bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We took Wayne and Margie to the Play it Again Sports  in Boulder so that she could sell her boots, poles and skis. They did not take the skis, but did take the boots and poles. We continued on to the Farmers Market in Boulder, where we wandered around, visiting the booths and sampling the foods. We ate lunch again in the dining area. Wayne had Root Beer BBQ, that did not impress as you can tell from this picture.

Bob had the Curry Chicken Dumplings. Margie and I both had the Chicken Dumplings with a lemon soy dip. Excellent!

Since Margie and Wayne had never been to Boulder, we went to  Pearl Street and wandered through. They were having a bake sale for Jessica Ridgeway’s family, so we bought some cookies.

We returned to the motor home to find that Brian and Kathy had arrived. They are parked across from us. We stood out talking with them. While we were standing there, Roxie decided she had a new playmate. A honey bee. Well, you can imaging what happened. She was stung on her right front paw. She did not yelp, but she three legged it over to me. I picked her up and called to Bob. We took her into the motor home to make sure that the stinger was not still in her, and generally cuddled her. She started to feel better after a little while. Whew, we had visions of another $700 Vet bill!

We all went to happy hour at 4 then to dinner at the Lodge. This evening the dinner was Chicken Fried Chicken. Normally this would not have been my favorite, but it was very good! It came with mashed potatoes and corn. We sat around talking until they threw us out.

Sunday-  We did our usual Sunday stuff. At 10:15 we left for Castle Rock to visit the outlets. Wayne drove and Kathy, Margie, Bob and I went. Brian stayed home and watched the games on TV and went to their storage unit.

We had a list and Bob was able to get some new shoes and I bought a new jacket. I bought the jacket at Eddie Bauer and as soon as I left the store my credit card company called to check on fraud. Evidently taking the credit card out of mothballs made them suspicious.

At happy hour Ernie told us that the water is going to be turned off for the season on Wednesday, in advance of a snow storm and cold front coming through.

We ate dinner at home for a change!

Monday- Off to another busy start. We left home and stopped at the Post Office to drop of mail, then went to our new Dentist office. I had the husband, Scott, who was a hoot, and Bob had the wife who was very quiet.

We left there and went to ‘The EGG and I’ for lunch. We walked in and promptly ran into Ernie and Reline. They were done eating and getting ready to leave. We each had Eggs Benedict. I had the regular one and Bob had a  Cajun one. Both were very good.

We had been looking for a jacket for Bob yesterday and did not find one, so we went to JC Penny’s at Westminster Mall. I had found what Bob was looking for on the internet,. so we knew what we were searching for… We could not find it. One of the sales ladies looked the jacket up in the computer and found that they had 9 of them. Turned out they were upstairs, not yet unpacked. So she hunted one down. It was on sale already, so that was a good deal.

We stopped at King Sooper to pick up some salmon to grill for dinner. While there one of the hospitals in California called to do a pre-interview. The gal was not real positive about me doing the 8 weeks. Oh well….but she was from HR, not Case Management.

I dropped Bob off and went to be tortured by Zack at PT. I returned for happy hour. We ate dinner at home. I ran out of my antibiotic eye drop at the 10 PM dose. Uh oh…

Tuesday- Bob was out the door at 7AM to take the car for some maintenance at Planet Honda. We needed our parking brake fixed again and Bob’s electronic key is not working. Meanwhile I called in my prescription to Walmart. Our mail had arrived yesterday, so I followed through on some issues. The insurance company had told the GI doctor office that I still owed $748.56. So I called the insurance company and they agreed that they made a mistake, so they are sending a letter to the GI office. I paid a couple of bills and started laundry. With losing our water tomorrow, I needed to get all the laundry done ASAP.

Finally, after procrastinating enough, I started working on the final article. I ended up doing 3.5 hours, so I knocked out quite a bit. Meanwhile, Bob stopped at Walmart to pick up my prescription. I had managed, with keeping the bottle upside down, to get a drop for my first dose and another for the 11 AM dose. Walmart would not give Bob the prescriptions. I figured that while we were getting one, we should get the rest.

So I called the MD office and the MD said that since I only needed 5 more doses, that it was okay to not fill another prescription. We will get the other two when they allow me to purchase them. Evidently it was too soon to pick up the meds.

Bob returned to the motor home, we ate lunch, walked the dogs, and went to Walmart grocery shopping. We returned home and took a short nap. We woke up to my phone ringing. The Case Management Director from Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Riverside CA was calling. We spoke and she said she wanted me for the 8 weeks. So the lady from yesterday was wrong! I called my rep at the travel Nurse agency and she has started the ball rolling.

We worked a little bit on finding RV parks and the route we are going to take to get to Riverside or wherever we are going to stay!

At 4, time for happy hour. It was just Brian, Wayne, Margie, Bob and I. Marianna and Fred came up, just so Marianna could set up a time for her to cut Bob’s hair.

At 5:15 we all left to go to dinner at Maggiano’s on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. Dinner was excellent. While we were waiting for our meals, a magician came by. His name was Shawn Preston, and he was very entertaining.

After dinner we walked up and down the mall, then drove home, to continue our search for an RV park. Bob thinks it is going to take us six days to get to Riverside, with a three night stay in Las Vegas. Actually, 5 days, but we are adding in one day as a buffer.

