Building the road trip can be an exciting part of travel nursing. The pieces and parts of the trip all combine to make up the anatomy of the road trip. But what goes into it isn’t always how it works out in the end.
My most recent road-trip was a long one. Traveling from the Louisville KY area to Eureka California it was nearly 2500 miles. I had two routes that I could contemplate; the northern route via I 80 which would allow me to stop in and visit with my recruiter and the more southern route via I40 which would take me through the middle of the country.
Due to the nature of our business, we rarely get to meet with our recruiter or our company in person.
Knowing this I choose to take the Northern route…knowing that it would take me through some pretty remote parts of the US. If you have ever driven through Nebraska, Wyoming or Northern Nevada, you’ll understand what I mean when I say remote!
Don’t get me wrong; all of these states have their unique charms and if you have never driven this part of the US, I highly recommend it at least once. Take a friend along, it will lessen the boredom when you have no cell service and the radio is only 3 stations…all country music.
Making Connections along the way was a mission for this trip.
I had planned an overnight stop in Omaha Nebraska where my current company Triage Staffing is located. I met up with my recruiter Jason Sagehorn at a local place called Jimmy’s Egg for breakfast. I’ve met Jason previously and we had a great time catching up on personal stuff and finishing up some last minute paperwork for the upcoming job.
After meeting with Jason, I set up a meeting with Atlas MedStaff. Atlas is one of the sponsors for the 2013 Gypsy Nurse Brunch/Luncheon happening in Las Vegas in October. When I realized that they were in Omaha, I couldn’t resist meeting with them in person. The crew at Atlas met (and treated) me for lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack. We discussed the business of travel nursing, some of the ups and downs and of course the upcoming events in Vegas. I wish that I’d had more time with this group as they were a ton of fun to visit.
We also scheduled a Meet & Greet at the Cheesecake Factory after our business lunch. Joe Smith from Travel Tax was in the area and came out to meet with us.
From Omaha, I traveled on to Cheyenne WY. It was late when I finally arrived and I can’t tell you if there is anything fun or interesting to see/do in Cheyenne because I basically ended up sleeping then hitting the road again…onto Salt Lake City. In SLC, I met up with a fellow Gypsy Nurse Andrea. We chatted for a bit but I had arrived a day earlier than expected and she was at work…
The final leg of the trip ended up much longer than I’d expected.
I had planned on taking 2-3 days for the remainder of the trip and ended up instead traveling the rest of the route in one fail swoop. I just kept thinking… ‘I can make it to Reno…it’s only x miles’ then it was ‘gosh…I’m just not tired, let’s see how far I can get tonight’.
So, I’ve arrived in Eureka California and have had a couple of days to relax and settle in before I start work on Monday. It’s not the road-trip that I planned and I wouldn’t recommend traveling from SLC to Eureka in one ‘fail swoop’ but it was the trip that it was….
Sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry…
**My camera decided to stop working on this trip which deterred me from doing much sightseeing along the way. There were several spots that I normally would have stopped and gotten out to explore and take a few photo’s but it all seemed futile without my camera.
