I was fortunate that my next job didn’t have training available until the end of the following week. A lot of locum tenens nurses practitioners will take one to several weeks off in between assignments to recuperate. I usually just plan my vacations for the year ahead of time, not knowing what my schedule will look like. So I don’t take time off between assignments, since I already have scheduled vacation time during my assignments.
I had gone home to Miami, FL during the week of Easter because it was my brother’s birthday and my grandfather had just had back surgery. This was during my last few weeks in San Diego.
I was relieved I didn’t have to start working in the bay area the Monday after finishing my assignment in San Diego (which was a Friday). I slowly packed up my apartment during my last week of work. The following Saturday, I packed up my car with all of my belongings. I was surprised by how much I could fit in my car, especially knowing I had somehow accumulated a bunch of random things during my stay in San Diego.
I spent the weekend in Los Angeles with some friends. There are always new things to see in L.A. As we hung out by the beach and it was warm, I started wondering if I was making a mistake leaving southern California!
It was about a 6 hour drive from LA to San Francisco. I did not drive on the pacific highway because I had already explored it when I did an assignment in Monterey. I just wanted to get to San Francisco as quickly as possible. I am glad I never did an assignment in the Central Valley of California because it is pretty deserted. There were times I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a gas station. Other times it smelled like manure as I passed by farms with tons of cows – more cows I had ever seen in one place in my life!
Upon arrival to San Francisco, I thought to myself – wow it’s cold! I automatically started to miss San Diego a lot. I spent the next couple of days exploring San Francisco and Napa Valley with some friends. Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge again still gives me that breathless moment. The wine was incredibly good! I had a great time but found myself remembering why I always preferred Southern California to Northern California.
San Francisco was foggy for the first half of the day, and when the sun finally came out, it was accompanied with a lot of cold wind. Some nights I had trouble sleeping because I was so cold!
This assignment is 3 months long, but between all of my vacations, I will only really be working 2 months. I figured I could put up with anything at this point, but will really have to consider the location of my next assignment when the time comes. In the mean time, I am super excited about all of the cool places I will be exploring near by: the Redwood Forest, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, Napa Valley, Silicone valley etc.
