I am married to a traveling nurse. A traveling nurse is exactly what it sounds like. A nurse that travels around in their practice. The typical work contract period lasts about 13 weeks, which is just about three months. My husband and I have been traveling for his work now for about a year.
What a year it has been!
Starting in Daytona Beach, Florida to Medford, Oregon to Fargo, North Dakota to Welaka, Florida to Antioch, California.
Our travels have taken us to some incredible places. Like the Redwood National Forest, the top of a snowy dormant volcano, Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon of South Dakota.
However, these kinds of pictures don’t capture the full experience of travel nursing. Those are just the highlights. The high points. In between those pictures are long hours of driving across country. Living very minimally. Not having a stable community. These three things are probably the biggest draw backs to life on the road.
Traveling from one assignment to another has not been without it’s problems. I got into an accident on one trip (excuse my hand in the picture below, I was just trying to document damage at the time, not take a good picture lol). On our most recent drive from Florida out to California, both of our windshields were damaged from flying rocks in the mountains of West Texas. My windshield has developed a crack from the chips that it suffered from this rock assault.
Aside from the hazards of travel, we live with what can fit comfortably in our cars. The key word there is comfortably. Have you ever been going down the highway and pass someone who is obviously moving who has their car so crammed full of crap that almost every window is obscured? Yeah, we don’t pack out our vehicles like that. We travel light. And I mean light. Between the two of us, we have two suit cases of clothes that we take. These two.
We have one Tupperware box for our office type supplies and my crafting supplies. Did I really have to take crafting supplies? If you have to ask, clearly, you aren’t a crafter. What I have fit in this box is remarkably pared down from what I own. And it’s kind of a travesty. I frickin’ love crafting, okay?
Obviously, we also take some toiletries and things of that nature, and we have our dog and a few things for the kitchen. Our kitchen supplies are basically: a Nespresso machine (a must have, duh), a cast iron skillet (again, duh), a crockpot (obviously), two mugs, a knife, a baking sheet, three glass Tupperware containers, and our spice cabinet. THAT’S IT FOLKS. I could probably do an entire post about the travel life and the kitchen and I just might. We take our spices because as you may already know, spices are extremely expensive to replace.
You know what I miss about having a full kitchen?
My blender, my food processor, my strainer, and basically, like, everything.
But we make do.
The last topic is probably the most important and difficult draw back that we’ve faced while travel nursing and that is a lack of stable community. One thing that neither my husband nor I expected to miss so dearly was our friends. I don’t mean that to sound callous. We expected to keep up with everyone just fine via text, phone, and skype. And we do! But it’s not the same.
We miss our weekly board game nights with our crew from Daytona.
We miss karaoke and drinks with our dear friends living in Orlando who we would visit every month or so.
We certainly missed our family and friends during the holiday season.
Family and friendship are very crucial parts of well-being for my husband and I. We’re both very social people. And missing our friends has almost driven us to stop traveling this year. However, we decided to put in one more year of travel nursing before we settle down somewhere.
I suppose our experiences with travel nursing in 2017 have taught us one thing seems to always be true. The grass is always greener on the other side.
XOXOXO,
Sarah
Get to Know Me:
My Introduceyourself post: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@saronym/it-s-me
My 2017 in Pictures: https://steemit.com/photography/@saronym/2017-in-pictures
A Bit of Flash Fiction by Me: https://steemit.com/writing/@saronym/missed-connections-a-craigslist-ad