Many surprises today

There were many surprised today.

1. The 2013 AWOL A.T. Guide arrived in the mail box. We received two copies, one to use for the trip and one for my wife to have to keep track of our location and support us as needed. I recommend the A.T. Guide very much, they are well written with the most detailed info of any A.T. guide and elevation profiles. The 2013 guide is even better than the 2011 guide we were using the last two year.

2. My wife finished up two hats for our hike. The are really nice - THANKS JOYCE!

3. Today was a big day, I spent the day retraining as a staff nurse on the unit were I am the Nurse Manager . It was my fist time in many years where I was able to just be a nurse. The staff I work with were great and helped me a lot.  The last time I regularly worked on the floor the medications were stored in a rolling med cart and the patients meds were written out by hand by the nurses on paper med administration forms. Today the meds are in a computerized machine and all the documentation is on the computer. Thank goodness that actual patient care is the same. I will be stepping down from my managers position in 8 weeks when we leave for our adventure and when we get back will be working a a perdiem nurse at the hospital I have worked for for 14 year. I am very grateful that the hospital's nursing administrators have let me stay on as a staff nurse.

Every step of the way on this journey has been enlightening. I was surprised when I was told by many people that once I made the decision to quit a good job, take my daughter out of school and go on this adventure that every day I would be more and more certain that it was the right choice. This has been the case. Today I realized how much I missed actually  nursing, working with the patient and not worried about the politics, problems and headaches that my current job entails. I am proud to be a nurse and will be  very much looking forward to returning and getting to be able to do the work I started out loving almost 30 years ago.