Change of plans

Our 10 day vacation in Florida has sadly come to an end. As always, we had a great time spending time with family and hanging out at the beach. This was not our typical “do nothing” beach week.  We actually had a lot happen as it relates to our future.  I (Tim) had an interview for a Clinical Faculty position at The College of Medicine, School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa.  The School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences runs an outpatient PT clinic which is part of the USF College of Medicine health system.  The clinicians who work in the clinic are all Clinical Faculty members in The School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; who along with the Academic Faculty members make up the core faculty of the school.  Clinical Faculty members spend anywhere between 60-80% of their time providing patient care in the clinic, and the rest of the time is spent performing an instructional/educator role.  

I successfully made it through the 10 hour interview day on Wednesday and received the job offer on Friday.  This was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, so I, of course, immediately accepted the offer. My start date is September 1st.  We were hoping they would allow the start date to be pushed back far enough to complete our 13 week assignment in Las Vegas, but this was not the case.  We still have some requirements to fulfill to obtain Licensure in the State of Florida.   Our latest plans consist of going to Vegas to work for 2 weeks before moving to Florida.  This way we have some income while we shore up our Florida Licenses and obviously to take in some of the sights and sounds of Vegas. 

We have kept true to the craziness that has been our excellent adventure (some of which has not entirely been by choice).   We landed at LAX at 6:30 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday.  After sitting in LA traffic for the last time, we finally made it to our apartment around 8:30.  Wednesday morning we moved out of the apartment, back into our car and set sail across some of the most desolate stretch of highway in the US.    Before we left, we still weren’t sure where we were going to stay the next few nights.  Our original lease was not supposed to start until Sunday July 24th, but when we were 1 hour from Vegas our landlord called and graciously offered another unit that had opened up unexpectedly  This unit was available for an immediate move in (good thing since we only had 1 hour left to figure out where we were parking ourselves for the weekend).  To our surprise our apartment comes complete with fantastic views of the strip.  12 hours after moving into our new place, we began our first day at our new assignments. We are both working in Skilled Nursing Facilities.  Jodi is working at a facility in Henderson and Tim is in a facility a little north of Las Vegas.  So for those of you keeping score at home, in less than 48 hours we flew back to LA from Florida, moved out of our apartment in California, drove across the desert, moved into our new apartment in Vegas and starting working at our new assignments.

After our two weeks here in Vegas we will load up the car for the last time and take two weeks or so to make our return cross-country journey.  This time around we plan to take the northern route, making stops at several national parks (and hopefully baseball stadiums) along the way.  Once we make it to Florida, sometime at the end of August, Jodi plans to take a travel position in the Tampa area while she searches for a permanent position.

We are a little sad that our travel plans are being cut a few months short.  But we are very excited for this next chapter in our lives, as we set our roots and become settled in Tampa.  Until then, the traveling adventure continues - so stay tuned.  

We apologize that we're too tired right now to include the pictures  from our drive yesterday along  I-15 from Southern California to Las Vegas within the blog.