One year later

  On October 10th, 2015, Ray and I moved out of our stick-built house and began a journey in travel nursing.  For 12 months now, all of our worldly possessions have fit into a 34-foot motor home and a 10x10 storage unit which holds those few items we can't bear to part with - yet.
  This year, we've put about 2900 miles on the motorhome.  We have parked in 12 campsites and 2 truckstops. We've endured countless detours, enjoyed many adventures and explored the lands and cultures along our routes. We've collected friends and memories and Christmas ornaments.
  I have worked a 13-week nursing assignment in Arlington,Texas, another 13 weeks in Mauston, Wisconsin, and a third 13-week assignment in Columbia, Missouri. I feel a bit like Johnny Appleseed, collecting tidbits and tricks of the trade in one place and spreading it to others.
  There is a trade off in this journey.  The familiar versus the undiscovered,  a comfort-zone versus the uncharted, the expected versus the unknown.
  But the joys outweigh the frustrations, the sweetness surpasses the sours, and the call of the road is stronger than the longing for home. And so, we will continue the journey.
   I feel a bit of kinship with Robert Frost when he wrote this poem:

                                                               The Road not taken
                         

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.