said, my godparents have a house on Balboa Island and are awesome enough to let me stay there whenever I'm down in Orange County. On a previous visit I'd seen signs for the Christmas Boat Parade around the island and thought it sounds like the most adorable-y festive thing ever. And when Karen, my godmother, mentioned you could bring a glass of wine with down to water to watch the boats go by, I was sold.

So Sara and I wandered around Laguna Beach for a while...

And then headed back to Balboa. After dark, we walked the half block down to the water with our wine and chips and dip. And guacamole hummus. Have you tried that stuff? It’s from Trader Joe’s and is DELICIOUS. We parked ourselves on the sea wall and waited for the boats. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but we were NOT disappointed. Probably 40-50 boats went by. There were everything from small little inflatable boats literally weighed down with lights all the way up to giant yachts with live dancers. By far our favorite was this one.

The dragon breathed actual fire. How can you compete with that!?!

This one was also particularly impressive. It’s hard to tell from the picture (sorry about that, I forgot the memory card for my nice Canon Rebel so my iphone was doing it’s best), but there seemed to be an Elvis theme including a pink Cadillac being pulled behind the boat.

I also really liked all the ones where the mast was made into a Christmas tree.

All in all, it was super festive and enjoyable. If you are ever in the area the week leading up to Christmas, I would highly recommend. Get there early to grab parking and bring plenty of wine. 

(Bridge onto Balboa Island. Yachts as far as the eye can see. Literally.)

Georgia to Texas

I’d like to begin this post by saying that I considered making a photo album entitled: Bathrooms in Which I Can Easily See a Murder Taking Place. Between a steady diet of diet coke and coffee and my own naturally tiny bladder, I had plenty of potential sites for photo shoots, however, this would have required me to spend more than the absolute minimum time necessary in each of these said restrooms. So be thankful that's not the title of this post. Maybe that will be a project for the drive back.

There are two main ways to get from Atlanta, GA to Los Angeles, CA. One is I-10 and the other is I-40. I picked I-40 because it seemed the most direct and parts of it follow the old Route 66.  

Day one took me from Sandy Springs, GA to Little Rock, AR. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi were fairly uneventful so I was pretty pumped to finally make it to Arkansas. Did you know that Little Rock is named after a little rock? I didn’t! Apparently back when people were using the Arkansas River as a means of transportation, a rock outcropping served as a navigational landmark and river crossing and that's what Little Rock grew out of. Who knew??

Day two took me from Little Rock to Amarillo, TX. It still amazes me that I could easily get from Georgia to Texas in two days of driving. I mean, I know it makes logical sense and all, but having never been to Texas before, I was still impressed.

Texas had two highlights. The first was dinner at Outback Steakhouse when I arrived on Tuesday night. And no, I am not being sarcastic. At Outback I over came my fear of dining alone and sat myself down at the bar and ordered wine and a salad because I am one classy grown up. I was perusing my roadmap and enjoying that yummy brown bread when the attractive young gentleman next to me struck up a conversation. It turns out he was originally from coastal South Carolina but had been living in Houston and was currently en route to a new job in Colorado. He was driving up I-87 as I drove across I-40 and our paths had crossed here in Amarillo. I kid you not, if he had been moving out to California too I think we would have gotten married, if only for one epic story of how we met. Outback could have catered our wedding. Sadly though, it was not meant to be. We finished dinners and went our separate ways.

The second highlight in Texas was definitely Cadillac Ranch. This is an art installation just outside Amarillo. You drive right by it on I-40 but you would never see it unless you were really paying attention, mostly because the speed limit on I-40 is 75mph but also because it is so completely random and out of nowhere. Literally it is just several Cadillac turned on their ends and stuck in the ground but set in a random field in Texas with very few people around, it is magic. If you ever go, it's BYO spray paint so don't forget yours like I did.

Oooh, and I also really enjoyed seeing this leaning water tower in Groom, TX. Because after 1,070 miles of driving alone, you too would be willing to make a special detour to see a leaning water tower and take a picture of it.

