On the road again

Leaving the office yesterday was hard. For one thing, I was leaving my desk for two weeks as I embarked on my first real vacation in two years. While I was definitely feeling ready for a break, it was also feeling tough to let it all go and trust that everything would carry on just fine without me.

It was also my last day with my nursing students, Erin and Michelle. Although I have ZERO experience or knowledge in nursing, they worked closely with me for a community health nurse practicum assignment. Last weekend we (wo)manned a booth at the Red Rive Exhibition (our version of a state fair) to encourage people to sign up online to be organ donors.

The girls did a final presentation on their project to me and my co-workers. I was so proud of them. When they first came to us they seemed overwhelmed by the assignment, but in the end they attacked it with confidence and enthusiasm. It was a wonderful transformation to watch.

We were goofing around a bit in the last hours, taking pictures with an enormous stuffed bear we'd purchased for a draw to attract people to our table at the Ex. Recently I hired a social media company to help me out with our Facebook and Twitter account management, so I'm now constantly on the look out for photo opportunities to supply the team with.




The bear will be managing my desk while I'm gone.


I had ambitions to leave by 2 or 2:30, but ended up staying until 3. Partly because I had things to do, partly because it just felt so strange to be leaving.

When I got home it was time to finish packing. The time off is part vacation, part travel to Kelowna, B.C., where I will bear wittness to my sister's marriage at Summer Hill Winery. I am the maid of honor. With this title comes little power but great responsibility, such as throwing a bachelorette party for 16 guests the night before embarking on a road trip to the wedding destination on the other side of the country.

I got home from the festivities around three a.m., crashed into bed, blinked, and then woke up at 7:30 and willed my dead limbs to get up and start the day. My parents, faithful little dog and I left home around 8:30 in our humble home on wheels. I caught a few Z's along the way, missing out on the hills of Manitoba as we made our way to Minot, North Dakota.

Before leaving I found myself full of great ambitions for this vacation. After a lot of pleading, pouting and sniffling, I convinced my dad to pack my bike for the trip. I also checked and discovered that there is a Learn to Run 10K online clinic starting on Monday. And on Thursday, one of my loyal blog readers emailed me to ask where I've been. So these are my goals for my vacation:

Ride bike for 30-45 minutes in the morning
Train to run 10k in the evenings
Blog about trip and progress
Read and/or write for an hour a day while travelling

I rode this evening before dinner. The highways in America are amazing compared to the #1 in Canada (we're travelling state-side, since the gas is 28 cents cheaper, amongst other benefits) and as such, provide me with spacious, smooth shoulders to ride on. I did about 15km in 50 minutes today on mostly flat terrain. Tomorrow the plan is to leave camp by 9 or 9:30, so I will need to be on my bike by 8 at the latest. Think encouraging thoughts for me as I try to stick to the routine!