Wednesday- Bob and Wayne took Wayne’s pick up truck to the storage unit to get the insulation and take it to the dump. Since we are not residents of the county, it was $68 to dump! At least it is all gone. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to sell our snow blower and we don’t have the time to get everything moved to a smaller storage unit. We are going to have to do that in the spring. I was off to PT for one lest session and then another trip to the Chiropractor.

The agency came back with a $9  per hour pay rate that is less than I was making in Maryland. Maryland state taxes were 4% and California is 9%, so we are haggling. It has something to do with the unions in California, as this hospital is owned by the county. I checked the rate for the job that is advertised online, and it is actually more than I would make if I accepted a full time job there. The rate also has to do with this being an 8 hour job vs a 12 hour job. With the 12 hour, you get overtime for the extra four hours per day. Of course, I would not be getting benefits, so I would think that they should be able to come up a bit.  I don’t think I am going to have time to fly to Sacramento to get the license, from Denver, so I might have to do that from Las Vegas, if we can get this contract worked out. That is okay, since we are expecting  snow tonight into tomorrow morning and again on Friday morning. A-Basin opened last week and Loveland is opening this week!

At 5:15 we went down to the Lodge for dinner with Wayne, Margie, Brian, and Kathy. Thelma, Mel, Fred and Marianna also joined us. Dave and Jeanne from Tiger Run also met us there! We had a great time visiting. Dinner was good! Bob and I had the fried shrimp with rice pilaf and carrots. Again, very good!

Here are Jeanne and Dave.

. Here are a slightly blurry Kathy and Brian.

Here are Margie and Wayne.

We returned to the motor home to settle in for the night. It is raining sideways, and the there is sleet and snow mixed in. It was a cold walk back up the hill!

Because it became colder, in the 20’s, Bob turned on the hydrohot, The hydrohot is our water boiler. Inside it has small glass tubes, so we do not want it to freeze. It runs on diesel and electric. Since we are on 30 amp, we can not run it on electric. It is worth the diesel to keep it from freezing. Plus we now have warm floors!

Thursday-  It was so nice to go into a warm bathroom! The floor heater keeps the bathroom warm.  Here, in Westminster ,we rec’d a little bit more than a dusting of snow on the road, and a little over an inch on the grass, although there was about 5 “ on the steps.

Other areas rec’d more. We left early for my one week appt. with the Ophthalmologist.  All went well. I now have 20/15 vision using both eyes. Cool! One thing I had noticed was that I seemed to have lost ‘light green’ in my left eye. I also noticed that I am seeing yellow in my right eye. The MD explained that the left eye is like a 25 yo vs the right eye with has a yellowing film on it. That is the start of a cataract, basically aging, in the right eye. He said if it really bothered me he could try to get cataract surgery through the insurance for the right eye. We really don’t have the time and it is not bothering me that much. With both eyes I can see the green. Today I also started my eye drops 2x a day instead of 4x and the antibiotic ended. Making great progress!

While we were in the waiting room, Holly, the agency rep, called me. They are trying to negotiate a higher rate at Riverside, have contacted Santa Barbara again, and had found a place in Yuba City, 45 miles north of Sacramento. Bob quickly looked the area up and found that it will not be too cold, so we said yes to them pursuing the hospital. The pay rate is higher.

I have been having trouble reading;  the MD said to go get a cheapo pair of reading glasses from Walmart. So off we went. The optical gal helped me pick out a pair and WOW, I can see! Since this is temporary, I have to wait at least another week to get a prescription for glasses, she suggested that I just pick up a pair in the pharmacy, since they are cheaper. The ones in the optical dept. have two in a container with a glasses case for $19.99 vs one pair in pharmacy for $5.98.

We returned home and I delivered some books to Margie. She has given me a bunch of them. At noon, we headed over to Arvada to go to lunch at the German Restaurant with Wayne and Margie. ( Brian and Kathy were off to Costco). Golden Europe was closed for lunch, darn, so we went nearby to Georges.

After lunch we took a nice long nap. I woke up and realized that I had not heard anything back from Holly, so I called her. She returned my call and told me that they have submitted me to Yuba, but that their orientation does not start until the 12th. That would be one week less, but I would end up making almost the same for 7 weeks as I would for the 8 week assignment. So we are waiting to hear what is happening.

We spent a quiet evening in, eating left overs from Maggianos and watching TV. Thank goodness we have satellite TV. Local TV, since Colorado is a swing state, has political commercial after political commercial. NY has at least 1/2 the number of political commercials.

Friday-  It snowed again last night. The mountains are getting lots of snow, while we are getting about an inch. You know you are not in the Washington DC area when the schools are not on last start or closed for the day with just a little bit of snow!

I worked on the article for another two hours.

Note the shorter hair and the reading glasses!  I rec’d a phone call from Yuba City doing a pre-interview.

After lunch of leftovers, we went to Calico Used Book store. I found a new author I like so I wanted to pick up a few of her books Then Staples for toner and Walmart for batteries. Finally PT. Theresa did more of the dry needling on my left shoulder. We returned home and Holly called. Yuba City wants me, but in December. They changed their minds. They had gone from 8 weeks, to 13 weeks then back to 8 weeks, but now in December. So we are still going to leave on Sunday, but heading south.

We went to dinner with the gang. The choices were all good this evening. Ham with scallop potatoes, taco salad, flat iron steak or coconut shrimp. Bob had the flat iron steak and I had the coconut shrimp. Both excellent. We sat talking until after 8 PM, when we were finally the last folks there and they threw us out!

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