carlainlucas

Onward to LaGrange, GA in August 2006. I went from Greenville on a Friday afternoon, after packing up my RV to working in LaGrange, GA on Monday. Whew!! I am in a sleepy little town of about 30,000 with a beautiful downtown square. However I have been in withdrawal. There is no Starbucks or Barnes and Noble!! No movie theaters or Joann Fabrics. Aurgghh!! This cath lab is part of a study and they are just starting Interventions. It has been fun helping everyone come up to speed with learning to do stents, etc. The cath lab crew is great. In October, I could not go on any longer without having a dog by my side. I combed the papers and the internet looking for a little dog that was like my Riley, but one day I saw a pic of a dog at a nearby Humane Society that was going to be euthanized the very next day. I went to the pound and fell in love with a 35 lb Terrier mix, that was not a little dog!! I bought her home and she was still in the puppy stage and chewed up a bunch of stuff. Like 2 pairs of Berkies, an electric blanket cord while plugged in. The remote to my heater, etc… So I found a great Doggie Day care in LaGrange and now I can keep my shoes! I named her Maggie Mae, cause her hair looks a little like Rod Stewart’s. I call her Maggie.
She is fun, loves to play tug a war and is a great traveler. She protects me and wont let anyone near our truck.

I stayed in LaGrange for 10 months, and it has felt like home,but travel I must!

I spent May -July 2006 in Greenville, S.C. What a lovely city. I think it had the prettiest downtown I have seen yet. Tree lined streets with outside cafes and lots of shops. I worked in a fast paced cath lab that was very busy. Away from EP and back into Interventions. It was a tough summer. I had a bad fall that left me a little disabled for a few months, and I lost my traveling pal, Riley. He was 13 and passed on pretty suddenly with heart and renal failure. For those of you that know me, you know I had a hard time.

Here are a few pictures of the crew at work, and the control room that supported four labs. It could get bet pretty busy when 4 cases were going, which was pretty much all day long!

This hospital had a beautiful lobby area with a pianist playing. The cafeteria had a Starbucks (my favorite), a subway and chick filet. The cafeteria had huge skylights

The lobby was immense with huge skylights.

Greenville had one of the prettiest downtowns of all. It was just great to stoll downtown with all the little quaint shops. They had a farmers market on the weekends.

I had to include this last picture. It is the Greenville post office mail box. All of the mail goes down a chute, so it doesn’t have to get picked up!

Well..I have left Atlanta, and as you travelers know, I am waiting on my next assignment. I had a difficult time saying good byes to the St Joseph’s EP lab. What a great crew. I wanted to stay! Going back to Indianapolis for a visit with my family. Drove with my RV in tow to a park in Indy, and had a one week rest at a KOA  until time to move on to my next assignment, which will be Greenville, South Carolina!! Looking forward to seeing an area I have never visited. It is not such a bad drive, back down to Atlanta and up to Greenville. You don’t really think I am gonna drag this big monster through the Smoky Mountains do you!

Hi there. I am currently residing in Atlanta, working at St Joseph’s hospital in the EP lab. We have 3 labs and put in lots and lots of devices. Pacers, ICD’s and BI-V’s. I’m working with a great group that loves to party. It is always about an inservice and a free meal!. Several of the staff here are studying for the NASPE exam. I stayed here for six months, and it felt like home. I so wanted to stay. Didn’t really get to see much of Atlanta, however I did get to quite a few nice restaurants with the EP crew.

2 years of working full time, I am going out on the road again. This time I am going to Petoskey Michigan at North Central Hospital. What a great crew. I have a wonderful RV site right on Lake Michigan and the hospital is right next door. Riley loves his walks on the lake every morning at 5:30am. I walk to work each morning with a view of the lake.It takes about 5 min. Then in the afternoon I take a camp chair and sit by Lake Michigan and relax. Boy, some nights on the lake it can really get windy. I wasn’t sure if my trailer could withstand the winds, but I am still here!

Look how close I am to the hospital in picture three. I could walk in under five minutes.

Petosky is a beautiful area. I took some drives just to take in the beauty.

Sights along the way. My son and I left Tacoma, Washington to travel to Indianapolis, Indiana. We drove for three days, going through Oregon, across Idaho and Wyoming and into Nebraska and on to Indiana. We had my RV packed to the gills with all of his stuff and of course the stuff I needed for my travels. We had our two pets, my dog Riley who was now 12 and Suri the cat who was 12. We had a great trip and arrived in Indiana the first week of Sept.  I dropped him off and continued on to Petosky, Michigan for my first travel assignment in 3 years.

November 2002 I went to San Diego and my campsite was on the San Diego bay. What fun. I was about half a mile from the beach. My grocery store had a view of the pacific ocean. The Scripps Hospital was right on the pacific ocean. Talk about a great view when you are having lunch in the hospital cafeteria. I worked in a lab that did a lot of research on new balloons etc. They even still had film in this lab, so I had to go back to the darkroom. Arrrrgh. This lab was almost entirely travelers.

Living by the bay was great, taking daily walks, with my dog. They even have an off leash dog beach in San Diego. Weather was great, place is beautiful, but way too expensive and crowded for me. Here are a couple of wonderful friends that I made. Keith was the greatest guy and helped me so much. Sadly, Keith passed away a few months after I left. He had pulmonary fibrosis and his passing came on suddenly. He is so missed.

I left San Diego at the end of December and went home to Seattle for full time work. Here are a couple of pics along the way. It was snowing badly, with delays and chains, going across the Siskou mountains of northern California, and me with my 24 ft RV.

In July of 2002 I decided to try traveling. I bought a 1995 Ford 250 and a 24 ft fifth wheel. My thoughts were to save some of my housing money, let my travel money pay for my RV and I could take all of my “stuff” with me. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have lots of stuff!!. I am a craft addict.

So I got my first assignment in Louisville, Ky and took off from Seattle, WA pulling my RV and riding with me was my little dog Riley.  I was in Louisville, Ky for 13 weeks. I really enjoyed the city and my first experiences as a traveler. It was hot hot hot there that summer especially after living in Washington state for 15 years. I worked in a 2 lab facility, doing caths and interventions.

Downtown pics of Louisville. They had a beautiful park along the Ohio river. Riley went to a great Doggie Day care there. It was owned by an RN that was the spouse of one of my coworkers, what a great coincidence. He loved it there.

After I finished my assignment I headed up to my son’s who lived in Indianapolis, only 2 hrs away. Stayed there for 2 weeks and headed back to Seattle WA for  a couple of weeks, trailer in tow, and waited for my next assignment which would be in San Diego.