Moving on!

For about ten days now we were pretty well assured by one of our agencies that we had a lock on a contract in Olympia, Washington. I had lined up housing and mentally packed things up with a look to the west.  As always, though, when people asked, “Where to next?” we would say, “Possibly Washington state – but no contract has been signed, so, who knows?”

Well, that was a fact.  Before anything happened on Olympia, Granpa got a call from "his" hospital back on Kauai.  Simultaneously, he was getting a message from an agency asking if he wanted to take a Kauai assignment.   Within 24 hours, Granpa signed a contract taking us back to Kauai for five weeks.  

Now I’m mentally UNpacking for Washington, and packing with a view to leave all household goods in Texas as well as all the winter underwear!  I’m mentally searching the closets back home for those snorkels and aqua shoes.  Woo-hoo!  We are gonna warm up after a winter in the frozen north by lounging on a Hawaiian beach.   What a deal, what a deal!

Housing will definitely be a hassle because it’s the “high” season, the Hawaiian economy is coming back from the tsunami, it’s for a five week booking rather than everyone elses five days vacation, and it’s a very short window for shopping.  Regardless of price, most everything is booked.  I find one lady willing to let us stay in her spare bedroom for two weeks until her cabana is available.  I find a couple of places for twice the price the agency is allotting.  We reach out to friends that we made during our last stay; no joy there.  I go back to our recruiter with those facts, she reaches out to the HR department at the hospital, and they come up with a solution.  It’s tolerable – we think. 

I contact Island Cars to rent a vehicle.  There’s not a car available anywhere on the island!!  Our recruiter finds the same thing.  Island Cars tells us not to surrender; we rented from them for over a YEAR the last time.  (We could have bought a car for what we paid them – but we never knew if the contract would be extended.  Sure as shootin’, if we had bought a car, there would have been -0- extensions…) They will keep trying to get us something.

It would normally be a three day drive back to Texas, but Granpa is opting to go home by way of Fort Mandan in North Dakota and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  That’ll make it a four day trip, putting us home late on Tuesday.  Granpa needs to see his Primary Care doctor, do the requisite lab work for a new hospital and get (another!) TB skin test.  We have a flight out of DFW on Saturday at 6 a.m.  Friday night Uncle Donald has made plans to celebrate Granny Beth’s 80^th birthday, so we’ll have to get up at 3 a.m. Saturday to make the flight.  Whew!

But, we’re good for paychecks until March 30… that’s always good news.  Paying bills is always good news!