GRRTFLs

It's 11 am. We're still stuck in Great Falls. The mechanics are all at a loss as to what could be the problem since they installed the new part. Beside is a shiny, newer looking motorhome that the owner has just come by to pick up. I am a cold pint of jealousy.

I woke up this morning at 5:47. I can't seem to sleep in at all. It's gotta be the bright dawn stirring me, despite my best efforts to block it out with drawing all the curtains and pulling the covers over my head. I listen to hear if my dad is awake yet. I hear the howling winds, my other nemisis. Wind means even if the motorhome got fixed today, my dad would be reluctant to drive for all the muscle it would take to keep the rig on the road.

When you are stuck in a place you don't want to be and you can't do anything to get out, it is incredibly frustrating. It may seem illogical at first, but the best way to deal is to simply accept the situation and force yourself to get comfortable with it. Then find gratitude for it. After trying for 45 minutes to fall back asleep, I realize the playful pun of this let down. My mom, dad and I are stuck in Great Falls but we are not gratefuls.

We need to find our graces. And they are there, like ladybugs sleeping in the grass. Probably some we won't see until we've traveled past this moment. I want to say that I can't wait to get to that point of revelation, but first I have to embrace this one, warts and all.

Even the ugliest things have something loveable about them if you look hard enough.

Broke

Location: Great Falls, Montana
Internet: Free and good
Satisfaction level with location: two thumbs down

Yesterday morning I asked my dad to take a picture of me with my bike.

"It says turn off and back on again," he said after I handed him my camera. Weird, I thought. I waited for him to reboot the thing and continued posing.

"It still says it. Is that as far as the lens comes out?"

I put my bike down and went over to examine the digital device. Something was wrong. We tried turning it off and on again, but the lens wouldn't come out the full way. Then we noticed a piece of rubber sticking out from one of the rims.

"I don't think that's supposed to be doing that," Dad said. No, I very much do not think it is supposed to be doing that either. I was crestfallen. That was the camera my parents gave me for my birthday just six months ago. Perhaps it would be taken care of on warranty, or perhaps the warranty would be void since I dropped it at the Ex two weeks ago and cracked the casing on the bottom. Big fat boo. I would be using my mom's little pocket camera for the rest of the trip, I guessed.

We got on the road at 8:30 and bumped along until we had to stop for gas at a tiny little town called Roy. It had one gas station, no traffic lights, and probably a population of 12. The woman at the gas station was chatty, and commented to Dad that she was getting used to living in "Bum F*&$ Montana". We made haste to leave after making some road-side sandwiches.

As we started to climb in elevation, the motorhome developed a dangerous fever. My dad was ready to pull in to the next town with a campground and call it a day. Seeing that the next few places on the map were roughly the size of Roy, and that our original goal for the day was to make it to Great Falls, population 60,000 (read: big enough for a shopping centre) I said a little prayer for us to make it to our original destination.

So we limped into Great Falls last night around 7:00 pm. My mom and I hit the grocery/booze store for dinner and refreshments and we pulled into camp. We would be overnighting in an R.V. park, which are never much to look at but often have plenty of ammenties.

This morning my dad decided to call a repair shop to look at the radiator. His voice over IP program was not dialing in so he was just about ready to break down and pay the extreme cost of using his Canadian cell phone when I remembered I had a Google phone number. In fact, Google had been sending me polite nudges to let me know that if I didn't use my Google phone account in the next few days they would close my account. Luckily, my Google Voice worked and he was able to make a few calls to different mechanics until he found one who would take us in.

The new plan for the day then was to pay for another night in the RV park and get the motorhome fixed. I used the extra time in town to explore the bike path for a bit before meeting up with my mom to do some shopping.

After a great ride to nearly the end of the trail, I found my way to the mechanic's shop. Mom and I got a lift to the mall to spend the afternoon browsing.

The population is large enough to warrant the usual shops and a Starbucks on every other corner, but instead they've got casinos at every turn. They do have a J.C. Penny, a Victoria's Secret and Bath and Bodyworks, but no Macy's, no T.J. Maxx/Marshall's, Gap, or even a Super Target. And the stores that they do have are pretty small and limited in their offerings. Based on what I saw, I don't know where you shop after the age of 19 and before the age of 55 in this town. I would guess they do a lot of Internet shopping.

by 4:00 I was hungry and exhausted of the place. I put hope in my heart that we would meet up with my dad and he would tell us that the foo-foo regulator or whatever was fixed and we would be on our way to Missoula, Montana, which promised much better camping and shopping.

It was not to be. A part had to be ordered and the diagnosis of the issue was not entirely certain. Worst of all, it is looking like we will be spending ANOTHER night in this place. This place being known now as Cranky Town. I don't want to be here, and for different reasons, my dad does not either.

I am trying to tell myself there is some grand reason for us being stuck here.

1. It could have been Roy, MT
2. Perhaps a very large shipment of totally awesome shoes and cool clothes has also been delayed in its arrival to Missoula
3. The American money I purchased at 2:30 AM last Friday will not actually burn a hole in my pocket, and will still be good to purchase the copious amounts of booze needed to endure this place for as long as we need to be held here.

Excuse me, I have to get out of here now. My father is adopting the local lifestyle and has tuned into Ice Road Truckers on the TV. The only place to hide in here though when you need to shut the world out is the bathroom. Perhaps I will spend the rest of my stay here washing my hair and watching my leg hair grow.

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!

Sign here

Today we launched Manitoba's online intent to donate organs and tissue registry. It feels amazing.

On Friday when I was driving home from work I saw a billboard promoting the site. It caught my breath and I felt a punch to my stomach, a  good punch, a good moment of breathlessness. On March 10 last year I was called to a meeting on my third day in my new job and I was told that I needed to create a launch promo plan for the registry we were going to build. I was out of my mind. And over the last few months I never really got away from that oh my goodness, how am I going to pull this off panic, not totally, but on Friday it all came to life and the nervousness and fear in the pit of my stomach left. My work, my slogan was up in the sky for all to see. How cool is that?

A big step up from hanging my work on the refrigerator!

Today, with the help of Kristin sharing her amazing story of her journey from waitlist to transplant, we launched the site and at this time we have over 1,100 people signed up for organ and tissue donation. It's a drop in the bucket for a city of nearly 700,000 and a province of just over a million people, but it's a strong start, and I can work with that.

Kristin speaking at today's launch

Tasty like a raindrop

I am 362 items behind in my reader feed reading, but today I started going through the feeds and discovered this:

I thought Marie Fredriksson had some crazy incurable brain tumor that ended her singing career. Apparently they released a new album in March, which I also missed. I need to get out more. Hopefully before September 7.

If I keep going through the rest of the news I've neglected will I find that George Stromboulopoulos is coming to Winnipeg in search of a bride? That someone has found a way to grow money on trees? That cookies are the secret to youthful skin? Google Reader, give me more!