The water tower was actually something I found using my Route66 iPhone app. Now, before the trip I was very excited about seeing what was left of Route 66. The internet painted it as a lovely drive through times gone by. The only problem, however, is that the times have, in fact, gone by. Route 66 used to be the main route down from Chicago and across the western half of America. When I-40 was built, however, 66 was no longer necessary and the thriving hotels, restaurants, and roadside attractions had no one to attract. Multiple times I got off of I-40 to find something along what was left of 66 and couldn’t even find it because the neon sign was no longer neon or it was too dilapidated to even notice. Once I pulled over to take a picture of something and didn't even get out of the car because the area looked so sketchy and there were several large dogs around. And Route 66 itself was so barren that even with a 65mph speed limit, on more than one occasion, I missed my turn to go see something, stopped in the middle of the road, backed up, and made my turn.

Now, that said, there are still some cool things to see (including Cadillac Ranch, among others!) and there are some museums to explore, but I do not feel the need to do the entire route from Chicago to California any time soon.

Stay tuned for Texas to California! (My internet is not very fast so uploading photos is a process. Thank you for your patience.)

Let the Travel Nursing Begin!

So I’ve been in California exactly six weeks. It’s been a little over two months since I quit my job in DC, sold all my furniture, and loaded everything into the Highlander (with one canvas rooftop bag for good measure). I said I’d start bloging again when I started traveling but hey, a month and a half late is better than never.

I think the best place to start is how did I get from Washington, DC to Los Angeles?

First, I decided I wanted to try travel nursing. There are few jobs that I know of where you can say, hey, I’d like to try living somewhere completely different for three months. And while you’re at it, can you pay me a little more than I get paid now? K’thanks.

To prepare for this new phase in my career I got two new certifications that are in demand, TNCC (for trauma) and PALS (a pediatric certification). I also started applying for nursing licenses in states I thought I might want to work in. (I could write an entire post about this insane process, but we'll save that for another time.) After interrogating every travel nurse I came across at WHC, I spoke to a couple different travel nursing agencies and eventually got an offer for a job just north of LA from American Mobile. I had a little harder time finding a job because while I have been a nurse for more than two years, I only had a year and a half experience in the ER and the majority of jobs require two years experience in your specific field. So if you’re thinking about traveling, things will be a lot easier if you have two years under your belt in your particular specialty.

After finally getting an offer, I spent a few weeks in Atlanta catching up with friends, spending QT with the family, did a quick LA scouting trip with my mom, attended a good friend’s wedding, and then headed west!

I tried to get someone to accompany me on my 2200 mile road trip but everyone seemed to have this stupid thing called a “job” that they had to show up to. I was really anxious about doing the trip by myself. I wasn’t scared about being by myself on the road but was nervous I would be lonely or not enjoy any of the sites along the way if I had to see them by myself. And yes, I was a little lonely at times but I am unbelievably glad I went ahead and did it on my own. After arriving on the other side of the country, I felt like if I could make it 2200 miles on my own, I could handle pretty much anything. Okay, clearly I cannot handle anything (I tend to burst into tears if you look at me wrong), but you know what I mean. I have even been a little hesitant to fly home at all because I feel like I worked so hard to get out here and flying back would be cheating.

Preparing for the road trip was pretty simple. I used google maps to plan a route where I would only have to drive eight to nine hours a day. Since I was by myself, late night driving alone while exhausted seemed like a bad idea. My mom went by AAA when she added me to their coverage and they printed out a custom booklet with step by step directions for my route. And I already owned a trusty US road atlas. I also bought an iphone holder for my dashboard since that was going to be my GPS and holding the phone in my hand for that long seemed like it would get annoying. I had the oil changed and Eddie the mechanic seemed to think the 2003 Highlander with 170,000 miles on it would make it. He seemed more convinced than my dad, anyway. I also had jumper cables and a little spare gas can. Oh, and a box of Baked Lays snack sized chips form Costco and a mini cooler full of diet cokes. You know, the essentials.

As for my belongings, I picked up some clear plastic containers from Target and chose what I thought would be an LA in the winter appropriate wardrobe. The only appliance/kitchen item I brought was my Keurig. If you know me at all, you know about my deep and abiding love for my Keurig. As you can see, everything fit quite nicely in the Highlander.

Next post: I sit you down on the couch and force you to watch a long slide show of my cross country road trip – with commentary.