Not the beginning, but the beginning blog!

Ok, so I never thought I would create a blog, so this is going to be interesting. But I have been thinking the past few days that I do some interesting things and sometimes have some interesting stories to tell or something that happens that I would like to tell someone I know. Well, with travel nursing I am mostly experiencing things and doing things alone, and don't have anyone to tell. So I was thinking maybe a blog would be a good idea so I can tell about places I go and things I do. So bear with me, I am new to this and really have no idea what I am doing! And creativity is not one of my strong points so it may not look the best either!

So let's get caught up on what has happened so far. I began travel nursing on November 30 in Rawlins, WY. I was excited to not only get to start my dream of travel nursing but also because I would 5-6 hours from home and snowboarding and 3-4 hours from my best friend Brea in Salt Lake City. There was not much to do in Wyoming, but I got to go home and to Utah a lot to ride and do the winter activities I missed doing in Oklahoma. I was in Wyoming until February 26. Some things I learned while in Wyoming are: Very little to do in WY, horrible wind in WY, don't drive through WY with bad storms, people here really just work, small hospitals are interesting and have problems but the staff are generally nice to work with (not as nice as my old co-workers though!), nurses and dr's tend to make a big deal out of little things, report on two patients can take 30min., Dr's need to learn to stop feeding jaundice babies only glucose water, and it sucks going to a C/S for a few little variables when you don't think your pt needs it. The best thing about being there was getting to spend some time with Brea, snowboard in a different state, and got to go home often. After my assignment ended I was able to go boarding at Grand Targhee in Wyoming, a little north of Jackson Hole.

I still did not have my next assignment lines up so I went home, awaiting anxiously for my next job. Finally four days after being home I found out I got a position in Seaside, Oregon. I was very excited because I already had my license because I knew Oregon was where I wanted to go. So I started March 15, had a week and a half before I had to start. Ended up being great timing. So I drove up here, took about 22 hours, I stopped and visited my lifelong friend, Natalie, in Grand Junction, and spend one night in Boise. It was nice not to make the whole trip in one day!

So I have been here for almost three weeks now and have met some great people so far and done and seem some cool things. I met a cool hiking, biking, etc buddy so thats great to have someone to go with. Done a couple cool biking trails so far and then yesterday did an awesome hike. For me, its really hard to beat Colorado, because I just love it so much there, but its nice here. I have a gorgeous vacation rental thats three blocks from the beach and the mountains in the East. You just have to get over it raining often and enjoy the sunny days, which I have had quite a few so far.

Last weekend I went to Mt. Hood to go boarding, hiking, and biking. It was very interesting and I just have to share what happened. This weekend is pretty much the reason I wanted to start a blog because I really wanted to tell people about it. First where I left from was pouring down rain, then I really did not think my car was going to make it up the road that was only like a mile long with snow cover, then it was snowing the whole day, very wet snow so I was soaked. They got a lot of new snow so lots of powder riding, weird and difficult though because it was such wet snow! Hard to find my way around the mountain with the weather and stuff. Ended up riding a little while with someone from there so that was a little helpful. But then leaving was the most interesting. They really don't plow well or something but I had to have two guys push me, with great difficulty, out of the parking lot. Then I stayed in low going like 5mph down the hill and still had my tires locking up on me. Ran into the snow bank on the other side of the road, which luckily no cars were coming and it just bounced me back to the right side of the road. And then cars still flew by me to pass. I was scared out of my mind! Places it was pouring in the morning had snow the end of the day. It was an experience! But it was tons of fun. May sound like I didn't enjoy the trip, but besides the difficulty driving in it I had a great time boarding! Got lucky with getting new snow I heard. Guess it was their biggest storm this season. And I got to do a little biking in the area too so it was awesome. One place I went had lots of man-made tricks on the sides of the trail, going over like very narrow trees and stuff. It was a fun trip.

Anyway I think that's all for now. Haven't downloaded a lot of my pics so there will be more to come later but here are a few that I have.